This question is, in fact, a question which applies to different situations and the relative answers would differ from situation to situation. The Holy Quran speaks in principle about love. The believers, or Babur Rahman has been mentioned, they keep away from useless, valueless, nonsense things. Now it all depends, it varies from person to person. What is nonsense to one may not be nonsense to others. Also the acquired tastes differ and the spiritual levels differ.
So I am not in favor of declaring something totally wrong for everybody because there are stages of prohibition in Islam and in some places Islam also leaves a layer of decision with the believer and there a sort of freedom of thought and action is given for which no hard and fast rule should be made or declared because then the life would become very difficult for the whole society. But somehow people tend to ask questions on such aspects and want such answers as would be very difficult to follow if given according to their own desire. And again the Holy Quran also tells us in principle that don’t ask about things which if answered would make things difficult to you.
Don’t ask about things which if answered may be heavy on you, may not be liked by you. So there are so many regions unattended, not so many but some of course, and which are kept unattended by Islam consciously. The philosophy I have already explained. Because various people are found at various levels of development and attitudes and tastes. So love could be interpreted differently according to different persons. For instance, one who has accepted Islam from western society for instance, if you immediately declare a taqwa against his interest in art, not only will he not understand, he will in fact be more inclined to move straight to Islam because it would appear to him so unnatural.
So where Islam has not categorically prohibited this diverse attention from more serious pursuits in life. And as I understand this word, this is the best definition. And if the pursuits of life are of a higher order and a person who is pursuing the way of life is more serious minded, his love would be different from just a child’s love. A child can play tapu for instance. What do you call it in English, tapu? The space, they make space and jump on one leg. Hopscotch. Hopscotch is something different. Hopscotch is a jumble of something stupid, you know, magic things. Hopscotch. So hopscotch could be love for his age and for his respectability and everything.
And it won’t be love for this child who has given us the name of this game. It could be in fact a very good thing for him to do. So people are at different levels of acquired taste in spirituality too. Those who have acquired taste for the recitations of the holy Quran or the reading of serious books on religion, if you give them a novel they won’t be interested. It could be just love for them. And there are certain people who apply their minds with difficulty to such serious pursuits. If their attention is diverted too much to novel readings for instance, at the cost of serious pursuit and they don’t try to divert their attention from vain to serious, from useless to useful, then this love would become prohibitive for them.
It will interfere in their progress of life and to that extent it should be prohibitive. So according to this definition if the love begins to interfere with the serious pursuit of life and creates damage for one in some degree in certain sphere of his activity, to that much extent it becomes love and it should be avoided. And love has a very wide field of activity. In fact love can become a very big sin, one of the serious offenses in Islam. For instance you are watching television, some light show or some fiction something and the time for prayer has come.
Now that is love of course. It is not forbidden directly so much that it becomes a crime in the eyes of others. But a call for prayer is made and you can reach the mosque but you are so deeply involved in that play which is being televised that you forget about the prayers and continue pursuing the game or play whatever it is. That love becomes a sin then. It adopts a quality of idolatry, calling partners by Allah because a vain pursuit or interest has put in the way a very serious and important pursuit in life for which man is created. So love is a very difficult word to define because although in essence I have defined it but it acquires different importances in various different situations. Love can become a great sin and love can become just ordinary thing.
Even some people who are grown up and who have very strong, quiet, peaceful spirituality and who are very pious indulge in some sorts of love and those loves in which they indulge, apparently superficially they are loved but because they are serving some purpose they can’t be called that type of love which is to be avoided. So love for ordinary situations can lose its being love, I mean the quality of being love at in another situation. For instance when you are on a picnic your mood is completely different, you are playing with your children and you are doing things which in ordinary life you would not think of doing.
That is no longer love as described by the holy Quran. That is not the love of which is described as one in love with more reason because that is has become something which serves a purpose and it relaxes you for a while, not at the cost of other, in the sense of your play. Even you can play cards there without gambling, you can play Ludo or anything or while you are wasting your time in some way it relaxes you. The purpose is relaxation and for that some means are adopted. Those means in ordinary life may be declared as love, meaningless or diverting your attention from serious issues but in those situations they serve a purpose and they don’t become love anymore. It’s a very wide subject.
Now I come to, from this background, come to your question on music. Music as such is not forbidden in the holy Quran. In some instances we read about Ahazza sallallahu alaihi wa sallam permitting the use of dha, which was a sort of musical instrument played in Arabia in those days, yet is also known to have turned away from from certain other musical instruments when he heard the voice, he didn’t like it. So the correct attitude lies somewhere in between, you understand the philosophy is this and that and then you can truly understand why he did this and why he did not do that.
The fact is that such music has diverts your attention from other important things of life, love of Allah, love of the prayer and things of the friends and neighbors. That type of music here should be avoided very strongly and if it becomes an obsession with you then it may become a sin. But to casually listen to music as it is nowadays played in every corner of the world and effectively if you try hard you can’t avoid listening to music but that I shouldn’t declare any fatwa against it because that would be coming too strong and the holy Quran has not said it so many words. So the style of music also has changed a lot from that time. The inference that dha exactly as it is is permitted and other music as it is is forbidden that inference I can’t agree with because it was a style of music found in Arabia and while dha was played it was played to a third person and that at that time it was selling a purpose.
So that definition which I have offered you that fits in very well. For instance we hear of dha being played when Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was entering the building and some ladies and girls young girls they were singing the song of Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wa sallam praise and also striking at the dha. Now that’s a special type of musical instrument. On one side it is covered on the other side it is not covered because that is called dha. So there are many ulema who have inferred that only that type of music is permitted and nothing else. Now that is stupid because Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wa sallam came Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wa sallam came to give us to give us guidelines and principles and set examples for all times to come not for one particular time.
So if you particularize everything which he did instead of drawing general principles which would be applicable to all times to come then you will remain restricted to a certain age in history and will not be able to proceed a step beyond that. He never rode cars ride cars he never used those modern amenities which are provided to you. So why shouldn’t you infer in every respect that only bread the type of bread which Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wa sallam ate and made of that particular grain which he used for instance yogh that is permitted and the rest is not permitted.
That type of dress is permitted and rest is not permitted. If you go on making your inferences in this fashion then the whole life you are leading would become haram because very little of it is exactly on the pattern of how Anwar-e-Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam lived in those days. He didn’t use these lights and in fact camera was not invented at that time so he never had a picture taken of him. So all this picture taking and all this posing for pictures all this becomes haram by those standards. Open up your mind try to understand the philosophy of Islam.
According to the holy Quran that which is forbidden is clearly laid that which is promoted is clearly laid. In between there are no man’s lands on which some principle life is thrown and the borders go on shifting from here to there from here to there like quicksand. Those no man’s land which I am referring to in do’s and do not’s from situation to situation they squeeze in one direction and swell in the other at other times and this music and painting lies in this region under love. If this becomes a pursuit of life which interferes with your higher values for which you are created then to that extent it will become forbidden.
If it does not interfere with the seriousness of your life and it only helps a little bit to energize your nerves or relax your nerves for a while I don’t think this could be forbidden so categorically at least. By pursuits I mean there are certain pursuits which become obsession. For instance I have known people in Pakistan who become fond of we call Hindi Gana the same songs and this becomes their obsession with the result that they neither pay attention to their studies nor to their religious obligations. They don’t read such boys and girls.
They have no time for Hadith or the Salwa Salwa tradition or even for the Holy Quran and that becomes a headache for them and a nonsensical song which in fact as far as the value of the song goes is just a third rate thing. That because it is sung with music that interests them so much and so deeply that the whole life is fed when they begin to listen to this and they can’t listen to anything else. That is a sort of addiction. In this regard when this happens then this becomes haram because it is interfering with the obligatory stairs of Islam and it stands in the way of your spiritual progress.
But if somebody is paying attention to all these things and for instance he opens up radio and a song is being played and he likes it and he listens for a while while he has time and he is not wasting any time at all. If there suddenly that evidently stopped immediately he becomes a kafir or that something. That is very stupid. That is not Islam’s concept of halal or haram. Similarly some people say that painting is totally forbidden because Ayatollah did not permit pictures according to law either to be kept in house or to be drawn but they don’t understand the fact that those pictures which are the sallalahu alaihi wa sallam for that were invariably the pictures of idols.
That was a time when pictures picture taking by camera was out of question. Camera was not invented. When drawing pictures or painting was entirely devoted to religious purposes for drawing pictures of imaginary gods in the days of our sallalahu alaihi wa sallam we don’t find any art in Arabia not even remotely in which people were being drawn or realities were being drawn. You will not find the mention of any scenery being drawn by any artist of that time or the portrait being drawn of somebody or any particular situation in reality.
All that was being drawn was not only a fiction but a fiction which was against the fundamental principles laid down by Islam. They were pictures of imaginary idols, partners of Allah. They were either drawn or chiseled out in form of statues. So what our sallalahu alaihi wa sallam forbade was this thing because we have no evidence that a real situation in life was ever being drawn in his presence which he forbade. So my inference is that what he forbade was that and with a purpose and we understand that purpose.
So to extend it further to a scene which was never in his mind nor he could have spoken on that because that did not interfere with any religious purpose. Here we can understand the philosophy alright easily. Idol making stands in hostility to Islamic concept of oneness of Allah. So whatever promotes idolatry should be forbidden. That’s quite understandable. But where the nature has touched, the realities are being produced in some ways. How could it be forbidden? Neither is it forbidden nor it could be forbidden to my mind.
So I don’t think this should also be declared haram. But if it becomes an obsession with your girl or boy and it begins to interfere with the serious pursuits of life then I think they should be stopped to that extent. Then they become love and that love is forbidden in the holy Quran.
