among you to follow the straight path.” And He said:

“We have not taught him poetry, nor is it fitting for him. It is nothing but a reminder and a clear Quran.”

This “listening” has effects upon faith, including sacred knowledge and pure spiritual states, which would take a long time to explain and describe. It also has praiseworthy bodily effects: humility of the heart, tears in the eyes, and shivering of the skin. These are mentioned in the Quran.

These qualities were present among the Companions. After their time, three further effects appeared among the Successors: agitation, screaming, fainting, and death. In sum, this listening is the foundation of faith. Allah sent Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to all creation to convey their Lord’s messages to them. Whoever hears what the Messenger conveyed, believes in it, and follows it is rightly guided and successful; whoever turns away from it is astray and wretched.

As for “listening to whistling and clapping”—meaning clapping with the hands and making sounds such as whistling—this is the listening of the polytheists that Allah Most High mentioned when He said:

“Their prayer at the House was nothing but whistling and clapping.”

He thus tells us that the polytheists treated clapping their hands and making sounds with their mouths as acts of devotion and religion. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions did not gather for this kind of listening, nor did they ever attend it. Whoever claims that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, attended such a gathering has lied