Khalid Baig
When the pagan Makkan army was marching
to Badr in 2 A.H., it included not only fighting men, weapons, camels,
and horses, but also the means of inciting the fighters: singing-girls
and musical instruments. At every rest stop along the way these
cheerleaders plied their craft, spitting venom against the Muslims and
promising their favors in the most enticing ways to those who would
destroy them.
The army had been summoned to protect
their trade caravan. When they learnt that the caravan had escaped and
some of them wanted to turn back, Abu Jahl insisted on continuing: "No,
I will not return to Makkah, until we have refreshed ourselves at Badr,
and spent three days in feasting, drinking wine, and listening to the
singing and playing of the singing-girls."
In the end, the unequal war in Badr did
not turn out to be the picnic he had imagined. Abu Jahl was slain, as
were many other prominent leaders of Makkah. The decisive victory at
Badr by the ragtag Muslim army remains a constant source of inspiration
and education. It changed the course of history, for if Muslims had
been defeated, the magnificent Islamic civilization would not have seen
the light of day and the jahilyah society would have continued
uninterrupted.
At Badr Muslims drastically lacked the
weapons of war. But it was the absence of a particular weapon of war
that symbolizes the moral edge that gave them the victory. Unlike their
adversaries the Muslim army did not include bands of singing-girls and
musical instruments!
There is no doubt that such bands could
and did stir up emotions. At Uhud, the chant of the singing girls was:
"Move forward and we will embrace you. Turn back and we will abandon
you." In countless pagan wars before and since, the promise has been
the same. It works for the lowly beasts seeking the sensual pleasures
of this world, fanning the fires of their basest emotions and bringing
out the animal from within them. No wonder battlefields have
historically showcased the worst of human behavior and character.
Islam came to rid the humanity of such
decay. It produced soldiers who fought to establish justice and
morality and sought nothing but the pleasure of Allah. Their weapons
were piety, sincerity, fear of Allah, an unshakable commitment to right
the wrong, and an unwavering willingness to sacrifice even their lives
for it. Quite naturally it removed the filth of singing girls and
musical instruments from its side of the war zone.
There were also other uses of music
that Islam abolished in its revolutionary remaking of society.
While in other religions music and
singing have been an integral part of worship, Islam's acts of worship
do not require or permit music. What about the argument that "sacred
music" can bring one to a state of ecstasy and union with God? Well,
salat brings one closer to Allah. (There are historical accounts of
earlier Muslims some of whom reached such a state of absorption that
they could not feel even physical pain of surgery during salat.) It is
very significant that this closeness is achieved without any "sacred"
music.
Music has also been a means of
indoctrination and glorification. Trumpets were blown to announce the
arrival of His Majesty and to make people bow to his pomp and glory. If
this had been a legitimate use, then the person most deserving of this
honor would have been no one other than the Prophet 
. But to a world used to the courts of
monarchs with musicians always ready to glorify them, he introduced a
drastically different court. No pomp, no musicians, no music.
Historically music has also been
associated with magic and superstitions. When faced with disasters or
epidemics, pagan people resorted to dance and music to get rid of the
evil spirits. The legend of the Pied Piper, popular in the West for
centuries, attests to the belief in the magical powers of music. In
Arabia singing girls called dajina (from dajana meaning cloudiness)
sang to conjure rain when clouds gathered. Islam instead taught its
followers to turn to Allah in salatul istasqa to pray for rain.
And of course music has also been used
as a distraction and mindless entertainment. This is what Nadr ibn
Harith did to keep people from paying attention to the Qur'an. He
bought a singing girl and used her to "win the hearts and minds" of
anyone who appeared to be leaning to Islam. He was condemned in Surah
Luqman (31:6).
Islam did permit some singing and use of a simple instrument like duf
(a small one-sided drum) for weddings or Eid
celebrations. It permitted rajaz singing for jihad. These were
exceptions to the general rule. Thus if we draw a graph of music
activity in the Muslim world against time, we will find it to be at its
lowest during the time of the Prophet
and the
Khulafa Rashidoon. Its subsequent rise during the Umayyad and Abbasid
Khilafah was a result of external influences: Sassanid in Baghdad and
the Byzantine in Damascus. The graph went down after the fall of
Baghdad and remained low for centuries. Its latest rise came under the
influence of the imperial West and began with the conquest of Egypt by
Napoleon where Khadieve Ismail (ruled 1863-1876), dedicated to
Europeanizing Egypt, built the first opera house in Cairo. Throughout
the Muslim world the colonial rulers used gramophone and then radio to
spread music far and wide. Then came the television and a plethora of
other gadgets, which have made it impossible to find a music-free space
anywhere. Today music playing on cell phones even invades the sanctity
of the most sacred of all places --- the house of Allah. What is more,
many Muslims are convinced they are serving Allah as they try to spread
Islam through music. I was struck the other day by stumbling on the
following entry on BBC's website: "Muslim rap is big business with
annual
sales in excess of $1.8bn in America alone." [6 May 2004].
To gain an insight into the colonial
project, we can turn to Henry G. Farmer (1882-1965), the author of many
books on Arabian music and the dean of the music-in-Islam-crusade. Here
is one bit of "wisdom" from him: Islamic censure of listening to music
was manufactured by the theologians of the Abbasid era who were jealous
of the inordinate attention paid to music and musicians!
Those who are not convinced by this
"scholarly" explanation need to do something to end the delusion and
stop the profane noise.
