of the reciters at the head of funeral processions, and by many reciters known for their voices. Such practices involve altering Allah’s Book and singing it to melodies like those used for poetry, imposing rhythms upon it exactly as in singing. This is audacity toward Allah and His Book, trifling with the Quran, and yielding to Satan’s enticement. No Islamic scholar permits this. It is well known that melodic embellishment and intonation readily lead to such practices; prohibiting them is therefore like prohibiting other means that lead to what is unlawful.

This is as far as the two sides go, and these are the fullest arguments advanced by each.

The dispute can be resolved by saying that melodic embellishment and melodious recitation are of two kinds:

The first is what arises naturally and comes readily, without contrivance, practice, or instruction. When a person is left to his natural disposition and allows it to flow freely, such melodic embellishment and intonation come of themselves. This is permissible, even when his natural gift is aided by further adornment and refinement, as Abū Mūsā said to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him: “Had I known that you were listening, I would have made my recitation truly beautiful for you” (1).

A sorrowful person, or one stirred by rapture, love, and longing, cannot keep sorrow and melody from entering his recitation. Yet souls welcome it, find it sweet, and delight in it (2), because it accords with natural disposition and involves neither strain nor affectation. He is natural, not pretending to be so; impassioned, not affected. This is what the early generations practised and listened to. It is the commendable and praiseworthy form of melodious recitation, which moves both the reciter and the listener. All the evidence cited by the proponents of this view is to be understood as referring to this form.