“…Tell me: if I struck you with a handful of dust, would I kill you?”
“No.”
“And if I struck you with a handful of straw, would I kill you?”
“No.”
“And if I struck you with a handful of water, would I kill you?”
“No.”
“But if I were to take the water, straw, and dust, mix them into clay, leave it to dry, and then strike you with it, would I kill you?”
“Yes.”
Iyās concluded, “Such is the case with nabīdh.¹”

The purport of his words is that the intoxicating potency arises from the combination. In the same way, what we are examining here—something that intoxicates the soul, preoccupies it, and diverts it from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer—derives its force from the compound itself and from the collective setting. A chorus of voices does not affect the heart as a single voice does, and a voice turned into a fixed melody and rhythm—especially when aided by instruments of amusement—cannot be equated with the simple recitation of poetry devoid of all that. Who, apart from someone painfully deficient in knowledge and understanding, could be taken in by so flimsy a sophistry?

If it is objected: What you have asserted—that submission to the rulings of the Sacred Law is obligatory whether or not one grasps the underlying wisdom—is indeed something no Muslim doubts, even though some, regrettably, flout it in practice. No one questions the duty to submit to the prohibition of ribā (usury) and the like, even though many Muslims, particularly in our own times, partake of it in practice. Accordingly, in view of the proofs already cited for the prohibition of singing, one must in fact avoid it and refuse to listen to it. Yet the question that now, as people say today, thrusts itself forward is this: Has anything in the Sacred Law been established that clarifies the wisdom behind its prohibition?

¹ Nabīdh: a fermented drink prepared from dates or raisins, here referring to an intoxicating variety.