the ears commit fornication by listening; the tongue by speaking; the hands by seizing—in another wording, by touching; the feet by walking; [the mouth by kissing]; and the heart yearns and desires, while it is the private parts that either confirm that or deny it.”
Narrated by Muslim and others.¹
I say: From what has preceded it is plain that the restriction proposed by Shaykh Abū Zahrah—and by those who followed him—limiting the prohibition of music and singing to whatever arouses sexual desire is invalid. The correct view is that such music and singing are unlawful in every case, both because of the unrestricted wording of the forthcoming hadiths and because of the principle of sadd al-dhariʿa (blocking the means).
Equally baseless is the next claim.
- His statement: “The Arabs used to chant, sing, and beat the frame drum (duf).”
I reply: This assertion is false for several reasons that will be detailed shortly. It is also obvious that by “the Arabs” he intends the early generations—the Salaf—and to describe them with this term is a modern, tribalist, pre-Islamic mode of expression, highly surprising coming from an Azhar-trained shaykh! So I say:
First, it is an off-the-cuff remark without head or tail, unsupported by any scholar of