melodies, for—so the argument goes—when individually permissible elements are combined, the resulting whole is likewise permissible. This, al-Ghazālī (may Allah pardon him) maintained in order to allow musical melodies, or at least some of them, 1 by drawing an analogy with birdsong, even though he himself authored works on legal theory wherein it is affirmed that analogy has no place when an explicit text is present.

For that reason the scholars—such as Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, and others—took turns refuting him and those like him among the Ṣūfīs.

The analogy just mentioned reminds me of another, still more insidious, by which its proponent sought to legalise intoxicating nabīdh. Ibn al-Qayyim alluded to it while rebutting the Ṣūfīs who permit listening to music on the basis of such analogies. He said, may Allah have mercy on him, in The Question of Listening, 270–271:

“The second point is that even if poetry and melodic intonation were each permissible on its own, it would not necessarily follow that their conjunction is likewise permissible, for a compound possesses a property that may alter the ruling. This argument resembles that of one who says, ‘If a solitary-transmitted report does not yield certain knowledge on its own, it will not do so when joined to another.’ 2

“A comparable illustration is found in what is related of Iyās ibn Muʿāwiyah. A man asked him, ‘What do you say about water?’ He replied, ‘It is lawful.’ The man said, ‘And dates?’ He answered, ‘Lawful.’ The man then said, ‘Nabīdh is water and dates—why, then, do you declare it unlawful?’ Iyās responded…”