and striking the frame drum is permissible only for women, for it is, by origin, an activity that belongs to them—and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ cursed men who imitate women.
- His remark, “Some reports state…,” and so forth, is inaccurate, for by “reports” he clearly means the very hadiths I referred to a moment ago. Worse still is what he then adds: “It is said: The difference between what is lawful and what is unlawful is the frame drum.” Among the scholars, the phrase qīla (“it is said”) is used to indicate doubt, and it is employed only with human speech, whereas this is a well-known Prophetic hadith. If, by using that phrase, he intended to weaken the hadith, he has erred twice—once in transmission and once in terminology.
As for transmission, the hadith is ḥasan, as al-Tirmidhī stated; al-Ḥākim and al-Dhahabī judged it authentic. It is cited in the previously mentioned source and in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl 7/50–51. As for terminology, the expression used for a weak hadith is rūwiya (“it is narrated”), not qīla (“it is said”).
There is yet another mistake: in quoting the hadith he writes farraqa (“distinguished”), whereas the wording found in the sources is faṣṣala (“detailed”).
Reflect, then, on how much ignorance of hadith and its technical language appears in the words of this Azhar-trained shaykh. Little wonder, therefore, that his disciple al-Ghazālī should issue statements even more astonishing and peculiar, as we shall see. All of this shows that al-Azhar has never given due attention to teaching hadith, whether in understanding it or in transmitting it. The clearest proof is that, in our own time, we do not see a single well-known hadith scholar—celebrated for his works—who graduated from al-Azhar. It is enough, as evidence for what I say, to cite this feeble discourse from their senior shaykh. Allah alone is the One whose help is sought.
- His statement, “And the same applies to music,” I say, is an analogy, and it indicates that