Muhammad ibn al-Walīd al-Tartūshī says: “It is astonishing indeed that you should turn away from the supplications which Allah relates in His Book from the prophets, His devoted servants, and His chosen ones—together with the accounts of their being answered—and then select the words of poets and writers, as though you imagined that you had already invoked Allah with all their supplications and thereafter sought recourse to the supplications of others besides them.”1 End quote.

The scholars have pointed out that listening practices are of two kinds:

The first is listening for idle amusement and musical pleasure. This is prohibited and false. More than one scholar has presented the evidence at length for its prohibition, among them Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—in his book Relief for the Distressed.

The second is innovated devotional listening undertaken as an act of religion and as a means of drawing near to Allah Most High. This is deemed a misguided innovation, for Allah—majestic and exalted—is approached only through what He has prescribed, not through whims, newly introduced practices, and innovations. Some of these people have also incorporated melodic chanting, musical embellishment, instruments of amusement, clapping, swaying, and similar practices, treating them as acts of religion and means of drawing near to Allah—majestic and exalted—and seeking His reward. There can be no doubt that this is among the vilest of deeds and the worst forms of transgression in remembrance and supplication.

Thus, these people continued progressing through the stages of falsehood and persisting in error and misguidance until they reached this deplorable condition and lamentable end.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “The practice of listening to poems originally consisted of the melodious recitation of heart-softening poems that stirred love and longing, or fear