Last night I watched a documentary on TV called “The Rock Stars and the Mullahs” about a Pakistani rock band called Junoon and the increasingly fundamentalist version of Islam in Pakistan’s north. It should be noted that the members of Junoon are Sufi, (as opposed to Shi’a or Sunni) which is the more mystical of the Islamic traditions and famous for its singing, dancing, and whirling dervishes.
Anyway, a guy from the band was discussing music’s place in Islam with a mullah (akin to a priest), and the mullah was saying that there is no room in Islam for music. The guy from Junoon wanted to know where in the Qur’an it says this, but then the documentary cut away and the question was never really answered.
It occurs to me that the mullahs must have some sort of textual basis for banning music altogether, so I thought I’d try and find out what it is. In my poking around the intramanet I stumbled across this awesome page, Ask a Scholar, from the Islamic Institute of Toronto.
Not only does the page answer my question on music, but something around the order of a thousand other questions submitted by Muslims trying to live and be faithful in modern western society.
The issues that pose religious dilemmas in Islam are astounding and interesting from my outsider perspective. Muslim female dentists concerned about how they must touch male clients and people wondering if clapping is permitted.
What’s also interesting is that due to the nature of the Qur’an a lot of these issues are black and white; if the Qur’an does not specifically ban an activity then it is permissible. The benefits I suppose of having a single unalterable work as the basis for your faith, though that’s not to say there is not considerable disagreement on some issues, music especially.
The two words you may need to know for reading this are: halaal – permissible and haram – forbidden.
There something voyeuristic about reading it, as though I’m peering in on the dark and shaky places of people’s faith. It also somehow reminds me of reading ‘the best of Craig’s List’.
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Addendum
