I don’t think the Darul Ifta , the department of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband that is responsible for answering queries and issuing fatwas, has been ever asked to adjudicate specifically on the status of Beyonce’s song Partition (Driver roll up the partition please, I don’t need you seeing ’Yonce on her knees), but one can be reasonably sure that the song and Beyonce’s accompanying romp are likely to be declared egregiously haram .

Last year, when North India was convulsed with the fatwa (music is Unislamic) issued by Mufti-i-Azam Bashiruddin Ahmad of the Supreme Court of Islamic Shariat, against the Kashmiri all-girl rock band Pragaash for singing and producing music, the Muftis of Darul Uloom Deoband and those of the All India Jamat-e Raza Mustafa (representing the Barelvi Sunni Muslim sect) eagerly and almost immediately endorsed it.

To understand why Muftis and Islamic law can’t allow latitude on the subject, I shall supply two fatwas issued by Deoband on music.

Query: They say that spreading the message of Islam in this generation has increased highly with music. And there are so many artists and record labels who prepare Islamic songs using music. What would be your views?

Fatwa: If the Nasheed (song) does not contain anything against the holy Quran and hadith, rather if it is as per the Shariah , then there is no harm in reciting it. However, it is haram and unlawful to read it with music. The holy Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) came into this world to eradicate music. Allah (Subhana Wa Ta’ala) knows best.

( Fatwa: 614/499/B=1434)

Query: Twenty years ago people in my family used to sing and play the harmonium. Now we don’t do that. Someone gifted us a harmonium last year. Now it is of no use. What can we do with it? Can we sell it and use the money or do we have to donate the money?

Fatwa: Harmoniums (a kind of English musical instrument, Firozul Lughat p 1428) is solely the instrument of amusement. It is not lawful for a Muslim to sell it or give it as gift to someone. Hence you should break it. Do not sell it or give it as a gift to someone.

Allah (Subhana Wa Ta’ala) knows best. ( Fatwa: 536/524/N=1434)

A fatwa is a qualified legal opinion on any matter given by a jurist ( Mufti ). Once pronounced, for the believers, the opinion becomes a decree. To form his opinion, the Mufti is allowed to invoke and glean particulars from three sources: the Quran (i.e. The Final and Unalterable Word of God), the Hadis (i.e. the traditions of the Prophet) and, consensus in previous rulings on the subject (a sort of stare decisis , wherein muftis are obliged to respect the precedent established by prior decisions).

In the wake of the Grand Mufti’s fatwa , almost reflexively, lot of opprobrium was cast on him and that was followed by some televised and op-ed liberal grandstanding everywhere without actually seeking or proffering the exegesis on why music, for the Ummah , is haram .

The full scale of the textual evidence, quite manifestly, can’t be conveyed in a tract as cramped as this, but the salient features are as follows:

From the Quran , the commonest cited ayat is from the 31st chapter. Allah Most High says: “And there are among men, those that purchase idle tales, to mislead (men) from the path of Allah and throw ridicule. For such there will be a humiliating punishment” (Surah Luqman, V. 6).

The great Companion of the Prophet Abd Allah ibn Mas’ud has this to say about the phrase ‘ idle tales ’: “By Allah its meaning is music ” (Sunan al-Bayhaqi, 1/223 & authenticated by al-Hakim in his Mustadrak, 2/411).

The other pivotal reference is from chapter 17. Allah Most High said to Shaitan :

“Lead to destruction those whom you can among them with your (seductive) voice” (Surah al-Isra, V.64). Here again, Mujahid, the great exegete has interpreted the word voice ( sawt ) as music, singing, dancing and idle things. (Ruh al-Ma’ani, 15/111).

From the Hadis , approximately 40 references may be cited. The third source, the statements of the Fuqaha (experts in Fiqh or Islamic Jurisprudence) run into volumes. Legalists, Traditionalists and Theologians have all iterated that music is both the cause and symptom of libertinage. It precludes one from the remembrance of Allah. There is, resultantly, an unequivocal and absolute embargo not just on recreational music but on all things musical. No functional song or dance is permitted in Islam. It is a sin of the same denomination as adultery or consumption of alcohol. It is unlawful ( haram ).

Can the blame therefore be placed on the brows of Muftis? The answer to that question is also the premise of Justice Ganpat Singhvi’s judgment on section 377: that the law was laid down elsewhere; that jurists may only interpret it and not exercise the function of a legislator. Scholars and Sufis may submit contrarian views, Muftis can’t. In Islam, there can be no judicial activism. It is a prophetic religion wherein the Final Revealed Truth yields religious law. The Final Revealed Truth can’t be latitudinarian.

It was revealed in the seventh century to an illiterate merchant in the Middle East (pbuh) over a period of 23 years and assembled for the first time as a text after his death from parchments, palm leaves, shoulder blades of camels (on which verses had been scribbled) and from the memory of sundry soldiers who knew it by heart.

The authorised account of this man and the story of this Revelation, which form the Hadis , comes from a chain of short narratives and half-remembered testimonies relayed from person to person and assembled as a text centuries after the events they claim to describe.

One wonders what the frame of reference was when Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote these lines in his poem Dua :

Jin ka deen pairavi-e-kibz-o-riya hain unko

Himmat-e-kufr mile, jurrat-e-tahqiq mile

To those whose religion is the pursuit of lying and hypocrisy

May there come courage for denial, resolution for truth.

(Ambarish Satwik is a Delhi-based vascular surgeon and writer. Views are personal. )

> asatwik@gmail.com

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