Recordings › In Depth: Is Music allowed in Islam? | Mufti Abu Layth · 18 Sep 2019 › Segment 7 of 12
Why is everything permissible by default in Islamic law unless proven haram?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis ahaadith malik ibn anas malik bin anas imam maalik imam malik ibn anas al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari imaam imams prayer leader shari'ah shariat sharee'ah maaliki malikite malikiyyah maliki school muftis halaal permitted lawful haraam mubah mubaah dalil daleel adillah adilla proof mutawaatir tawatur mass-transmitted kufr kuffar kafir kaafir kufar kaafirun iman imaan eemaan eeman koran quraan al-quran madina al-madinah madeenah yathrib ulama ulema ulamaa as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaam salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam peace greeting al-din ad-deen ad-din religionClarification: everything is permissible by default, and certainty is removed only by certainty
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This segment30:08 to 36:43 · 6 min 35 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenBy default everything is conclusively permissible, since Allah created everything on earth for us and what He was silent about is pardoned, and that certainty can only be removed by certainty, not by a hadith that remains probable. So Mufti Abu Layth does not declare music halal; Allah has, and the evidence against it falls short of overturning that.
In more detail
The segment opens with the end of the previous point, that our concept of God can be updated and that intimidation was not the way of the Prophet. Mufti Abu Layth then clarifies remarks from an earlier Q&A, where he was told music leads to haram because it amplifies vices such as shootings, sex and drugs, and had answered that he lacked the authority to prohibit it, joking that he had remembered he was not God. Some asked whether he had not already passed judgment by calling it permissible, as if he were God then. He answers that he passed no judgment, and explains the principle he follows, held by many Maliki scholars of the school of Madinah and attributed to Imam Malik among others: by default everything is conclusively permissible, since Allah says He created everything in the earth for you, and a hadith in Abu Dawud [?] says that what Allah was silent about is pardoned, Allah not being forgetful. This default is qat'i, conclusive, like the mutawatir, with no margin for error, as one is certain China exists without having been there, whereas a hadith even in Bukhari or Muslim is zanni, strong but with a small margin of doubt. So when he says things are halal he is not making them so; Allah already has. One may instead hold that everything is haram until proven otherwise, but he calls that absurd and says life would become unbearable, needing evidence to sit down or to use Facebook; he greets a former classmate [?] in passing. Under his principle, strong evidence is needed to overturn permissibility, since the Sharia maxim says certainty is removed only by certainty, which is why he considers many things permissible: not because he lacks evidence that they are haram, but because the evidence does not reach the level of certainty needed to remove the default, as transmitted by al-Baji [?] from the Baghdadi Malikis such as Ibn Khuwayz Mindad [?] and adopted by other schools. He then says he will tackle the issue of lyrics.
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth holds, as he says many Malikis of the school of Madinah did, that everything is conclusively permissible by default, because Allah created everything for us and pardoned what He was silent about, and that this certainty can be removed only by certainty, so when he calls something halal he is not making it so.
“that by default everything is conclusively permissible Allah has ordained everything to be permissible he says in the Quran”
Category: method
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine30:08 to 36:43 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
why can't God understand they say oh he's being sarcastic I was being sarcastic though oh well if you can understand sarcasm what God can't understand sarcasm so you can understand things he caught what God doesn't get irony God doesn't get metaphor I mean what like so we can get oh it's okay oh it's I get what you're talking about but God I don't know you know it's gonna that's a bit that's a very you're looking that denigrating Allah like you're treating him infantilizing you treating him like a little child like oh he doesn't a week ago obviously we're mature we can get this kind of stuff we know you're talking this is humor is funny but God
he couldn't get that of course he can so the thing is I think we need to this is where I said it's evaluating our own concepts it's how we picture you know people say we need to truly understand God I agree with them we need to do because our understanding of God is sometimes a bit it can it can it can up it can be updated this is updates out there so oh I don't know how much cool for our disbelief I brought myself into the know I'll just check if there's a text
message no no all good so far so this was not the way of the prophet salaallah salam secondly I wanted to add so that's something I just wanted to clarify secondly I wanted to add to that that Bash is that you right so the thing is I just wanted to add to that that I'd spoken previously about music in my Plymouth Q&A where I was asked I was spoken about in other Q&A as well but I was asked me that look music leads
people to Haram because it speaks and amplifies vices okay speaks of vices like things like you know shootings killings sex drugs alcohol although I don't think I don't know if music nowadays speak so much about alcohol but more about drugs you know that kind of lifestyle so therefore based on that you should say it's Haram so I responded by saying that look I that I don't have the authority to do that because Allah you
know and I kind of cracked a joke where I said oh yeah you know I did think about doing that but then I remembered you know I wasn't God so some people have asked some questions about this and I thought this is it's important to clarify that look first of all somebody said oh but you've already passed a judgement that's ironic you already passed a judgment that it's okay ah were you not aware you God then ha ha ha I thought well okay look the thing is I didn't pass the judgment okay you have
to understand my principles of how I understand law Islamic law Islamic guidance and how I pass what was and rulings the thing is in my understanding and this is the understanding I follow and this is what many aroma of the Maliki method of school of Medina amongst other methods as law said was the belief of imam malik and other people as well that by default everything is conclusively permissible Allah has ordained everything to be permissible he says in the Quran Oaxaca
lucuma fil ardi jamie rahn he created everything in the earth for you javi so we go and in the hadith which was transmitted by a bus in Abu Dawud that one Massacre Turan who and that which Allah was silent about it was mean hey Lena CN Allah was not forgetful for allah has overseen these things this you can have them so by default not just hey I think conclusively what we call in the Shelly our imam shot to be and other
people write about no sukhothai conclusive like muta water it doesn't have no doubt in it not like a hadith which is run me yeah normal hadith in cyber Hadees I'm Muslim is not cut ie it does not carry that strength in Islam it carries like a strong strength but it's not conclusive okay you have something but a you have the knee the knee can be strong than me is something which still it's it still has some room for doubt even if it's 2 percent even if it's 3 percent out of a hundred yes some room for doubt it has a small margin for error
conclusive cutter is no margin for error ok the way today you believe that China exists for example you've never been there but that's a conclusive thing to you it's not oh I've got 1% doubt that China may not exist it doesn't work like that ok so so this is conclusive and who has made this halal Allah has made halal so when I say old things are Holland I'm not making them hala Allah has already made them halal according to my understanding now you could say look I disagree with this principle you could
say according to me everything is Haram until proven otherwise that's your principal I think life would become unbearable because to move this cup all of a sudden you'd needed the lead you need evidence to sit down like this I need evidence to use Facebook or need evidence to use Facebook at a particular time I'd need evidence to do because everything is all of a sudden forbidden and less proven otherwise now I don't follow that Mufti curry I know masala and people mostly curry now resident in the US making waves over there so we did study together in Karachi right so just a little shout out
there the thing is look so my point is this is what I follow you can follow different principles you can say I believe everything is Haram if I'm gonna change a gear in the cards Haram unless I've got a Delisle to prove it fine that's your belief it's your faith it's what you wanna do it's not what I believe okay I believe that's absurd ridiculous but it's hey it's your life you don't have to answer to me so when you believe everything is permissible by default you need strong evidence to overturn it because on one hand you've got something conclusive so as the principal says in
Sharia alia teen liya Sewell in lobelia team when you have certainty it can only be removed by certainty now you'll start to understand why I consider a lot of things permissible because Allah has already made them permissible why don't I say they're Haram because I don't find the evidence to be at a level of certainty to remove that certainty this is my understanding of the Deen this is as transmitted by people like a barrage a lathe II from the great birth daddy Maliki's even a wise man dad and other people who transmit this through Imam Malik and the school of Medina and other methods as well adopt this so look you
Paragraphs overlapping 30:08 to 36:43. 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-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/7/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, September 18). Why is everything permissible by default in Islamic law unless proven haram? [Video, segment 2019-09-18-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/7/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "Why is everything permissible by default in Islamic law unless proven haram?" Video, segment 2019-09-18-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded September 18, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/7/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-09-18-S07, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Why is everything permissible by default in Islamic law unless proven haram?}}, year = {2019}, month = {9}, date = {2019-09-18}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/7/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/axxub9lxfoc/s/7/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2019-09-18-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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