He replied, “But I do it with a good intention.”
I asked, “And how is that?”
He said, “I sit and glorify Allah, remembering Him with my prayer-beads in hand, while listening to the songs of Umm Kulthum. Her sweet voice makes me think of the voices of the maidens of Paradise.”
I rebuked him most severely. I can no longer recall exactly what I said afterward, but a week later he returned to collect his watch and brought with him another student—stronger than he and known to belong to the League of Scholars. That student spoke in support of his friend, excusing him on the basis of his ‘good intention.’
I answered, “A good intention does not make the forbidden lawful, let alone turn it into a means of drawing closer to Allah. Tell me: if a Muslim were to declare wine permissible on the pretext that it reminds him of the wine of Paradise, would that be acceptable? The same applies to fornication as well. Fear Allah and do not open the door for people to deem Allah’s sanctities lawful—or even a means of devotion—through the flimsiest of pretexts.” The man was left speechless.
Such, then, is one example of the impact of Sufi singing.
Nor need I take the readers far afield. Here is Shaykh al-Ghazālī—celebrated as an Islamic preacher and awarded a major international Islamic prize—who declares the same singing permissible, even when it is by Umm Kulthum or Fayrūz. When, as I recall, one of the students reproached him for listening to an Umm Kulthum song that says,
“Where is the thing they call darkness, O companion of the night—where are we?”
he replied, “I mean something else” (p. 75, The Sunnah), claiming that his intention is good!
Earlier, on p. 70, he had cited the hadith “Actions are only by intentions” in an entirely inappropriate context.