Haraam Police
All those Ahadith on music are weak as far as their chain of narrations are concerned except for the one in Bukhari [1] : “Abu malek Al-Ashari narrated that : the Prophet (pbuh) said: “it will be from my Oumma men who will consider as Halal Al-Herra (Zinna), Al-hareer (Silk), Al-khamr (wines) and Ma-Azef (use of all kind of music or musical instruments) …. Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so until the Day of Resurrection”. Bukhari (volume 7, book 69, # 494) Now if you look at each word separately and analyse it under umbrella of Quran & Sunnah, following points are noteworthy: The actual word used in Hadith is not zina but Al-Herra (sexual organs) and we know from Quran, their usage is permitted in marriage and prohibited in fornication. The actual word used is not alcohol, but a specific form of alcohol fermented from grapes only (Al-khamr) , but we know from Quran that alcohol is prohibited in its absolute sense. Similarly silk is mentioned in absolute sense but it was allowed for women at that time.(as an application of principle of stopping display of arrogance and prodigality whose forms may change with time and culture). Therefore, music and musical instruments are to be interpreted in the same sense, whenever they contain any element of lewdness or any other Haram factor which are explicitly mentioned in Quran, they will be considered prohibited. In short, from an academic standpoint, we are bound to understand Hadith from ‘Quran & Sunnah” and not ‘Quran & Sunnah’ from Hadith because: 1) Quran & Sunnah are in ‘as is’ format as given by Prophet (sws) himself as a source of religion. 2) Quran & Sunnah are transmitted through the most reliable means of ijma (consensus) and tawatur (quoli/amali) of Sahaba (rta) and passed on from one generation to another. 3) Hadith is not in ‘as is’ format, rather, it is in ‘as understood by narrator’ format without any context or pretext of the discussion. 4) It is transmitted through Akhbar-i-Ahad (narrations of one, two people). Therefore, Hadith is bound to be understood in the light of Quran & Sunnah. And when we try to understand the above Hadith (words as understood by narrator) in the light of Quran (exact words of Prophet), we reach at the conclusion which I mentioned above. We have no other option but to understand each and every Hadith in accordance with Principles of Understanding Hadith. Our hands are tied, both from a religious and epistemological standpoint. _______________________________________________ [1] Even for this Hadith, its chain of transmission is not connected to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Ibn Hazm rejects it for that very reason. Moreover, the sub-narrator, Hisham Ibn `Ammar is declared ‘weak’ by many scholars of the Science of Hadith Methodology.
Thank you very much. I agree with looking at Ahadith in light of Quran, however with that approach what is the point of Ahadith at all then? Since JAG stance is that Ahadith cannot ADD to Quran/islam, then we aren’t going to learn anything new through Ahadith. Even when he says to use Ahadith as “historic context” he still argues that all historic context comes from Nazm of Quran itself. It confuses me a lot to hear answers without considering any Ahadith related to the matter, but I think that is because in any case it would never add to JAG’s established stance as per a Quran. Can you please share how does Ahadith benefit us from JAG POV if it doesn’t add anything to our knowledge ? Please give examples how it helps JAG view at all..has Ahadith ever impacted his understanding in anyway?
If a movie shows idol worship scenes, is it fine and permitted ?