1 – Chapter One: Sound hadiths on the prohibition of singing and musical instruments

Know, my Muslim brother, that the hadiths transmitted on this subject are very numerous. Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn al-Qayyim list more than ten of them, and they are so plentiful that their collective weight convinces anyone who studies them that the common conclusion found in all of their texts—namely, the prohibition—is certainly established from the Prophet ﷺ. This holds true even if we were to assume, as Ibn Ḥazm alleged, that the chain of every individual report is defective, for the agreed-upon principle among hadith scholars states that a weak hadith is strengthened by its multiple routes. This is fully elaborated in the science of hadith terminology. By relying on this very principle, the hadith master Ibn Ḥajar and others deemed sound the hadith, “The ears are part of the head,” in his valuable work Al-Nukat ʿalā Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. There he cited the report from four Companions, pointed out the flaws in each chain (1/410–415), and concluded:

“When a fair-minded person considers all of these routes together, he realizes that the hadith has a basis and is not to be discarded. Indeed, the scholars have declared many hadiths sound on the strength of supporting routes weaker than these. Allah knows best.”

I myself gathered those chains—along with additional ones—in volume one of the series Al-Ahādīth al-Ṣaḥīḥah under hadith 56. One of our esteemed brothers—may Allah reward him well—challenged me on a few of them; nonetheless, I retained the hadith in that series because