A Refutation of Ibn Ḥazm’s Treatise and the Reason for Responding
Introduction

A Refutation of Ibn Ḥazm’s Treatise and the Reason for Responding:

I once came across a small work entitled “Entertaining Singing—Is It Lawful or Forbidden?” by Imām Ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī, included among a collection of his epistles edited by Dr. Iḥsān Rashīd ʿAbbās and printed by Dār al-Hanā, Būlāq, Egypt. In that booklet the Imām cites more than ten narrations that prohibit singing and musical instruments, declares every one of them weak, and then concludes—on p. 97—as follows:

“Since absolutely none of these reports is authentic, Allah the Exalted has said: ‘He has already made clear to you what He has forbidden you’ (Qur’an 6:119), and He has said: ‘It is He who created for you all that is on the earth, all together’ (Qur’an 2:29). The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also said—through the channel of Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ[1], whose chain is sound—‘Among the gravest offenders in Islam is the one who asks about something that was not unlawful, and it is declared unlawful because of his question.’[2]

“Thus it is established that everything Allah has forbidden us He has spelled out for us in detail, and whatever He has not explicitly forbidden is permissible.”

I say: No scholar would object to that conclusion—were the premise true, namely Ibn Ḥazm’s weakening of every hadith that prohibits singing. Yet far from it! Some of the narrations he judged weak are, in fact, sound according to all the scholars, who have unanimously rebutted his position, as has already been mentioned.