the followers of the imams has reported any disagreement concerning instruments of entertainment. However, some later followers of al-Shāfiʿī recorded two views regarding the reed flute, unlike stringed instruments and the like, concerning which they reported no disagreement. The Iraqi scholars, who were more knowledgeable about his school and followed it more closely, reported no disagreement concerning either. Indeed, the foremost of them in his time, Abū al-Tayyib al-Tabarī, the teacher of Abū Ishāq al-Shīrāzī, wrote a well-known work on the subject.

They did, however, discuss singing unaccompanied by instruments of entertainment: is it forbidden, disliked, or permissible? Ahmad’s followers mentioned three views within their school on this matter and reported two views from al-Shāfiʿī. They reported no disagreement on the matter from Abū Hanīfa or Mālik. Zakariyyā ibn Yahyā al-Sājī—one of the early imams who inclined towards al-Shāfiʿī’s school—stated that, among the early jurists, only Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd of Basra dissented on this matter.

What Abū ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, and others reported from Mālik and the people of Medina on this subject is mistaken. The confusion arose only because some people of Medina used to attend gatherings of singing. This, however, was not the position of their imams and jurists. Rather, Ishāq ibn ʿĪsā al-Tibāʿ said:

“I asked Mālik about the singing in which the people of Medina allow themselves latitude. He replied, ‘Among us, only the sinful engage in it.’”

This is well known among the authors of Mālik’s school, who are more knowledgeable about his school and that of the people of Medina than a group in