I say: Al-Shāfiʿī’s position did not vary in disapproving of it and forbidding it for ordinary people and the spiritual elite alike. His followers disagree, however, over whether this disapproval denotes prohibition or merely undesirability, or whether some forms are preferable to others. This is his position on ordinary people’s listening. As for the religious listening that Abū al-Qāsim assigns to the spiritual elite, al-Shāfiʿī regards it as a practice of heretics. As he said:

“I left behind in Baghdad something introduced by heretics, which they call taghbīr, by which they turn people away from the Quran.”

In his view, this listening is too grave a matter to be described merely as disliked or forbidden. Rather, he regards it as contrary to faith and as instituting a religion that Allah has neither permitted nor authorized.

Some righteous shaykhs may nevertheless have adopted an interpretation allowing it; on account of their interpretive effort and independent judgment, Allah forgives their error and rewards them for the righteous deeds accompanying that interpretation. Yet this does not preclude explaining the corruption inherent in the practice. For an interpretive error constitutes, in the case of certain people, a countervailing factor that averts punishment, just as repentance and good deeds that erase sins avert it. This applies to those who have exhausted their efforts in seeking the truth.

Thus, al-Shāfiʿī’s statement concerning these people—may Allah be pleased with him—is like his statement concerning the practitioners of speculative theology: