Muslim Brotherhood’s Antagonism to Art (1)

Late Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltut (1893-1963) once received a letter from a young man reading that he loves music since an early age and that he studies it and works hard to learn it. He was then surprised by a friend of his telling him that ‘music is forbidden in Islam, or haraam’ because it distracts the person from regular prayers and worship of God. The young man retorted, “[But] I do pray five times a day and on time; and I do worship God as it should be worshipped; I am also a frequent goer to sporting clubs during my leisure time in order to keep myself energized after a laborious day of work and a long night of study.” Anyway, his obstinate friend was not convinced, and insisted that ‘music is still ‘haraam’ no matter what. At last, both decided to have recourse to Sheikh Shaltut to arbitrate between them, and to enlighten them on the Islamic juristic ruling on music and its likes.

In response, Grand Imam Shaltut (may God have mercy on him) dwelled on Islam’s position on singing and music. Due to space constraints, I will just mention the main points of his detailed and lengthy Fatwa response.

Here, I will go over Shaltut’s view, narrowing down its central points to the following:

• The young man’s attitude towards music – with a keen desire to perform the five daily prayers at their stated times and a drive for work. Obviously, his position stems from an intellectual instinct that God endows humankind with.  This instinct is subject to the rules of reason, and must correspond with the human sound nature. In fact, this is the ultimate goal of the heavenly-revealed scriptures.

• On the same subject, I have read a treatise, written by Sheikh Abdul Ghani al-Nabulsi al-Hanafi, titled “The Clarification of Semantics on Musical Instruments.”  Sheikh al-Nabulsi, who was one of the 21^st century jurists of high piety and sound knowledge, decided that the ahadith (i.e. Prophetic traditions) cited by those who view music as generally prohibited—assuming its authenticity—are solely restricted to and associated with immoral attitude in which music might be involved.  Hardly any talk about music is free of mentioning the haram stuff associated with music such as drinking wine, playing loud music, indulging into lewd acts.  Therefore, al-Nabulsi was of the view that, as a general rule, if music is devoid of all these prohibitions, so nothing is wrong with studying, playing or listening to it.

• The late Sheikh Hassan al-Attar, former Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in the thirteenth century AH (i.e. after Hijra, Islamic Calendar) had a great passion for music besides his sound knowledge of the fundamentals of religion. In one of his writings, he once noted: “He is such an ass whoever is not affected by the rhythms of fine poetry when read with the strings, on the banks of rivers or in the shades of trees.”

His eminence Sheikh Hassan al-Attar concludes that the standard ruling on music is the permissibility, while prohibition is incidental. He comments on those pontificating on music and musical instruments as forbidden by saying: “Thus, listening to music that is played by beautifully toned instruments and sung by beautiful voices can never be prohibited. Music will actually become ‘haraam’ if it is conducive to haram acts or distracts the person from his main responsibilities in life. Thus, people must know God’s judgment on such matters. After that, we hope that we will never see the sayings of the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) to be again misused to establish the rule that dictates that music is commonly prohibited.[1]

Late Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltut was not alone in maintaining this opinion that explains Islam’s position on singing and music. There is actually a long list of prominent Muslim scholars in the field of Islamic thought, such as Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghazali who had many writings on the same subject.[2]

In the vein of the discussion, the Brotherhood-linked Al-Da’wa Magazine received similar messages asking similar questions like those sent to Sheikh Shaltut. However, the positions opined by the Brotherhood Sheikhs are starkly different; the language is extreme; and the prohibition is categorical as if they seek to prohibit life and confiscate all its joys and legitimate human pursuits of pleasure. Not only music and singing are prohibited, but the Brotherhood’s predilection for prohibiting things has encompassed almost all forms of arts, old and new. Let us start with how they view music and singing.

[1] Excerpted from the Fatwa of late Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltut (1893-1963).

[2] Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghazali.