to so-and-so the singer. He came, and as ʿĀʾishah—may Allah be pleased with her—passed by them inside the house, she saw him singing and tossing his head in delight; he had a great deal of hair. ʿĀʾishah said, “Uff! A devil—drive him out, drive him out!” So they expelled him.

Al-Bayhaqi narrated the report (10/223–224), and al-Bukhari included it in abridged form in al-Adab al-Mufrad (1247) with a chain that is ḥasan—or at least upgradeable to ḥasan. I also cited it in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Adab al-Mufrad, no. 945, grading it ḥasan, and the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab declared it ṣaḥīḥ in Nuzhat al-Asmaʿ, p. 55 (Ṭayyibah edition).

Al-Bayhaqi headed the chapter that contains these ḥadiths and reports with the title: “Chapter: A man should not attribute himself to singing, nor should he be sought out for it or go looking for it; rather, he is only known to be moved in the moment and then hum accordingly.”

Shaykh Abū’l-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzi offers an excellent discussion of this issue in several sections of his book Talbīs Iblīs. For the sake of benefit I shall summarise it for the readers. He writes (pp. 237–241):

“People have spoken at length about singing: some have declared it forbidden; others have permitted it without reservation; still others permit it yet regard it as disliked.

The decisive statement is this: one must first examine the essence of the matter, and only then label it as forbidden, disliked, or otherwise.”