so he kept asking, ‘Can you hear it, Nāfi‘?’ When he told him that he could no longer hear it, he removed his fingers from his ears and told him that he had been with the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who had done the same.” After narrating this hadith, Abū Dāwūd said, “This is a rejected hadith.” Abū Bakr al-Khallāl also narrated it through several chains that corroborate one another. Even if it is authentic, it provides no evidence for those who permit the flute, especially since the position of the four imams is that the flute is forbidden. Among the adherents of the four schools, only the later Khurāsānī scholars of the Shāfi‘ī school disputed this, mentioning two juristic views concerning it. The Iraqi scholars, who were more knowledgeable about his school, unequivocally declared it forbidden, as did the other schools. In any event, the permissive view is a weak one within his school.

Al-Shāfi‘ī said:

“Singing is reprehensible and resembles falsehood. Whoever indulges in it excessively is a foolish person whose testimony is rejected.”

He also said:

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

According to the four imams, it is impermissible to acquire musical instruments or to pay for their use. Thus, even if this hadith is authentic, it provides no evidence that the flute is permissible. Rather, it more readily supports its prohibition, for several reasons:

First: What is forbidden is deliberate listening, not merely hearing. A man might hear words of disbelief, lies, backbiting, singing, or flute-playing without intending to; rather, he might simply be passing