The Book weighed heavy upon them the moment they saw
That it confines them with commands and with restraints;
But once the singing was over, the dancing felt light—
Ah, falsehood that so perfectly fits its kindred!
O nation! None has betrayed Muhammad’s faith,
Nor marred, nor twisted it, save you.1

In short, the harm this sort of audition wreaks on hearts, souls, and faith is more than numbers can record.

Among those who have written on the subject is the meticulous exegete al-Ālūsī.2 After an exceptionally long discussion on the verse about “idle talk,” the reports and the statements of the commentators concerning it, its indication of the prohibition of singing, and the positions of the jurists (11/72–73), he said:

“I say: The calamity of singing and musical audition has become all-pervasive in every land and region. People make no exception for mosques or anywhere else. Indeed, singers have even been appointed to chant from the minarets at certain blessed times, reciting verses that describe wine, taverns, and other matters counted among the forbidden. Yet stipends from endowment revenues have been fixed for them, and they are called ‘the extollers’; the absence of such performances in a congregational mosque is deemed indifference to religion. Worse still is what the devils among the pseudo-Sufis and their renegades commit. Then—may Allah disgrace them—when they are reproached for the falsehood contained in their chants, they say: We mean …"