# Is music haram in Islam?

*Music is not haram: sound, vibration and music therapy*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/k9v9am16g1k/s/1/
- Date: 2019-08-04 · Kind: question · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Is Music Haram? | Mufti Abu Layth (0:00–2:39)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9V9aM16G1k&t=0s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/k9v9am16g1k/

**Topics:** Music; Science, the universe and big questions

**Question as asked:** Is music haram?

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** No: he says music is not haram and is arguably nourishment for the soul, pointing to its use for healing in medieval Muslim hospitals.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says music is not haram and is arguably the nourishment of the soul.

**Evidence, his words at 0:00:** “music is not Haram music is arguably it is the nourishment of the soul okay and you can see the reality to that” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9V9aM16G1k&t=0s)

## Longer summary

The clip begins with Mufti Abu Layth saying that music is not haram and is arguably the nourishment of the soul. He reflects that if string theory is true the essence of everything is vibration, and says sound has no physical reality of its own but is the interaction between waves in the air and an organism that interprets them, which he says answers the old question of the tree falling in an empty forest. He adds that medieval Muslim hospitals (bimaristans [?]) used music therapy and that music helps some people with neurodegenerative illnesses, and asks how it could be haram.

## Sources and names cited

- bimaristan (medieval hospital) [?]

## Transcript (machine tier, 0:00–2:39)

[0:00] not people why not music is not Haram music is arguably it is the nourishment of the soul okay and you can see the reality to that it's amazing what certain sound waves can do and I feel in some ways that it's amazing that if if things like string theory be true if it hasn't been it's it's it can't be tested

[0:37] yet but if string theory be true then the essence of everything is simply vibrations it's amazing that these vibrations you see because sound doesn't actually exist people sound is an interaction there's no such thing as sound it doesn't have a physical kind of reality to it sound is the interaction between waves a waves sound waves which

[1:15] are simply just waves in the air and an organism that interprets those waves so that that kind of also solves the age-old question that if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to observe it does it make a sound no it doesn't make a sound because the sound doesn't actually have a reality to it there is no actual thing a sound in that sense it's a waves being measured by an organism being not just measured sorry

[1:53] interpreted and received by an organism so and and the fact that music can actually heal people and many Muslims during the medieval times they had in the hospitals marathons they used column they had music therapy as a healing kind of mechanism and people that are sometimes you know suffering from certain neuronal degenerative illnesses you can find that music helps them it actually helps in

[2:29] the brain how could this be Haram how could that be at all it makes no sense whatsoever

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment k9V9aM16G1k/s/1. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/k9v9am16g1k/s/1/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.