—five in all: hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. Commands and prohibitions concerning these apply only to what a person intends and does deliberately. What occurs without his choice is subject to neither command nor prohibition.

This distinction is one explanation offered for the hadith in the Sunan collections, reported from Ibn ‘Umar:

“He was with the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, when the Prophet heard the sound of a shepherd’s pipe. He turned away from the path and asked, ‘Can you hear it? Can you hear it?’ until the sound ceased.”

Some people say, “Assuming this hadith is authentic, he did not instruct Ibn ‘Umar to cover his ears.” One answer is that Ibn ‘Umar was young; another is that he was not deliberately listening but merely hearing, which involves no sin. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, acted as he did only to pursue what was better and more perfect. This is like someone passing along a road who hears people engaging in forbidden speech and covers his ears so as not to hear it. This is commendable, but he would not sin if he did not cover his ears—unless hearing it would harm his religion in a way that could only be prevented by covering them.

In short, this is the question of listening to singing. Many later scholars have discussed such listening: is it prohibited, disliked, or permissible? What they intend is not merely to establish that it is free of blame. Rather, they intend that it be adopted as a path to Allah, around which religious people gather to reform their hearts and awaken longing for the Beloved