The relationship between Islam and music has long been a complex and controversial matter. Many Muslims believe that the Qur'an and Sunnah prohibit music (instruments and singing); however, other Muslims disagree and believe that some forms of music are permitted. Despite this controversy, music has been popular and flourished at various times and places in the Islamic world, often in palaces and private homes to avoid censorship.
In many parts of the Muslim world devotional/religious music and secular music is well developed and popular. However, music, singing, or some instruments such as drums are allowed, if it does not lead listeners into temptation. This can change considering their own opinion. In recent decades, "the advent of a whole new generation of Muslim musicians who try to blend their work and faith", has given the issue "extra significance."
Historically, Islamic art and music flourished during the Islamic Golden Age. Islamic music is also credited with influencing European and Western music; for example, French musicologist Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger in his assessment of the Abbasid Caliphate in Islamic history credits Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi’s Kitabu l’musiqi al-kabir (The Great Book of Music) with this influence.
Overview
Music and interpretations of Islamic law
The question of whether music is permitted or forbidden in Islam is a matter of debate among scholars. The Qur'an does not specifically refer to music itself. Some scholars, however, have interpreted the phrase "idle talk", which is discouraged, as including music.
Historically, Islamic art and music flourished during the Islamic Golden Age.
Music appears in several hadith in an unfavorable way, with one example being: "Singing sprouts hypocrisy in the heart as rain sprouts plants." But there is disagreement over the reliability of these narrations. Another hadith reads: "There will be among my Ummah people who will regard as permissible adultery, silk, alcohol and musical instruments." But again, the reliability of this hadith has also been questioned, most notably by Ibn Hazm al-Dhahiri.
One scholar, Jacob M. Landau, discerns "four main groups" in the dispute over whether music is haram: Uncompromising purists opposed to any musical expression; Religious authorities admitting only the cantillation of the Qur'an and the call to prayer, or adhan; Scholars and musicians favoring music, believing there to be no musical difference between secular and religious music; and Important mystical fraternities, for whom music and dance were a means toward unity with God.
Among the groups that believe the Quran and Islam tradition "strictly" prohibit music are the Salafi, Wahhabi, and Deobandi denominations.
In his survey of Islamic scholarship of "enjoined what was good and forbade what was bad" in accordance to Islamic law, historian Michael Cook found that "Attacks on offending objects are a ubiquitous theme ... There are, for example, chess-boards to be overturned, supposedly sacred trees to be cut down and decorative images to destroy or deface ... But the targets that are mentioned again and again are liquor and musical instruments. (An exception was sometimes made for tambourines which were used to announce marriages)."
Prohibitions of music are rare or non-existent in majority-Muslim states since the coming to power of Muhammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, but have often been enforced where Islamist insurgents have gained power – in Afghanistan under Taliban rule; and at least as of January 2013, "across much of the two-thirds of Mali ... controlled by Islamic rebel groups".