Music and Singing

Are music and singing allowed in Islam? If the answer is a definite yes or no, then why has the question of its lawfulness become the subject of debate among Muslim scholars for centuries? In this treatise translated from the eighteenth book of Imam Ghazali’s Ihya Ulum al-Din, readers get an insight into the pros and cons of the controversy and be guided by the greatest authority of traditional Islam none other than Imam al-Ghazali. For al-Ghazali, it is important to have true knowledge to reap the benefit of music. Those who have no sufficient knowledge of God and His attributes, he writes, are liable to apply what they hear both to what is allowable and what is not allowable. Translated by Duncan Black MacDonald