It has likewise been reported as a hadith traced back to the Prophet ﷺ, but there is a liar in its chain; hence I classified it as weak in al-Silsilah al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 6515.

Benefit: Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—said immediately after citing the above report from Ibn Masʿūd (1/248):

“If it is asked, ‘Why does singing, more than other acts of disobedience, make hypocrisy grow in the heart?’

“The reply is that this is one of the clearest proofs of the Companions’ insight into the states and deeds of the heart, their knowledge of its remedies and its diseases, and that they were the true physicians of the heart—unlike those who deviated from their path and tried to treat spiritual illnesses with the very worst of ailments, like someone who seeks to cure sickness with deadly poison. By Allah, that is exactly what they did with many—indeed, with most—of the potions they concocted. The result was a scarcity of physicians and a surplus of patients; chronic illnesses appeared that were unknown to the early generations; the sound medicine prescribed by the Lawgiver was abandoned; and the patient leaned toward whatever only nourished the disease. The calamity therefore intensified, the matter grew worse, homes, streets, and marketplaces filled with the sick, and every ignoramus set himself up as a doctor.

“Know, then, that singing has specific properties that dye the heart with hypocrisy and cause it to sprout there just as water causes crops to grow.

“One of those properties is that it distracts the heart and turns it away from understanding the Quran, reflecting on it, and acting upon it; for the Quran and song can never coexist in a single heart because of the stark opposition between them. The Quran forbids following caprice, commands chastity, shunning carnal desires, and avoiding the causes of misguidance, and it warns against following in Satan’s footsteps, whereas singing calls to the exact opposite of all that.”