Music and its permissibility
Family: Religion and custom · 38 entries
Entries on this theme
Group
The Mehter (Ottoman military band)
The Ottoman military band — the world's oldest organised military music, which inspired Mozart and Beethoven and still performs in Istanbul.The Sabri Brothers
The Pakistani qawwali ensemble behind 'Tajdar-e-Haram' — with NFAK, the deepest mark on the form's global spread.Junoon
Pakistan's 'Sufi rock' pioneers of 'Sayyoni' — the biggest rock band in the Muslim world's rock history.Raihan
The Malaysian group that defined the nasyid genre — their album Puji-Pujian made Islamic pop mainstream in Southeast Asia.Native Deen
The American nasheed trio whose albums fill Islamic-school assemblies across the US.
Person
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
1948 CE · 1367 AH†The greatest qawwali singer of the 20th century, who carried Sufi devotional song to world stages.Yusuf Islam / Cat Stevens
1948 CE · 1367 AH†The British singer formerly Cat Stevens; embraced Islam in 1977 and later recorded Islamic and educational albums.Abida Parveen
1954 CE · 1373 AH†The foremost female voice of Pakistani Sufi song — sings Shah Abdul Latif and Bulleh Shah at Sindh's shrines.Dawud Wharnsby
1972 CE · 1392 AH†The Canadian convert-musician behind Sound Vision's Islamic children's songs like 'A Whisper of Peace'.Yasin Bey
11 December 1973 CE · 1393 AHAmerican rapper and actor, born in Brooklyn, New York in 1973 as Dante Terrell Smith, and known professionally as Mos Def before adopting the name Yasiin Bey in 2011. With Talib Kweli he formed the duo Black Star (1998); his solo debut Black on Both Sides (1999) was widely acclaimed, and he has acted in major films and television series. He converted to Islam in his teens.Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
1974 CE · 1394 AH†Nusrat's nephew and heir of modern qawwali — one of South Asia's most-streamed voices.Zain Bhikha
1974 CE · 1394 AH†The South African vocalist of 'Mountains of Makkah' — among the oldest English-language nasheed artists.Ahmed Bukhatir
1975 CE · 1395 AH†The Emirati munshid behind 'Hijabtum Nurakum' — among the Gulf's best-known nasheed voices.Kareem Salama
1978 CE · 1398 AH†The Muslim American country singer from Oklahoma, blending Americana with Sufi verse.Sami Yusuf
1980 CE · 1400 AH†The British-Azerbaijani singer whose album Al-Mu'allim (2003) sold millions — the best-known modern Islamic vocalist.Mesut Kurtis
1981 CE · 1401 AH†The Macedonian-Turkish vocalist of 'Burdu Al-'Ala' — a pioneer of multilingual European nasheed.Maher Zain
16 July 1981 CE · 1401 AHLebanese-Swedish nasheed and R&B singer, born in Tripoli, Lebanon in 1981. Raised in Sweden, he worked as a music producer there and in New York before turning to contemporary Islamic singing; his debut album Thank You Allah (2009) reached a worldwide audience online, followed by Forgive Me (2012), One (2016) and Back To You (2026).Lupe Fiasco
1982 CE · 1402 AH†The Muslim Chicago rapper of 'Food & Liquor', outspoken about Islam in his music and interviews.Mona Haydar
1988 CE · 1408 AH†The Syrian-American poet-rapper of 'Hijabi' (2017) — a prominent Muslim feminist voice in American music.Buhurizade Itri
Draft card for Buhurizade Mustafa Efendi 'Itri', the eighteenth-century Ottoman composer and calligrapher of Istanbul, d. 1711; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.Fartana
One of the two singing slave-girls of Abdullah ibn Khatal in Mecca who performed lampoons against the Prophet; proscribed on the day of the Conquest, one was killed while the other fled, sought protection, and embraced Islam.
Concept
Sama' (hearing) and its rulings
In the lexicon sama' means perceiving by the sense of hearing, and it carries the senses of answering, understanding and accepting; the technical sense does not depart from them. The jurists treat hearing in several separate rulings: joining the congregation for one who hears the call to prayer, reading aloud in prayer, listening to the Friday sermon, the prostration of recitation, hearing a claim before a judge, testimony by hearing, listening to singing, the Qur'an, hadith and idle talk.Shi'ar (the distinctive sign: the inner garment, a battle cry, and dress that sets a group apart)
Shi'ar in language is the garment that touches the body, under the outer cloak; in the jurists' usage it is the clear distinctive sign. As a war cry it is the call by which fighters know one another. Most jurists hold that imitating non-Muslims in a dress that marks them out is a ground for judging the imitator an unbeliever in outward legal terms, when done in Muslim lands out of inclination to them, unless necessity requires it. Dress that is conspicuously against custom is disliked; most jurists hold that instruments of drinking gatherings, such as the lute and the pipe, are forbidden.Tasfiq (clapping, in prayer and elsewhere)
Tasfiq is striking one palm on the other. In prayer it is for women, to alert the imam to an error or to turn back someone passing in front; a man glorifies God instead, and all agree a man's clapping in prayer is disliked; the Malikis dislike it for women too. On the Shafii view clapping in prayer in play invalidates it; the Hanafis and Malikis treat two-handed clapping as a large act that breaks prayer. It is forbidden during the sermon according to the majority, and allowed for a real need outside prayer and the sermon.
Event
Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Fez's annual festival convening Sufi chant, qawwali and nasheed alongside the sacred music of other faiths; since 1994.Şeb-i Arus
Konya's annual commemoration of Rumi's death with the Mevlevi whirling-dervish sema — the world's most visible Sufi ceremony.Urs of Ajmer Sharif
The six-day annual death-anniversary festival of Mu'in al-Din Chishti at Ajmer — qawwali and pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands.
Screening Room
Casablanca Beats
2021 CE · 1442 AH†Casablanca Beats.Gully Boy
2019 CE · 1440 AH†Gully Boy.In the Name of God
2007 CE · 1428 AH†Shoaib Mansoor's Pakistani film about two musician brothers pulled apart by militancy and moderation after 9/11 — a major national debate on religion, music and forced marriage.New Muslim Cool
2009 CE · 1430 AH†A PBS POV documentary on Hamza Pérez, a Puerto Rican-American Muslim rapper, and his family and community life in post-9/11 Pittsburgh.We Are Lady Parts
Nida Manzoor's Channel 4 sitcom about an all-Muslim-women punk band in London — BAFTA-winning and praised for breaking Muslim-women stereotypes.Desert Dancer
2014 CE · 1435 AH†Based on the true story of an Iranian dancer who founded a secret dance group in Tehran despite the ban; starring Reece Ritchie and Freida Pinto.Sheikh Jackson
2017 CE · 1438 AH†Sheikh Jackson.Timbuktu
2014 CE · 1435 AH†Abderrahmane Sissako's Oscar-nominated film on Timbuktu under Ansar Dine's jihadist rule in 2012 — an indictment of violent extremism made from inside Muslim life.Omar Gatlato
1976 CE · 1396 AH†Omar Gatlato.The Idol
2015 CE · 1436 AH†The Idol.The Band's Visit
2007 CE · 1428 AH†The Band's Visit.
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