Recordings › In Depth: Is Music allowed in Islam? | Mufti Abu Layth · 18 Sep 2019 › Segment 10 of 12
Why do people assume music must be haram before looking at any evidence?
fiqah jurisprudence fikh hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith udhiyah qurbani qurbaani udhiya udhiyya kurbani usool usool al-fiqh usul ul-fiqh usool ul-fiqh legal theory muftis haraam sunna sunnat sunan prophetic practice dalil daleel adillah adilla proof iman imaan eemaan eeman jahannam jahanam jahannum koran quraan al-quran deen al-din ad-deen ad-dinThe ontology of religion: how preconceptions about religion decide the music question before any text
Play from 52:08
The video loads from YouTube only when you press play. Click a time in the transcript to seek.
Watch this part
Open on YouTube at 52:08The player starts at 52:08, the beginning of this part.
This segment52:08 to 1:00:02 · 7 min 54 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenPeople come to Islam with a prior picture of what religion must be, which includes sacrifice, suffering and asceticism and excludes entertainment, and this backdrop rather than the texts drives their judgement that music is haram. Even with no hadith against it, music would be forbidden on that basis.
In more detail
Speaking to a student audience, Mufti Abu Layth says that to approach the music question one must first understand how religion is understood by people, what he calls the ontology of religion, religion with a capital R, before going into the details of Islam, Christianity or any faith. He asks what ideas come to mind at the word religion and suggests that people place on the stage sacrifice, rituals, suffering, commitment and seriousness, and take off it desires, luxury and worldliness, the attitude called asceticism; humour is borderline, and entertainment is removed because it is tied to worldliness, indulgence and not taking things seriously. These associations exist before a person has learnt anything about religion, and he calls it naive to think this backdrop does not shape one's perception of Islam. So when music is raised, people need know nothing of hadith, Quran, Sunnah or the sciences of usul al-fiqh to react that it must be forbidden, because it is entertainment and of this world. He says the backdrop, not the religion itself, drives most people through religion, with the rest supplied by confirmation bias, and that even if there were not a single hadith against music it could be made haram in a split second on this basis. Asked whether this comes through reason, he says these associations may come from cultural indoctrination or from what people absorb from society, but that people anywhere would list the same things, rituals, sacrifice, suffering, celibacy and hostility to desire, and that once this is in place no text is needed to forbid things, since they already clash with one's picture of religion.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says most people's judgement that music is haram comes from a preconceived ontology of religion, which treats entertainment and desire as opposed to religion, rather than from the texts, which serve only as confirmation bias.
“your backdrop is what actually guides you through religion believe it or not it's not actually the religion itself”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine52:08 to 1:00:02 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
this is waves there is no sound so in my understanding okay the thing about music please I have to at some point do a detailed video like make a music video on me and I hope you guys are gonna share it and make me famous the thing is now I have to do a video on music at some point because it's difficult because you gotta set the
scene you see just getting into this you gotta set the scene for it you gotta explain a lot of things but in essence just to kind of get to the the kind of like default essential stuff you have to understand something and that is how is religion understood by people what you might call the ontology of religion how what is the nature of religion as understand I mean by religion your religion with a capital R with a with capital do you understand what I mean now with a capital R at least this honest he's nodding he said like yeah
hell even I don't understand what I'm on about what explain to me what I'm on about because see the fact that I'm making my sense that's my argument to my psychiatrist so please help me tell me I'm right so the thing is we see religions with a capital R all religions in general religion ok maybe not all but generally how we understand religions they when we think of religion without going into the detail of religion
without going into the details of Islam or Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism without going into it let's zoom out religion with the capital r carries certain connotations with it it has messages with it when you think of religion do you think of I don't know like the ideas that come to your mind is it what like but relaxation is it about like sports is it about what like what can exactly they don't the ideas that come to your mind when you think of religion are things like sacrifice sacrificing that there will be an element of sacrifice involved that there
will be rituals involved there will be suffering that whether it's contemplating suffering or but suffering will take this center stage you know imagine this is a stage and we're gonna put things on thee when we think of religion with a capital R you will put things on there like and things you will definitely Chuck off this stage so I'll tell you the desires religion is seen as an T like it carries the connotation of being opposed to desires and that may be linked into the sacrifice element it's
it carries an element of being almost antimatter like I don't mean antimatter as in but in the sense like being anteed like opposed to luxuries opposed not of the world not interested in the world the word for it the term is asceticism ascetic okay being ascetic like a hermit you know like somebody I don't want to be after I mean I know I'm in the world but I don't want to indulge in the world this these things will take place on the day you will place these on this stage am I wrong when you think of religion or together
like religion without even going into what the religion is did you know okay like this is I'm just being I'm being genuine here so you will think like so for example things we're gonna check off things we're gonna put on so commitments seriousness we're gonna put them on humor is interesting because most people probably chuck it off but okay you might leave a bit on but things like entertainment see entertainment ties in with worldliness being of the world being
indulgence indulging in the world would you put entertainment on this stage if you this this was religion you wouldn't your first idea that comes to your mind is entertainment is to do with the world to do with indulging to do with desires to do with not taking things seriously not be so you took it off now the problem is this is before you've even learnt anything about religion you already have these ideas of religion this is your subconscious mind set of religion with a capital R now you approach Islam and you think okay now let's learn and you would be incredibly
naive to think that this backdrop will not be influencing your perception of Islam it will be consciously or subconsciously so now somebody asks you music you don't even need to know anything about hadith about Quran about Sun about of ieaf about us hey about the most Fela hearts about the science you just straight away think our music that comp a lot because it's all about entertainment it's all about yes it's about the world it's about being distracted it's not being focused it's not you see so your backdrop is what actually guides you through religion
believe it or not it's not actually the religion itself most people think the religion itself is driving them through the religion it's actually their preconceived concepts of what religion ought to be is what drives them through religion and the rest is a confirmation bias the rest you just pick up along the way because so now people think oh so imagine there wasn't a single hadith to say music is Haram imagine there wasn't a single hadith to say music is Haram I guarantee you within a drop within a split second we could easily make it
harm just based on the backdrop because it's indulgence entertainment it's of this world another one look at that alright hunting down traitor [Laughter] reason you mean through reason it's see
but this is it not most people be driven will have basic structures but you will see human beings you will make these associations with religion why are you making those wrist associations with religion is an interesting question now maybe that's because of the kind of cultural indoctrination or your perception of society or what you've just generally picked up on I'm not saying these things will all be innate but most people will make those associations I guarantee you could take it you could go somewhere else you don't know the people ask them what would they associate with religion with the capital
art not a religion just religion they will come out with very similar things like rituals sacrifice suffering anti world indulgence anti desires being you know celibacy things like celibacy tying to being anti desires being so it's the same kind of things they will come up with now once you have that you don't even need texts to make things Hara because II even if there was nothing to say music is haram it already clashes with your understanding of religion right let me give you an example imagine
Paragraphs overlapping 52:08 to 1:00:02. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2019-09-18-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/10/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, September 18). Why do people assume music must be haram before looking at any evidence? [Video, segment 2019-09-18-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/10/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "Why do people assume music must be haram before looking at any evidence?" Video, segment 2019-09-18-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded September 18, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/10/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-09-18-S10, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Why do people assume music must be haram before looking at any evidence?}}, year = {2019}, month = {9}, date = {2019-09-18}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/10/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/10/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2019-09-18-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.