the very text to reinterpret; for he did not dare to tamper with the hadith recorded by al-Bukhārī—as al-Ghazālī had—because it contains the phrase “they will deem them lawful.” Instead, he confined himself to the report of Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ, which is free of that wording and in which—as quoted earlier on p. 45—one finds: “and they will beat over their heads with musical instruments….” Ibn Ḥazm therefore remarks (9/57):
“There is nothing in it to show that the threatened punishment concerns the musical instruments themselves, any more than it concerns the keeping of female singers; the apparent sense is that the threat relates to their declaring wine lawful under a different name.”
Although this conclusion is plainly forced and a baseless reading in view of the previous hadiths and Ibn al-Qayyim’s exposition, al-Shawkānī dealt with it from another angle. In Nayl al-Awṭār 8/85—after summarizing Ibn Ḥazm’s interpretation without naming him, and thereby rebutting al-Ghazālī as well—he writes:
“The answer is that simple juxtaposition does not mean that only the combination of acts is forbidden; otherwise it would follow that the fornication explicitly mentioned in the hadith—i.e., al-Bukhārī’s report—would be unlawful only when wine is drunk and musical instruments are used. Such a consequence is unanimously false, and therefore the premise that entails it is likewise false.
“Moreover, the same fallacy would apply to the words of the Almighty: ‘Indeed, he did not believe in Allah, the Most Great, nor did he encourage the feeding of the poor’ (Q 69:33–34), for it would imply that disbelief in Allah is prohibited only when one also fails to urge the feeding of the poor.
“If it is said that the prohibition of those matters cited in the objection is already established by other evidence, the reply is that the prohibition of musical instruments is likewise established by other evidence, as has preceded; hence there is no need to resort to that claim at all.”
At this point an important clarification is needed concerning the meaning of istihlāl (declaring lawful) that appears in the hadith, for