and to congregate for it. For that reason Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq called it “the flute of Satan,” yet the Prophet ﷺ let the two young girls continue, explaining that it was the day of ʿĪd and that minors are permitted to play on festival days, as the ḥadith states: “So that the polytheists may know that there is latitude in our religion.”1 Likewise, ʿĀʾishah used to have dolls to play with, and her little friends would come and play with her as well.2

3 – Ibn al-Qayyim said in Ighāthat al-Lahfān, 1/257:
“The Prophet ﷺ did not censure Abū Bakr for calling singing ‘the flute of Satan.’ He simply allowed the two girls to go on, because they were pre-pubescent, chanting a Bedouin song that had been composed on the day of the Battle of Buʿāth about courage and war, and because the day itself was a day of ʿĪd.”

4 – Al-Ḥāfiẓ [Ibn Ḥajar] said in Fatḥ al-Bārī, 2/442, commenting on the Prophet’s ﷺ words “Leave them …”:
“This furnishes a rationale and clarifies the error in al-Ṣiddīq’s assumption that the girls were doing this without the Prophet’s ﷺ knowledge, for he had entered, found him covered with his cloak, and thought he was asleep. Relying on what he knew of the prohibition of singing and diversion, he hastened to rebuke his daughter on these grounds, acting on behalf of the Prophet ﷺ and basing himself on what appeared to him. The Prophet ﷺ then made the situation clear, informed him of the ruling, and coupled it with the explanation that it was a day of ʿĪd—that is, a day of rejoicing.”