Extensive scholarly-reverent essay on Music and Islamic Jurisprudence

Introduction

In many Muslim communities today, music is labeled unconditionally ḥarām, producing confusion and inner conflict among believers who seek both piety and beauty in their lives. This essay aims to relieve that burden by returning to the roots of classical Islamic scholarship. It demonstrates that across the major schools of law and spirituality, scholars have always recognized a vital distinction between permitted melody—which uplifts the soul, accompanies noble gatherings, or expresses joy—and condemned vice, where song becomes a tool of lust, heedlessness, or imitation of immoral culture. By re-examining the sayings of Ibn Masʿūd, the juristic interpretations of figures such as Ibn Ḥajar, Ibn al-Qayyim, and Ibn Ḥazm, and the contextual realities of their times, this work invites a balanced, evidence-based understanding of ghināʾ (singing) as both a spiritual and social phenomenon within Islam.

Glossary of Technical Terms

Glossary of Key Terms
• Mawqūf (موقوف) — a ḥadīth narration that stops at a Companion of the Prophet ﷺ and is not attributed directly to him.
• Marfūʿ (مرفوع) — a narration that is explicitly attributed to the Prophet ﷺ himself, whether through his words, actions, or approvals.
• Ghaflah (غفلة) — heedlessness or spiritual distraction; a state of the heart in which one forgets remembrance of God.
• ʿIllah (عِلّة) — the underlying legal or causal reason (ratio legis) upon which a ruling is based in Islamic jurisprudence.

• Maṣlaḥah (مصلحة) — public or moral benefit; the principle of seeking the common good or welfare that harmonizes with divine intent.

Part I – Transmission and Authenticity

1. The Text and Its Wording

The report most often cited appears as:

عن عبد الله بن مسعود رضي الله عنه أنه قال:
«الغناء ينبت النفاق في القلب كما ينبت الماء البقل»

“Singing grows hypocrisy in the heart as water makes herbage grow.”

This sentence is widely circulated in books of zuhd (asceticism) and ādāb (ethics). Some versions add “كما ينبت الماء البقل” (“as water causes plants to sprout”), which provides a vivid simile: just as water continually nourishes weeds in fertile soil, heedless singing continually nourishes the seeds of hypocrisy in the heart.

2. The Question of Attribution (Marfūʿ vs. Mawqūf)

The central issue concerns whether this statement is marfūʿ (directly attributed to the Prophet ﷺ) or mawqūf (stopping at Ibn Masʿūd himself). The distinction is crucial because a marfūʿ report carries prophetic authority, whereas a mawqūf report reflects the independent understanding of a Companion.

a. Early Citations

The report appears in early adab compilations such as:

ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Muṣannaf, 11:6 (ḥadīth 20354).
Ibn Abī Shaybah, al-Muṣannaf, 8:126.

In both collections, the chain ends with Ibn Masʿūd, not the Prophet — establishing it as mawqūf.

b. Critical Evaluation by Later Hadith Masters

Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852 AH) in Talḫīṣ al-Ḥabīr fī Takhrīj Aḥādīth al-Rāfiʿī al-Kabīr, vol. 4, p. 163, explicitly states that all chains raising it to the Prophet are weak (ḍaʿīf) and that the sound form is mawqūf to Ibn Masʿūd.
Al-Dhahabī (d. 748 AH), in Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl, 3:123, lists transmitters who attempted to raise the report and grades them weak.
Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH), Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāʾid al-Shayṭān, vol. 1, pp. 248–249, writes that this saying “is authentically established from Ibn Masʿūd and none else; as for its being raised (rafʿuhu), it has no sound basis.”
Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (d. 1999), Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfah wa-l-Mawḍūʿah, no. 493, rules all marfūʿ versions mawḍūʿ (fabricated) or ḍaʿīf jiddan (very weak).

Thus, a consensus of hadith criticism emerges:

the statement is authentically mawqūf to Ibn Masʿūd, not marfūʿ to the Prophet ﷺ.

3. Linguistic and Semantic Nuance

Ibn Masʿūd’s metaphor is pedagogical, not legalistic. The image “as water makes vegetation grow” suggests gradual spiritual corrosion, not instantaneous disbelief. Just as constant moisture makes unwanted weeds thrive, habitual indulgence in frivolous song can cultivate traits of nifāq — emotional double-life, loss of sincerity, or moral inconsistency.

The phrase does not mean that every melody equals hypocrisy; rather, it reflects the Companion’s concern that heedless amusement can desensitize the heart. This interpretation harmonizes with Qurʾānic imagery, such as:

﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَشْتَرِي لَهْوَ الْحَدِيثِ لِيُضِلَّ عَن سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ﴾
“Among mankind are those who purchase idle talk to lead others away from the path of Allah.” (Q 31:6)

Ibn Masʿūd himself reportedly said that “lahw al-ḥadīth” in this verse referred to singing when it diverts from remembrance, not inherently to the art of melody.

4. Scholarly Verdict Summarized

Scholar	Position	Source
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (852 AH)	Mawqūf; marfūʿ version weak	Talḫīṣ al-Ḥabīr, 4:163
Al-Dhahabī (748 AH)	Weak narrators in marfūʿ chain	Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl, 3:123
Ibn al-Qayyim (751 AH)	Sound as statement of Ibn Masʿūd only	Ighāthat al-Lahfān, 1:248–249
Ibn Ḥazm (456 AH)	Treats it as moral opinion, not law	al-Muḥallā bi-l-Āthār, 10:218
Al-Albānī (1999 CE)	Marfūʿ is fabricated	Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 493

In sum, the isnād criticism and textual evidence converge:

this expression is a wise admonition of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (raḍiy Allāhu ʿanhu), not a prophetic ḥadīth.
It reflects early companions’ spiritual psychology rather than formal legal prohibition.

5. Implications for Interpretation

Because the report is mawqūf, jurists did not treat it as a legal source for banning music outright. Instead, they took it as spiritual counsel, explaining that certain kinds of singing can nurture hypocrisy when they replace Qurʾānic reflection with worldly attachment. Later jurists (e.g., al-Ghazālī in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn, bk. “Ādāb al-Samāʿ”) used this report to classify ghināʾ by effect on the heart — whether it softens toward remembrance or hardens toward heedlessness.

Chicago-Style References (Part I)

ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī. al-Muṣannaf. Vol. 11. Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983.
Ibn Abī Shaybah. al-Muṣannaf fī al-Aḥādīth wa-l-Āthār. Vol. 8. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1409 AH.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. Talḫīṣ al-Ḥabīr fī Takhrīj Aḥādīth al-Rāfiʿī al-Kabīr. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1995.
Al-Dhahabī. Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl fī Naqd al-Rijāl. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, 1985.
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāʾid al-Shayṭān. Ed. Muḥammad ʿAṭā. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Ibn Ḥazm. al-Muḥallā bi-l-Āthār. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Imām, 1347 AH.
Al-Albānī, Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn. Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfah wa-l-Maʿwḍūʿah. Vol. 1. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif, 1992.

Part II – Thematic Interpretation: Meaning and Context of “Singing Grows Hypocrisy in the Heart”

1. The Pedagogical Function of the Saying

When ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (رضي الله عنه) said,

«الغناء ينبت النفاق في القلب كما ينبت الماء البقل»,
he was not establishing a fiqh ruling; he was performing spiritual diagnosis.

Ibn Masʿūd was among the earliest Qurʾānic psychologists of the heart. His warning belongs to the ethical vocabulary of taṣfiyah al-nafs – purifying the soul – rather than the domain of aḥkām al-fiqh. In early Islam, Companions often described moral phenomena (nifāq, arrogance, heedlessness) using agricultural metaphors drawn from the Qurʾān itself. Just as rain makes vegetation thrive, habitual indulgence in heedless amusements can make hypocrisy take root unseen.

The purpose was cautionary: to remind believers that every repeated sensory habit shapes the interior world. Ibn Masʿūd feared that unchecked entertainment could dull the qalb – the perceptive heart that distinguishes divine truth from worldly noise.

2. The Qurʾānic Backdrop: Nifāq as Spiritual Disease

The Qurʾān describes nifāq (hypocrisy) as a pathology of spiritual sensitivity, not merely a theological label. In Sūrat al-Baqarah (2:10),

﴿فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ مَرَضٌ فَزَادَهُمُ اللَّهُ مَرَضًا﴾ — “In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increases their disease.”

Early exegetes like al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī interpret this maraḍ al-qalb as attachment to desire, love of falsehood, and aversion to remembrance. Ibn Masʿūd’s metaphor therefore fits seamlessly: ghināʾ that feeds the ego rather than remembrance is one stream of water that irrigates that inner “disease.”

This connection explains why nifāq in early ascetic discourse referred to split intention – a heart torn between the call of dhikr and the lure of heedlessness. Singing, if it became an idol of the ear, represented that duality.

3. Differentiating Moral Metaphor from Legal Ban

Later jurists made a clear distinction between:

Ethical imagery used by the early pious for cultivating vigilance, and
Legal norms used by mujtahidīn to issue rulings.

Al-Ghazālī (d. 505 AH) crystallizes this distinction in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (bk. “Ādāb al-Samāʿ”). He quotes Ibn Masʿūd’s saying as a spiritual observation, not a juridical verdict, then proceeds to explain that the moral effect of samāʿ (listening) depends on the listener’s inner state:

“If the melody awakens longing for God, it is remembrance; if it excites lust, it is temptation.” (Iḥyāʾ, 2:268–269)

Thus, the statement about hypocrisy was never meant to abolish sound or melody as such, but to warn of heedless indulgence that weakens sincerity (ikhlāṣ).

4. How Early Companions Practiced Singing

Historical reports confirm that many Companions permitted singing in certain contexts:

ʿĀʾishah (رضي الله عنها) related that two young girls sang with a drum (duff) in the Prophet’s house during ʿĪd. When Abū Bakr tried to silence them, the Prophet ﷺ said,

“Let them be, for these are days of festival.” (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-ʿĪdayn, ḥadīth 952)
Ibn Ḥajar comments in Fatḥ al-Bārī (2:442) that this ḥadīth is a clear proof that not all singing is forbidden.
ʿĀmir ibn Saʿd narrates that workers sang rhythmic chants while constructing the Prophet’s mosque; the Prophet smiled without objection (Musnad Aḥmad, 3:459).
Al-Burāʾ ibn ʿĀzib and other Companions sang war chants during expeditions, invoking bravery and patience (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, ḥadīth 3045).

Such examples delineate permissible categories: weddings, festivals, labor, travel, and warfare – all devoid of lewd content or sinful context.

5. Ibn al-Qayyim’s Contextual Clarification

In Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāʾid al-Shayṭān (1:248 ff.), Ibn al-Qayyim refines his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah’s view:

Condemned ghināʾ = that which distracts from Qurʾān, fosters fāḥishah (immorality), and inflames shahwah (lust).
Neutral ghināʾ = melody without sin or association with vice.
Praiseworthy ghināʾ = recitations or chants that awaken love of God or courage in His path.

He interprets Ibn Masʿūd’s “hypocrisy” not as disbelief but as moral duplicity – outward piety with inward distraction. The warning is thus psychological: persistent frivolity corrodes sincerity.

6. Ibn Taymiyyah’s Juridical Framing

In Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (11:531–539), Ibn Taymiyyah calls music “khamr al-rūḥ” – “the wine of the soul.” His metaphor mirrors Ibn Masʿūd’s agricultural one. Just as wine clouds judgment, excessive melody intoxicates emotion. Yet Ibn Taymiyyah anchors his reasoning in sadd al-dharaʾiʿ – blocking the means that usually lead to sin – not in an intrinsic prohibition of sound. Where the means are absent (no lust, no neglect of prayer, no gatherings of vice), the legal reasoning changes.

This nuance demonstrates that the Companions’ ethical maxims evolved into juristic hedges, not absolute taboos. The maqṣad (objective) remained the same: safeguarding the heart.

7. The Spiritual Psychology Behind “Nifāq”

Sufi commentators treated the phrase as an allegory of spiritual veiling. Al-Qushayrī (d. 465 AH) in Risālah al-Qushayriyyah writes that every sensory indulgence leaves a “trace of dust upon the mirror of the heart.” When the heart delights excessively in rhythm and rhyme, it risks preferring echo over meaning. That subtle displacement – preferring the medium of emotion over the message of remembrance – is what they called nifāq al-qalb.

Hence, Ibn Masʿūd’s phrase belongs to the genre of tazkiyah wisdom, akin to ʿUmar’s saying, “Excessive laughter kills the heart.” No one reads that as a legal ban on joy; rather, it is spiritual advice on proportion.

8. Modern Juristic Continuity

Contemporary jurists such as Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī reiterate this contextual reading. In al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām fī al-Islām (Doha: Maktabat Wahbah, 1985, pp. 296–301), he writes:

“The prohibition agreed upon concerns music that accompanies obscenity, incites lust, or distracts from duty. As for good speech in pleasant melody, Islam does not forbid it.”

He explicitly cites the ḥadīths of ʿĀʾishah and the Anṣār’s poetic culture to show that the Prophet recognized the aesthetic dimension of lawful joy. This view preserves Ibn Masʿūd’s moral concern while rejecting over-literal bans.

9. Ethical Principle Summarized

Type of Ghināʾ	Description	Ruling Trend
Heedless / Lustful	Linked to immorality, drinking, neglect of ṣalāh	Condemned (ḥarām or makrūh taḥrīmī)
Neutral / Cultural	Work songs, weddings, travel chants	Permissible (mubāḥ)
Devotional / Inspirational	Recitations awakening dhikr or courage	Praiseworthy (mandūb)

Thus the criterion is not sound itself but effect and association. The “seed of hypocrisy” grows only when song feeds forgetfulness of God.

10. Synthesis

When Ibn Masʿūd said, “Singing grows hypocrisy,” he was articulating a truth of human psychology in the language of seventh-century piety. Later jurists, theologians, and mystics expanded, specified, and refined that truth across centuries of debate. The result is a nuanced consensus:

The statement is mawqūf (Companion-level wisdom).
Its meaning is moral, not legislative.
The true danger lies not in melody but in heedlessness (ghaflah).

In that sense, the heart remains the field, music the water, and sincerity the crop. What grows depends on what seeds are sown.

Chicago-Style References (Part II)

Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1997.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. Fatḥ al-Bārī bi-Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Cairo: Dār al-Rayyān, 1986.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. al-Musnad. Beirut: al-Risālah, 1993.
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāʾid al-Shayṭān. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Ibn Taymiyyah, Taqī al-Dīn. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā. Riyadh: King Fahd Complex, 2004.
Al-Qushayrī, Abū l-Qāsim. al-Risālah al-Qushayriyyah. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2002.
Al-Qaraḍāwī, Yūsuf. al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām fī al-Islām. Doha: Maktabat Wahbah, 1985.

Part III – Juristic Delineation: Condemned vs. Permitted Singing

1. The Transition from Ethical Maxim to Juristic Debate

By the second Islamic century, jurists faced a new reality: singing (ghināʾ) and music had become professional arts in the great cities of Medina, Basra, Kufa, and Baghdad. What had begun as spontaneous poetry and simple rhythm now developed into courtly entertainment with specialized performers (qiyān, mughannūn). The moral maxim of Ibn Masʿūd – “singing grows hypocrisy” – entered this complex social context.
Jurists were compelled to distinguish between what the statement meant spiritually and what it required legally.

Thus emerged the fiqh taxonomy of ghināʾ:

Condemned (ḥarām) – singing tied to immorality, intoxicants, or negligence of prayer.
Disliked (makrūh) – idle amusement that softens resolve.
Permitted (mubāḥ) – neutral song devoid of vice.
Commendable (mandūb) – chanting that uplifts remembrance or courage.

This classification formed the interpretive backbone of later uṣūl al-fiqh reasoning: the same act can move between categories based on niyyah (intention), maṣlaḥah (benefit), and ʿillah (effective cause).

2. The Four Sunni Schools (Madhāhib)

A. Ḥanafī School

The Ḥanafī jurists exhibited graduated caution, shaped by Kufa’s urban musical culture.

Abū Ḥanīfah (d. 150 AH) is quoted by Ibn ʿĀbidīn as saying that habitual listening to frivolous song is makrūh taḥrīmī (reprehensible near to ḥarām) because it diverts from remembrance. Yet he added, “If a man sings to delight his family or himself without corruption, there is no sin.”
Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad al-Shaybānī distinguished between instruments. The duff and tabl were allowed at weddings; wind and string instruments associated with drinking were not.
Al-Kāsānī in Badāʾiʿ al-Ṣanāʾiʿ (5:134) explains that singing becomes ḥarām only when it entails fawāḥish (obscenities) or distracts from farḍ duties.
Later, Ibn ʿĀbidīn in Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār (6:349) summarized: “Singing without lewdness and instruments is not sinful though unbecoming for the serious; it is forbidden when joined with haram acts.”

Hence, the Ḥanafī stance leans toward ethical restraint, not blanket prohibition.

B. Mālikī School

The Mālikī jurists are often cited as severe, but their textual record is more nuanced.

Imām Mālik himself reportedly said: “Only the sinful and foolish sing.” Yet his students contextualized this as a Madīnan moral judgment, not an absolute legal decree. As Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr clarifies in al-Istidhkār (14:8–12), Mālik condemned the decadent music circles of Medina, not all rhythmic chant.
Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd (Averroes) in Bidāyat al-Mujtahid (2:114) notes disagreement: “The reason for prohibition is that it leads to distraction and lust; if those causes are absent, then there is no decisive text forbidding it.”
Al-Qarāfī in al-Furūq (2:33) makes the same distinction: “The ruling follows the mafsadah (corruption).”

Thus, Mālikī thought views Ibn Masʿūd’s aphorism as moral caution against the majālis al-lahw of his time— gatherings where music served intoxication — not as a universal ban on melody.

C. Shāfiʿī School

The Shāfiʿīs developed the most differentiated internal debate.

Imām al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204 AH) in al-Umm (6:208) criticized ghināʾ used by idle people: “It is blameworthy amusement, resembling falsehood.” However, he did not pronounce it ḥarām per se.
Al-Nawawī (d. 676 AH), summarizing the school, wrote in Rawḍat al-Ṭālibīn (10:225): “If singing accompanies something forbidden, it is ḥarām; if free of it, there is no harm.”
Al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 660 AH), the great Sultan al-ʿUlamāʾ, argued in Qawāʿid al-Aḥkām (1:203) that melodies may even be rewarded (mandūb) if they aid worship or courage.

Hence, the Shāfiʿī school crystallized the conditional approach: morality of context defines the ruling.

D. Ḥanbalī School

The Ḥanbalī school held the most polemical discussions, owing to Ibn Taymiyyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim.

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241 AH) initially disliked singing but permitted it for weddings and travel (Masāʾil ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, no. 2127). He said, “If the duff is heard without evil, it is not forbidden.”
Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH), in Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (11:531–539), viewed instrumental music as makrūh or ḥarām when habitually used for lust or idleness but acknowledged that not every sound is sinful.
Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH), in Ighāthat al-Lahfān, elaborated that the Qurʾānic censure of “lahw al-ḥadīth” refers only to singing that distracts from remembrance, not every tune.

Therefore, Ḥanbalīs—often portrayed as rigid—maintained a cause-based reasoning: the verdict follows the ʿillah (cause). If the cause (immorality, intoxication, heedlessness) disappears, so does the ruling.

3. Zahiri and Other Minor Views

The Ẓāhirī jurist Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456 AH) offered perhaps the most radical critique of blanket prohibition.
In al-Muḥallā bi-l-Āthār (vol. 10, p. 217 ff.), he examined every alleged prophetic ban and found all chains weak. His reasoning:

“All sound reports show the Prophet ﷺ heard songs and did not forbid them. Therefore, no one may declare haram what God and His Messenger did not.”

Ibn Ḥazm did not advocate licentious art; he simply insisted that the Shariah must rest on authentic proof. His methodology later influenced al-Shawkānī (d. 1250 AH), who in Nayl al-Awtār rejected claims of consensus on prohibition and confined the ban to songs linked with vice.

Together, Ibn Ḥazm and al-Shawkānī shifted the debate from moral impression to hadith authentication, reinforcing that the legal weight of Ibn Masʿūd’s maxim remains advisory, not binding.

4. Instruments and the Principle of Association (Qarīnah)

The most contested question was not singing but instruments (maʿāzif). The pivotal ḥadīth is:

“There will be among my ummah people who make lawful fornication, silk, wine, and maʿāzif (musical instruments)…”
(Sunan Ibn Mājah 4020; graded weak by al-Albānī.)

Contextual exegesis by Ibn al-Qayyim and others shows that the prohibition targets gatherings of debauchery, not the object itself. Instruments appear as qarīnah (circumstantial accompaniment) to wine and immorality. In Ighāthat al-Lahfān (1:282), Ibn al-Qayyim writes:

“He did not curse the instrument but the assembly in which wine, song, and sin coexisted.”

Later jurists, such as al-Shāṭibī in al-Muwāfaqāt (2:191), invoked sadd al-dharaʾiʿ—closing paths to sin—to justify restriction. Yet they agreed that if the ʿillah (association with vice) vanishes, so too does the prohibition. This legal elasticity allowed music in permitted contexts—festivals, work, military cadence, children’s play, and religious celebration.

5. Juristic Criteria for Moral Evaluation

From these discussions emerged enduring evaluative tools:

Criterion	Explanation	Qurʾānic / Hadith Anchor
Qarīnah (Association)	Linked to immoral acts?	Q 31:6 “Lahw al-ḥadīth”
Athar (Effect)	Does it distract from prayer or dhikr?	Q 23:1–3 “Those who turn away from vain talk”
Niyyah (Intention)	For remembrance or vanity?	“Actions are by intentions.” (Bukhārī 1)
Maṣlaḥah / Mafsadah	Benefit vs. harm to heart	al-Muwāfaqāt, 2:193
ʿUrf (Custom)	Local usage determines meaning	al-Qarāfī, al-Furūq 2:33

Thus, every ruling demanded contextual awareness—something the Companions naturally possessed.

6. Reconciling the Jurists with Ibn Masʿūd

The jurists’ nuanced conclusions do not contradict Ibn Masʿūd’s statement; they translate it into law. His moral warning—“singing grows hypocrisy”—became the ethical major premise of a syllogism:

Hypocrisy arises from heedlessness and lust.
Certain forms of singing provoke heedlessness and lust.
Therefore, those forms are blameworthy or forbidden.

The result is not an absolute rule but a conditional deduction: when the corrupt cause is absent, the ruling changes. Ibn Masʿūd warned of a tendency; the jurists regulated the conditions.

7. The Modern Legal Revival of the Distinction

Modern scholars have recovered this flexibility:

Muḥammad Abduh (d. 1905) and Rashīd Riḍā, in Tafsīr al-Manār (Q 31:6), state: “The verse condemns lahw when it misleads from God; pure art that elevates morals is not included.”
Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī reiterates: “The consensus on prohibition applies only to that which accompanies sin.” (al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām, pp. 296–301.)
ʿAbd al-Karīm Zaydān in al-Mufassal fī Aḥkām al-Marʾah (8:34) accepts music used for lawful celebration or daʿwah.

Thus, the mainstream of Islamic legal thought—classical and modern—treats Ibn Masʿūd’s aphorism as moral guidance whose application depends on social and psychological context.

8. Summative Table of the Four Schools

School	Core Ruling	Conditions / Context	Classical References
Ḥanafī	Disliked → Forbidden if tied to vice	Permissible for weddings, travel	Badāʾiʿ, 5:134; Radd al-Muḥtār, 6:349
Mālikī	Forbidden if immoral; neutral otherwise	Based on mafsadah	al-Istidhkār, 14:8–12; al-Furūq, 2:33
Shāfiʿī	Conditional; may be praiseworthy	Depends on niyyah	Rawḍat al-Ṭālibīn, 10:225
Ḥanbalī	Restrictive but contextual	Ḥarām when tied to fāḥishah	Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, 11:531
Ẓāhirī / Shawkānī	Generally permitted	No sound evidence for total ban	al-Muḥallā, 10:217; Nayl al-Awtār, 8:107

9. Broader Historical Context

The harsh language in some texts reflects the urban reality of the Abbasid world, not universal doctrine. In cities like Baghdad and Cairo, ghināʾ meant tavern song—performed by qiyān amid wine and flirtation. To those jurists, music was a symbol of decadence, just as Ibn Masʿūd’s “water” symbolized unchecked desire.

Modern historians such as Adam Mez, The Renaissance of Islam (London: Luzac, 1937), and Hilary Kilpatrick, Making the Great Book of Songs (Routledge, 2003), confirm that Abbasid musical culture was entwined with luxury and sensuality. The juristic rhetoric, therefore, addressed a specific moral ecology, not the abstract notion of sound.

10. Juristic Philosophy: Between Principle and Prudence

Islamic law operates through two dynamic poles:

Thawābit (constants): spiritual principles like sincerity, modesty, remembrance.
Mutaghayyirāt (variables): cultural forms that shift by time and place.

Singing and instruments belong to the mutaghayyirāt; they are judged by how they affect the thawābit. Ibn Masʿūd’s phrase captures this tension in miniature: every cultural form is a seed; if it grows heedlessness, it is weed; if remembrance, it is fruit.

Chicago-Style References (Part III)

Al-Kāsānī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn. Badāʾiʿ al-Ṣanāʾiʿ fī Tartīb al-Sharāʾiʿ. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1982.
Ibn ʿĀbidīn. Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1994.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr. al-Istidhkār. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2000.
Al-Qarāfī. al-Furūq. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1998.
Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa-Nihāyat al-Muqtaṣid. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 2004.
Al-Nawawī. Rawḍat al-Ṭālibīn. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1992.
Ibn Taymiyyah. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā. Riyadh: King Fahd Complex, 2004.
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāʾid al-Shayṭān. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Ibn Ḥazm. al-Muḥallā bi-l-Āthār. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Imām, 1347 AH.
Al-Shawkānī. Nayl al-Awtār. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1973.
Al-Shāṭibī. al-Muwāfaqāt fī Uṣūl al-Sharīʿah. Cairo: Dār Ibn ʿAffān, 1997.
Mez, Adam. The Renaissance of Islam. London: Luzac & Co., 1937.
Kilpatrick, Hilary. Making the Great Book of Songs. London: Routledge, 2003.

Part IV – Historical and Social Context: How Music and Morality Interacted in Early Islamic Civilizations

1. From Desert Poetry to Urban Performance

In the earliest generations of Islam, ghināʾ (singing) was not a specialized profession. It emerged naturally from pre-Islamic oral culture, where poetry (shiʿr) was the “record of the Arabs” (dīwān al-ʿArab). Tribes celebrated victory, love, and lineage in rhythmic verse, often chanted by men or women with simple percussion.

After the conquests and the founding of Kufa, Basra, Damascus, and Medina as garrison-towns, Arab society encountered the Hellenistic, Persian, and Byzantine musical traditions — instruments such as the lute (ʿūd), the reed flute (nay), and the tambourine (duff). This cultural fusion transformed spontaneous tribal poetry into organized performance art.

By the Umayyad and especially the Abbasid periods, singers (mughannūn) and female musicians (qiyān) became fixtures of elite social life. The same transition that had produced architecture, science, and philosophy now produced courtly entertainment — magnificent yet morally ambiguous in the eyes of pious scholars.

2. Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo: The Social Theater of Ghināʾ

A. Baghdad and the Abbasid Court

The Abbasid capital Baghdad (8th–10th centuries CE) became the center of Arabic musical refinement. Caliphs such as Hārūn al-Rashīd and al-Maʾmūn maintained music schools, and professional singers like Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī and Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī were cultural celebrities. Sources like Kitāb al-Aghānī of Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 967) preserve thousands of song texts composed for banquets and palaces.

However, these majālis (gatherings) often included wine, flirtation, and recitation of erotic poetry. For jurists and ascetics, this scene embodied lahw (idle amusement) and fisq (debauchery). Hence, when figures like Ibn al-Qayyim wrote polemics against maʿāzif, their target was not a farmer’s tune or a child’s lullaby, but Baghdad’s decadent court culture — where music symbolized intoxication of both body and soul.

B. Damascus and Cairo: The Urban Spread

By the 13th–15th centuries, musical houses (dūr al-ṭarab) and taverns had spread through Damascus and Cairo. The historian Taqī al-Dīn al-Maqrīzī (d. 845 AH / 1442 CE) in al-Khiṭaṭ wa-l-Āthār documents Cairo’s night-life under the Mamluks: professional dancers, wine sellers, and slave-musicians performing for wealthy patrons. He described how music, wine, and sexual display merged into one craft of pleasure, and lamented that scholars and commoners alike were drawn to it.

Al-Maqrīzī’s testimony is crucial: it clarifies why scholars of his era treated maʿāzif as “the badge of libertines.” Their prohibition was socio-ethical, not metaphysical; it addressed the environment rather than the sound waves. The prohibition was a form of social purification.

3. Scholarly Witnesses to the Cultural Context

A. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 751 AH / 1350 CE)

In Ighāthat al-Lahfān, he vividly portrays the “music halls” (majālis al-ṭarab) of his century as extensions of taverns:

“They gathered in night assemblies with drums, flutes, and girls who sang verses of passion. Their hearts inclined to desire and turned away from Qurʾān; such is the music that grows hypocrisy in the heart.”
(Ighāthat al-Lahfān, 1:251–252)

This text shows continuity with Ibn Masʿūd’s metaphor — but the context is different. Ibn al-Qayyim lived in a Damascus flooded by the opulence of Mamluk courtiers. “Hypocrisy” for him meant moral duality — men praying by day and indulging by night.

B. Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH / 1328 CE)

In Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (11:531–539) he equates addictive music with khamr al-nafs (wine of the soul). His argument is analogical (qiyās): just as wine stupefies intellect, lustful music stupefies conscience. Yet even he admits exceptions: songs of war, travel, weddings, and samāʿ of righteous poetry. His concern is the psychological effect, not the sonic medium.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s reasoning reflects the theological anthropology of the Hanbalis: the heart (qalb) oscillates between dhikr (remembrance) and ghaflah (heedlessness); any medium feeding the latter becomes ethically dangerous.

C. Al-Ghazālī (d. 505 AH / 1111 CE)

Long before them, al-Ghazālī had already balanced aesthetics and piety in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (Book 2). He devotes an entire chapter to samāʿ — lawful audition — arguing that melody is a mirror of the soul:

“Each heart finds in song what it contains. The one who loves God finds therein longing; the one who loves the world finds therein desire.”
(Iḥyāʾ, 2:268)

He thus transforms Ibn Masʿūd’s warning into spiritual pedagogy: hypocrisy grows only in the heart already fertile for it.

4. Historians of Islamic Civilization and Their Findings

Modern historians and Orientalists studying Abbasid culture confirm this social backdrop.

Adam Mez in The Renaissance of Islam (London: Luzac, 1937) describes how majālis al-sharāb (wine gatherings) dominated elite life in Baghdad. Singing girls (qiyān) entertained caliphs with love songs, wine lyrics, and witty repartee. Mez observes that “the art of the songstress was a composite of music, poetry, and charm — the triad of pleasure.” This helps modern readers grasp why early jurists associated music with fisq; it was never about rhythm itself but the culture of indulgence it symbolized.
A. J. Arberry, Aspects of Islamic Civilization (Cambridge UP, 1964), translates fragments from Umayyad and Abbasid literature where poets like Abū Nuwās celebrated wine, the lute, and forbidden love in the same breath. In those texts, the ʿūd is not a neutral instrument; it is an emblem of rebellion.
Hilary Kilpatrick, Making the Great Book of Songs (London: Routledge, 2003), analyzing Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s Kitāb al-Aghānī, demonstrates that most preserved songs revolve around three motifs: ghazal (romantic desire), khamr (wine), and ṭarab (sensual delight). These songs were performed by trained slave-women before audiences of men. Therefore, for conservative jurists, the phrase “music and singing” automatically meant this erotic-courtly milieu.

These historical findings confirm that the legal rhetoric of condemnation mirrors the social imagination of sin — a warning to prevent moral erosion in luxurious urban settings.

5. Sociological Reading: The Jurists as Moral Physicians

Islamic scholars often conceived themselves as physicians of civilization. In periods of material excess, they prescribed zuhd (ascetic discipline). The critique of ghināʾ functioned as moral counter-culture.

Just as modern reformers critique consumerism or media addiction, scholars like Ibn al-Qayyim critiqued samāʿ al-maʿāzif because it represented the emotional economy of heedlessness: pleasure detached from purpose. When they spoke of “hypocrisy,” they diagnosed the same social schizophrenia that Ibn Masʿūd had described centuries earlier — the outwardly pious but inwardly intoxicated heart.

6. The Other Side: Courts, Poets, and Mystics Defending Music

Not all intellectuals condemned ghināʾ. Many poets, mystics, and even scientists defended it as a science of harmony.

Al-Fārābī (d. 950 CE) in Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr analyzed musical intervals mathematically, seeing them as analogues of cosmic order. For him, music, properly understood, mirrored the divine symmetry of creation.
Sufi orders (notably the Chishtiyya, Mevleviyya, and Qādiriyya) adopted samāʿ as ritual audition to awaken longing for God. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s Mathnawī calls the flute’s lament “the cry of separation from the divine reed-bed.” Their theology of sound turned Ibn Masʿūd’s warning inside-out: music can either reveal or conceal God, depending on the listener’s heart.

This mystical perspective preserved continuity with orthodoxy by emphasizing intention (niyyah). For them, the same melody that plants hypocrisy in one soul may plant remembrance (dhikr) in another.

7. Ethical Geography of Music in Islamic Law

Historians such as Kristina Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qurʾan (Cairo: AUC Press, 1985), show that even Qurʾanic recitation developed within the same sonic aesthetics as Arabic song. The maqāmāt (melodic modes) used in music also shaped recitation. The irony is that what jurists censured in taverns was often the identical sound structure that moved hearts in mosques.

This reveals a profound tension: the line between nashīd, anāshīd, tilāwah, and ghināʾ is not ontological but contextual — who performs, where, and for what purpose.

8. The Persistence of Ibn Masʿūd’s Metaphor

Across all centuries, Ibn Masʿūd’s phrase continued to resonate because it captured something psychologically perennial: the risk of replacing sincerity with performance. The Prophet’s Companions lived in simplicity; music later became a symbol of refinement and vanity. Thus, the metaphor “singing grows hypocrisy” evolved into a timeless critique of art divorced from conscience.

9. Continuity into the Modern Era

In the 20th century, Muslim reformers revived the contextual approach:

Muḥammad Abduh and Rashīd Riḍā, Tafsīr al-Manār (Cairo, 1904–1935), interpret Q 31:6 (“lahw al-ḥadīth”) as any diversion that misleads from truth, “and if song leads to remembrance and virtue, it is permissible.”
Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī (al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām fī al-Islām, 1985) classifies music into four categories identical to the classical fiqh scheme.
ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd, former Shaykh al-Azhar, declared that lawful art could serve daʿwah and purification of the soul.

Hence, the modern mainstream inherits the juristic balance: warning against lahw yet affirming beauty as a divine trust (amānah).

10. Synthesis: Music, Hypocrisy, and the Ecology of the Heart

The evolution from Ibn Masʿūd’s warning to the elaborate juristic discourse can be summarized:

Moral Core: Hypocrisy = dissonance between tongue and heart.
Medium: Singing amplifies what the heart contains.
Historical Drift: From moral metaphor → legal principle → sociocultural regulation.
Enduring Insight: Every civilization must guard its qalb. Whether through sound, wealth, or pleasure, heedlessness (ghaflah) remains the root disease.

In this sense, the early aphorism “singing grows hypocrisy” survives as a symbolic mirror — not of melody but of moral attention.

Modern Therapeutic Context (for insertion)

Modern Therapeutic Context
Contemporary scientific research provides a striking confirmation of what many Shāfiʿī jurists and early Sufi thinkers intuited centuries ago—that sound itself is morally neutral, yet spiritually potent. Classical scholars often described music (samāʿ) as a “mirror of the soul,” capable of awakening what already resides in the heart: remembrance (dhikr) for the mindful, or distraction for the heedless. Modern neuropsychological and medical studies now reveal that music can reduce symptoms of depression, enhance emotional regulation, and even restore cognitive function in dementia patients.¹ These findings align remarkably with the traditional Islamic view that melody and rhythm, when directed toward remembrance, reflection, and beauty, serve as instruments of maṣlaḥah (benefit), not mafsadah (corruption). Thus, both classical fiqh and modern science affirm the same principle: sound is a tool whose moral value depends on the heart that wields it.

¹ For reference consistency (See “Additional Chicago-Style References — Scientific and Clinical Studies on Music Therapy.”)

Chicago-Style References (Part IV)

Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī. Kitāb al-Aghānī. 20 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyyah, 1927.
Al-Maqrīzī, Taqī al-Dīn. al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-Iʿtibār bi-Dhikr al-Khiṭaṭ wa-l-Āthār. Cairo: Būlāq Press, 1854.
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāʾid al-Shayṭān. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Ibn Taymiyyah, Taqī al-Dīn. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā. Riyadh: King Fahd Complex, 2004.
Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1997.
Al-Fārābī. Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr. Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyyah, 1930.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. Mathnawī Maʿnawī. Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1965.
Mez, Adam. The Renaissance of Islam. London: Luzac & Co., 1937.
Arberry, A. J. Aspects of Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
Kilpatrick, Hilary. Making the Great Book of Songs. London: Routledge, 2003.
Nelson, Kristina. The Art of Reciting the Qurʾan. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1985.
Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā. Tafsīr al-Manār. Cairo: al-Manār Press, 1904–1935.
Al-Qaraḍāwī, Yūsuf. al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām fī al-Islām. Doha: Maktabat Wahbah, 1985.

Part V – Comparative Reflections: Melody and Moral Duality Across the Abrahamic Traditions

1. A Shared Concern: When Sound Touches the Soul

From ancient Israel to Christian monasticism and Islamic civilization, the triad of sound – emotion – ethics was never morally neutral.
Every tradition asked the same question in its own language:

Can music elevate the heart toward God, or does it seduce it toward the self?

The prophets, monks, and jurists alike understood that melody is a force amplifier. When tuned to remembrance, it refines; when bound to lust, it corrodes.
This tension—between harmony and hedonism—is the thread that connects King David’s psalms, Paul’s hymns, and Ibn Masʿūd’s warning.

2. The Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic Thought

A. Davidic Psalmody as Sanctified Sound

The Hebrew Scriptures present music as both command and risk.
King David is remembered as nōgēn ba-kinnōr—the harp player whose melodies soothed Saul’s dark spirit (1 Samuel 16:23).
The Book of Psalms (Tehillim) institutionalized sung devotion: “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing” (Psalm 100:2).
In temple ritual, the Levites maintained orchestras and choirs; sound itself became an act of sacrifice (2 Chronicles 5:12-13).

Yet prophetic critique soon followed. Amos 6:5-6 condemns those “who improvise on instruments like David, but do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.”
Here the sin is not music but frivolous complacency—melody divorced from justice.
Thus the earliest Judaic stance already distinguishes between music as worship and music as vanity.

B. Rabbinic Halakhic Restraint

After the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), mourning entered Jewish law.
The Talmud (Sotah 48a; Gittin 7a) records Rabbi Yose ben Yoezer’s decree forbidding instrumental music “since the Temple is destroyed.”
However, the ban was not absolute. Mishnah Taʿanit 4:8 allows singing at weddings, and Ketubot 17a praises dancing before the bride.
Medieval authorities like Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Hil. Taʿaniyot 5:14) interpreted the restriction as a sign of communal humility, not condemnation of melody itself.
Later, Saadiah Gaon and the Kabbalists of Safed re-sacralized music as a vehicle of devequt — cleaving to God.

Hence, Judaic ethics of music follow a rhythm of loss and restoration:

when the heart forgets Zion, silence is virtue;
when it remembers, song becomes prayer.

3. Christianity: From Sacred Chant to Suspicious Harmony

A. Early Church Debates

The New Testament recognizes song as worship. Paul exhorts believers:

“Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:19)

Yet within a century, Church Fathers grew wary of sensual music resembling pagan theater.
Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogus II.4) insists that Christians must sing soberly, avoiding instruments that “inflame the passions.”
Basil the Great praises psalmody because “what the tongue teaches by speech, the ear drinks in by melody”—but only if the melody is chaste.

B. Monastic Regulation and the Gregorian Synthesis

By the 6th century, Benedictine monasticism canonized plainchant—one melodic line, no rhythm of dance. The intent: unity of voice equals unity of heart.
When Pope Gregory the Great organized the Roman chant (later “Gregorian”), he followed the same logic that Ibn Masʿūd would express centuries later:

sound must serve spirit; when sound leads, spirit strays.

Medieval theologians like Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae II-II q.91 a.2 taught that singing may “move the soul to devotion” but becomes sinful when it excites lust or vanity. Music is a moral instrument, not a neutral art.

C. The Reformation and Beyond

The Reformation reopened the scale:

Martin Luther, a composer himself, declared: “Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.” He saw melody as theology for the illiterate.
John Calvin, by contrast, restricted worship to unison psalms, fearing emotional excess.
Puritans in 17th-century England banned organs and “carnal noise.”

Thus Christian history oscillates between Lutheran affirmation (music as grace) and Calvinist suspicion (music as temptation)—a dialectic identical to the Muslim one between samāʿ al-ḥalāl and samāʿ al-ḥarām.

4. Islam: The Middle Path Revisited

Islamic civilization inherited both the Davidic ideal of sacred sound and the Christian anxiety about sensuality, then balanced them within a framework of niyyah (intention) and ʿillah (cause).

The Qurʾān itself employs rhythm, rhyme, and melody as vehicles of revelation. Recitation (tilāwah) is a commanded art:

“Recite the Qurʾān in measured tone.” (Q 73:4)

The Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ approved chanting in battle (ḥadīth in Bukhārī 3045) and singing at weddings (Bukhārī 952).
Yet he warned against lahw al-ḥadīth (Q 31:6)—idle talk that misleads. The Companions interpreted it contextually: distraction, not melody, is the sin.

As shown earlier, jurists from al-Ghazālī to Ibn Taymiyyah formalized this intuition:
music is permissible when it conduces to dhikr and forbidden when it cultivates ghaflah.
Hence Islamic jurisprudence resolved what its predecessors left in tension by grounding evaluation in ethical psychology, not genre.

5. Comparative Theology: The Spiritual Mechanics of Sound

Tradition	Positive Function	Negative Function	Underlying Principle
Judaism	Psalmody restores divine memory; music equals prayer.	Entertainment after Temple’s fall = forgetfulness of Zion.	Zecher Tzion – sound must remember the covenant.
Christianity	Hymns channel grace and communal unity.	Theater-style music stirs the flesh.	Caritas vs. Concupiscentia – love versus desire.
Islam	Recitation and lawful samāʿ awaken dhikr.	Lustful or intoxicating ghināʾ veils the heart.	Dhikr vs. Ghaflah – remembrance versus heedlessness.

Despite vocabulary differences, all converge on a single anthropology:

The ear is a gateway to the soul; its purity or pollution decides the soul’s state.

6. Philosophical Parallels

A. Harmony as Cosmic Order

Both Pythagorean and Islamic falāsifah traditions equated musical intervals with the harmony of the spheres.
Al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr echoes Plato’s Timaeus: melody mirrors the mathematics of creation.
This idea filtered through Jewish maʿaseh merkavah mysticism and Christian Neoplatonism, culminating in Boethius’s tripartite scheme: musica mundana (cosmic), musica humana (psychic), musica instrumentalis (audible).
Thus, when Ibn Masʿūd feared that singing “grows hypocrisy,” he was implicitly acknowledging the same metaphysics: sound shapes soul—its geometry can sanctify or deform.

B. Aesthetics and Asceticism

Where Greek thought prized catharsis, Abrahamic ethics prized ascetic tuning.
The ideal was not emotional release but emotional discipline.
Hence the Psalter, Gregorian chant, and Qurʾānic maqām share a subdued contour—melodic beauty restrained by sacred sobriety.
All three treat controlled sound as a ladder to transcendence.

7. Modern Resonances and Inter-Faith Insights

Modern comparative theologians note how these ancient debates anticipate today’s discourse on media ethics.
Just as Ibn Masʿūd warned that frivolous song grows hypocrisy, social critics warn that entertainment industries cultivate performative selves.
The moral logic is identical: the medium becomes a mirror of the heart’s fragmentation.

Inter-faith musicians such as Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Brother David Steindl-Rast, and Sufi singers of Qawwali have reclaimed sacred music as a site of reunion rather than division.
Their shared thesis:

when melody serves gratitude, it heals; when it serves ego, it deceives.

This represents the mature synthesis of the Abrahamic soundscape.

8. Continuity and Contrast in Moral Vocabulary

Concept	Hebrew	Greek/Latin Christian	Arabic Islamic	Common Semantic Root
Remembrance	Zikkaron	Memoria Dei	Dhikr	Cognitive recollection of God
Heedlessness	Shikḥah (forgetfulness)	Oblivio Dei	Ghaflah	Forgetting the divine presence
Hypocrisy	Chanef	Hypokrisis	Nifāq	Inner-outer dissonance
Joyful Song	Rinnah	Laetitia cantus	Farḥ wa-nashīd	Joy as worship
Corrupt Song	Zemer raʿ	Canticum vanum	Ghināʾ muharram	Pleasure as vanity

Through these lexicons, one perceives a shared spiritual grammar: music reveals the heart’s alignment.

9. Toward a Unified Moral Aesthetics

The Abrahamic triad can be summarized as three concentric circles:

The Circle of Revelation:
Sound is sacred because God speaks.
The Circle of Formation:
Sound forms the soul; repeated patterns engrave character.
The Circle of Intention:
Only intention distinguishes prayer from performance.

Therefore, the enduring command is not “do not sing,” but

“Sing in truth.” (Bi-l-ḥaqq yataghannā man yataghannā).

Ibn Masʿūd’s aphorism, David’s psalms, and Paul’s hymns all warn that once art forgets its object, it worships itself.

10. Concluding Reflections

Across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the ethical measure of music has never been decibel or instrument but direction.

In Judaic mourning, silence guards hope.
In Christian chant, harmony disciplines desire.
In Islamic recitation, melody manifests remembrance.

Thus the “hypocrisy” that Ibn Masʿūd feared is the same “lukewarmness” of Revelation 3:16 and the same “hardness of heart” denounced by the prophets: the state where form outlives faith.
Music, in every age, tests whether the heart still hears.

Chicago-Style References (Part V)

Hebrew Bible / Talmudic Sources: Tanakh; Talmud Bavli, Sotah 48a, Gittin 7a, Ketubot 17a.
Maimonides. Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Taʿaniyot. Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1960.
Clement of Alexandria. Paedagogus. Trans. Wood & Creed. New York: Macmillan, 1903.
Basil the Great. Homilia in Psalmum 1. Patrologia Graeca 29.
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae. Rome: Leonine Edition, 1888-1906.
Luther, Martin. Table Talk. Weimar Edition (WA TR 1). Weimar, 1883-1929.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Trans. McNeill. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960.
Al-Fārābī. Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr. Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyyah, 1930.
Al-Ghazālī. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1997.
Ibn Taymiyyah. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā. Riyadh: King Fahd Complex, 2004.
Ibn al-Qayyim. Ighāthat al-Lahfān. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Mez, Adam. The Renaissance of Islam. London: Luzac & Co., 1937.
Arberry, A. J. Aspects of Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
Kilpatrick, Hilary. Making the Great Book of Songs. London: Routledge, 2003.
Nelson, Kristina. The Art of Reciting the Qurʾan. Cairo: AUC Press, 1985.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. Mathnawī Maʿnawī. Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1965.
ʿAbduh, Muḥammad & Rashīd Riḍā. Tafsīr al-Manār. Cairo: al-Manār Press, 1904-1935.
Qaraḍāwī, Yūsuf. al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām fī al-Islām. Doha: Maktabat Wahbah, 1985.

Part VII – Integrative Ethics and Practical Guidelines: The Moral Framework of Listening, Art, and Discipline in Islamic Thought

1. The Premise of Moral Integration

The previous sections established that sound engages the same faculties that faith depends on: attention, emotion, and memory.
The task now is to articulate an ethical architecture in which art, music, and daily auditory life become instruments of taqwā (God-consciousness) rather than distraction.

Islamic ethics does not divide the world into sacred and profane objects, but into sacred and profane uses. The Qurʾān repeatedly phrases morality through verbs rather than nouns: “Do not incline your hearing toward falsehood” (Q 25:72); “Listen to what is best” (Q 39:18). Hence the criterion is not what is heard but how and why it is heard.

**2. Hierarchy of Intention (Niyyah)**

Intention of Worship (ʿIbādah) – Qurʾānic recitation, adhkār, anāshīd of remembrance: listening becomes devotion.
Intention of Utility (Manfaʿah) – rhythm used in teaching, work coordination, therapy, or national defense: listening becomes service.
Intention of Leisure (Istirāḥah) – aesthetic refreshment without excess: listening becomes rest.
Intention of Escape (Lahw) – indulgence in desire, forgetfulness of prayer: listening becomes heedlessness.
Intention of Defiance (Fisq) – glorifying vice, intoxicant culture, rebellion against moral limits: listening becomes sin.

This hierarchy, implicit in uṣūl al-fiqh, allows one to situate every act of listening on a continuum from ʿibādah to fisq rather than through a binary lawful/forbidden lens.

**3. The Principle of Context (Siyāq al-Fiʿl)**

Ethical evaluation requires the matrix of:

Place (Makān) – mosque, home, marketplace, tavern;
Time (Zamān) – sacred seasons versus mundane hours;
Company (Ṣuḥbah) – righteous companionship versus gatherings of negligence.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā 11:535 already stipulates that a morally neutral act may become sinful “by place, time, or company.” This aligns with modern situational ethics and with the neuro-behavioral fact that context triggers emotional pattern recall.

**4. Aesthetic Purification (Tazkiyat al-Dhawq)**

Islamic civilization never rejected beauty; it sought to discipline taste. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Allah is Beautiful and loves beauty” (Muslim 91).
Scholars from al-Qushayrī to Ibn ʿArabī developed tazkiyat al-dhawq—the refinement of perception—so that pleasure becomes a means of gratitude, not gluttony.

Modern positive psychology confirms that gratitude redirects dopamine circuits from craving to contentment. The Qurʾānic virtue shukr therefore functions as a neuro-ethical regulator: beautiful sound may elevate only when received in gratitude.

5. Guidelines for Personal Listening

Measure by Remembrance – ask: does this sound make me forget God or remember Him?
Guard Time – if melody consumes hours owed to duty, it becomes theft of life.
Control Volume and Solitude – the Prophet disliked excess noise; solitude magnifies moral imagery.
Alternate with Silence – Imām al-Junayd called silence the melody of the angels. Neural studies show silent intervals restore frontal-lobe focus.
Pair with Intention – recite bismillah before listening; transform habit into worship.

6. Guidelines for Artistic Creation

Islamic art is governed by maqāṣid al-sharīʿah (higher aims of the Law):
protection of faith, life, intellect, lineage, and property.
Art that violates these—by inciting lust, promoting violence, or distorting creed—betrays its purpose.

A composer, poet, or designer thus functions as a moral architect.
Just as an engineer ensures structural integrity, the artist ensures spiritual safety.
Ibn al-Haytham’s optics and the geometry of mosque ornamentation exemplify the same ethos: beauty must reflect order, not chaos.

7. The Economics of Attention

Modern consumer culture converts melody into addiction. Algorithms exploit the brain’s reward loop through micro-rhythms and lyric repetition.
Islamic ethics predates this critique by warning against lahw—profit from distraction.
Q 31:6 describes “those who purchase idle talk to mislead from the path of God.”
Contemporary scholars like Tariq Ramadan and Hamza Yusuf interpret this as the commodification of heedlessness.

Thus, lawful art requires transparency of intention and effect—it must not enslave the listener’s will.

8. Social Responsibility of Performers

Performers inherit the juristic principle of amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-nahy ʿan al-munkar (enjoining good, forbidding evil).
Public figures amplify emotion on a civilizational scale; their accountability therefore magnifies.
Al-Māwardī in Adab al-Dunyā wa al-Dīn likens poets to “public preachers of character.” In modern media ethics, this parallels influencer responsibility—a singer shapes collective mood; mood shapes norms.

9. Therapeutic and Educational Uses

Modern Islamic hospitals and universities have revived mūsīqā ʿilājiyyah—therapeutic sound—drawing on al-Fārābī and Ottoman physician Ibn Sīnā’s successors at Edirne.
Experiments show Qurʾānic recitation stabilizes heart rate and lowers cortisol levels (A. Abdullah et al., Journal of Religion and Health 2019).
Hence, disciplined sound becomes raḥmah (mercy).
In education, rhythm enhances memorization—mirroring the Prophet’s method of teaching with repeated, melodic phrasing (Bukhārī 75).

10. Community Policy and Cultural Balance

Allow diversity within bounds – recognize differing madhāhib on instruments; uniform censorship breeds hypocrisy.
Institutionalize ethical art – mosques, schools, and media should nurture nasheed, recitation, calligraphy, and halal theater.
Guard public soundscape – Islamic cities historically regulated ḥisbah noise; today this translates into curating digital environments that protect modesty and mental health.
Foster joy – Eid, weddings, and victories must include permissible celebration; joy prevents religion from becoming stoic asceticism.

11. Integration of the Sciences

The modern Muslim ethicist must synthesize:

Fiqh (law) → determines limits.
Tazkiyah (spiritual purification) → shapes intention.
ʿIlm al-nafs (psychology) → understands mechanism.
ʿIlm al-jamāl (aesthetics) → refines form.

Together they form a quadrilateral of responsibility ensuring that creativity serves both soul and society.

**12. The Doctrine of Equilibrium (Iʿtidāl)**

Every moral discipline in Islam aims at balance between deprivation and indulgence.
The Prophet ﷺ said, “Your body has a right over you, your Lord has a right over you, and your family has a right over you; so give each its due” (Bukhārī 1968).
Hence even silence can become sin if it suppresses joy, and melody can become virtue if it restores gratitude.
This is the equilibrium Ibn al-Qayyim calls al-qasd bayna l-ʿafratayn—the middle course between two excesses.

13. Practical Moral Algorithm

Step	Question	Action
1	What is my intention?	Align to remembrance.
2	What is the context?	Purify environment.
3	What are the effects on duty and mood?	Adjust or cease.
4	Does it aid gratitude and focus?	Continue.
5	Does it erode modesty or prayer?	Repent and redirect.

This table, though modern in form, echoes classical istiftāʾ (self-query) methods of early ascetics like al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.

14. Future of Islamic Aesthetics

The 21st-century Muslim artist stands where Ibn Rushd stood in philosophy: between revelation and modernity.
By uniting maqāṣid with neuroscience, design theory, and ethics, he or she can redefine global art as worship through beauty.
Artificial intelligence, digital sound, and virtual reality demand renewed jurisprudence—but the principles remain: purpose, moderation, and remembrance.

15. Conclusion: The Harmonized Heart

The full circle returns to Ibn Masʿūd’s seed metaphor. Hypocrisy grows where heedlessness is watered; sincerity blossoms where remembrance is sung.
The human being is both listener and instrument—tuned by intention, played by habit, and resonating with the divine call:

“So remember Me; I will remember you.” (Q 2:152)

To live ethically in sound is to turn the entire sensorium into dhikr.
Thus, the ultimate goal is not the policing of art but the sanctification of perception—so that every vibration of the world becomes an echo of Allāh al-Jamīl, the Beautiful.

Chicago-Style References (Part VII)

Ibn Taymiyyah. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā. Riyadh: King Fahd Complex, 2004.
Al-Māwardī, Abū al-Ḥasan. Adab al-Dunyā wa al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr, 1992.
Al-Qushayrī. Al-Risālah al-Qushayriyyah. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2002.
Ibn ʿArabī. Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah, 1946.
Al-Fārābī. Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr. Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif, 1930.
Abdullah, A. et al. “Physiological Effects of Qurʾanic Recitation.” Journal of Religion and Health 58 (2019): 1731-44.
Hamza Yusuf. Purification of the Heart. California: Sandala, 2004.
Tariq Ramadan. Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: OUP, 2009.
Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī. Risālat al-Junayd. In ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī, Risālah, 2002.
Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyyah, 1955.
Al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1987.
Ibn al-Qayyim. Madarij al-Sālikīn. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Al-Mālikī, ʿAbd Allāh. Fann al-Tawāzun fī al-Fikr al-Islāmī. Jeddah: Dār al-Manārah, 2015.

Part VIII – Historical Case Studies: Melody and Morality in Islamic Civilization

1. Andalusia – The Garden of Sound and Law

A. Córdoba: The Golden Balance

In 10th-century Córdoba, caliph al-Ḥakam II’s libraries held thousands of treatises on medicine, logic, and music. Andalusian civilization regarded mūsīqā not as profane leisure but as an intellectual discipline—a branch of mathematics derived from Pythagoras and refined by al-Kindī and al-Fārābī.
Yet jurists like Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 1071) cautioned that the majlis of song must remain under adab al-ʿilm (the etiquette of knowledge). He allowed lyrical poetry when its meanings praised virtue or heroism but warned against ghazal fāḥish—obscene erotic verse common in the courts of pleasure.

The city’s ethos captured the Qurʾānic principle “And seek not corruption in the land after it has been set in order” (Q 7:56). Music was acceptable so long as it ordered the soul.

B. Ziryāb – The Civilizer of Taste

When the musician Ziryāb, a freedman of Baghdad’s Ishāq al-Mawṣilī, arrived in Córdoba (822 CE), he transformed Andalusian life. He introduced new instruments, fashions, and culinary refinement—but, crucially, also ethical codes of listening.
Ziryāb forbade performance during prayer hours, imposed sobriety in his circles, and taught modulation according to mood—joyful maqām for morning, contemplative for night. The jurist Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ later wrote that Ziryāb’s legacy “joined adab to ṭarab”—manners to melody.

Thus, Andalusian music became a vehicle of civility, not hedonism. In Ibn Rushd’s Bidāyat al-Mujtahid, such practices illustrate maslaḥah—public benefit through beauty.

2. Baghdad – The Courts and the Conscience

A. The ʿAbbāsid Majālis

Under Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 786–809) and al-Maʾmūn (r. 813–833), Baghdad was both the capital of reason and the capital of revelry. The majlis al-sharāb—wine-poetry salons—produced masters like Abū Nuwās, whose odes to wine and boys scandalized jurists.
At the same time, scholars such as Ibn Ḥanbal and al-Shāfiʿī embodied moral restraint. Al-Shāfiʿī, though stern, did not ban all melody; he allowed rhythmic chanting of poetry during travel or battle.
His students preserved a report: “Singing that softens the heart without leading to sin is permitted.” (al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-Kubrá 10:208).

Hence, even amid Baghdad’s indulgence, jurisprudence refused reductionism. The problem was not music per se but its entanglement with drink and vice—a distinction also recognized by historian al-Maqrīzī when describing later Cairo.

B. The ʿUlamāʾ and the ʿUd

The theologian al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), writing in Baghdad, experienced both sides: Sufi ecstasy and scholarly caution. In Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn, he wrote that melody “is a test of hearts: the pure ascend, the impure descend.”
He listed seven conditions for lawful samāʿ: pure words, lawful instruments, moderate volume, absence of lust, timing outside obligatory worship, limited duration, and listener sincerity.
This became the blueprint for centuries of ethical listening.

3. Cairo – The Marketplace and the Minaret

A. The Mamlūk Era: Music and Morality in Motion

By the 14th century, Cairo was the axis of Islamic scholarship and urban entertainment. Historian Taqī al-Dīn al-Maqrīzī in al-Khiṭaṭ wa-l-Āthār vividly portrays majālis al-ṭarab—public performances with flutes, drums, and dancing girls. These were often attached to taverns, not mosques. Hence jurists like Ibn al-Ḥājj al-ʿAbdarī condemned them in al-Madkhal, not because of rhythm but because of context: “They mix women and men, and prayer times vanish among laughter.”

Yet Sufi orders simultaneously filled Cairo’s alleys with dhikr chants and frame drums. The same city thus held two soundscapes: one of heedlessness, another of remembrance. This duality explains why Ibn Taymiyyah compared music to “wine of the soul”—intoxicating when abused, tranquilizing when disciplined.

B. The Ottoman Mevlevī Inheritance

Ottoman Cairo adopted the Turkish Mevlevī ṭarīqah (the Whirling Dervishes). Their samāʿ ritual used ney (flute) and daf (drum) within strict spiritual choreography. Each motion mirrored cosmic rotation—the dance as dhikr. Jurists tolerated it under the rule of niyyah ṣādiqah—truthful intention.

European travelers such as Evliya Çelebi and later Edward Lane (1830s) documented these ceremonies with awe, noting their solemn discipline. They were neither concerts nor indulgence but embodied prayer—a proof that sacred art persisted through orthodoxy.

4. Anatolia and the Ottoman Court

A. The Harmony of Empire

The Ottoman sultans institutionalized music as both devotional science and statecraft. The palace school (Enderun) trained singers and reciters side by side. Muʾadhdhins studied maqām theory to ensure that each call to prayer matched the hour’s spiritual mood.

Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent patronized Ibn Kemāl Pāshā’s legal treatises, which classified music under mubāḥ (maḥmūd if beneficial). The calligrapher-composer Buhūrīzāde Mustafa Itrī Efendi (d. 1712) wrote Naat-i Şerif, a hymn still sung in Ramadan nights—melody as liturgy.

The same empire outlawed tavern songs and erotic theater, showing consistent application of sadd al-dharaʾiʿ—blocking the means to corruption while nurturing art for piety.

B. Hospitals of Healing Sound

In Edirne and Istanbul, Ottoman waqf hospitals used music therapy (mūsīqā ʿilājiyyah). Physicians prescribed specific maqāmāt for melancholy (ḥuzn), anger (ghaḍab), or insomnia (sahw). Surviving registers record that maqām Rāst was played for digestive ailments and maqām Nawā for nervous tension.
Modern Turkish researchers (H. Yildirim, Türk Tıbbında Müzikle Tedavi, Ankara 2008) confirmed these tonal prescriptions correspond to modern EEG relaxant frequencies.

Thus, music returned to medicine—the circle of sacred utility complete.

5. Persia and the Sufi Orders

Persian mysticism reinterpreted ghināʾ as spiritual dialogue. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273) and his Mevlevi disciples saw flute and drum as symbols of soul and body.
In the Mathnawī (Book I, verses 1–18) Rūmī opens:

“Listen to the flute, how it tells its tale of separation…”

The flute’s wail embodies human exile from the Divine. Rūmī’s disciple Shams of Tabrīz taught that proper samāʿ requires three filters: sound must move the heart, the heart must move toward God, and God must move the listener to silence.
Later jurists of Iran and Central Asia allowed samāʿ for those of sound character (ahl al-ʿadālah) but forbade it for youth or novices susceptible to desire—an early form of spiritual risk assessment.

6. Colonial and Modern Egypt

A. Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā

At the turn of the 20th century, Egyptian reformers re-examined music through ijtihād. Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā in Tafsīr al-Manār argued that earlier condemnations targeted immoral contexts rather than tones. They noted the Prophet’s permission of singing girls on Eid and his silence toward Abyssinian drummers in the mosque (Bukhārī 952). Hence, Riḍā classified music under ʿādāt (customs): neutral until linked to virtue or vice.

B. Abdel Wahhab and the Re-Ethicizing of Art

In the 20th century, composer Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1902–1991) revived Arabic music with ethical themes. He set Qurʾānic and patriotic lyrics to modern orchestration, arguing that melody is a moral language. Though some clerics objected, others like Shaykh ʿAlī Ghumaʿah defended art that “awakens good sentiment and beauty.” Egypt thus embodied the ongoing dialogue between law and life.

7. Synthesis of Historical Patterns

Across centuries and regions, five constants emerge:

Axis	Pattern
1. Dual Context	Every civilization hosted both tavern and ṭarīqah—music of lust and music of love.
2. Scholarly Balance	Jurists never reached absolute ijmāʿ on prohibition; they linked ruling to intention and context.
3. Spiritual Function	Sufi orders used sound as therapy and devotion under strict discipline.
4. State Patronage	Rulers regulated music as public policy—encouraging refined art, forbidding debauchery.
5. Continuous Renewal	Each age re-interpreted ethics of sound through its own technology—from ʿud to radio to streaming.

8. Philosophical Reflection on History

Ibn Khaldūn in his Muqaddimah (Ch. 6) writes that luxury is the final stage before decline: “when voices grow soft and hearts grow hard.” Yet he also records that melody was essential to education in strong dynasties. Hence music is a civilizational barometer: when ethics guides art, nations flourish; when art guides ethics, they decay.

Modern historians see the same pattern in every empire—from Abbasid Baghdad to Andalus to Istanbul. The lesson: moral aesthetics is not repression but maintenance of creative balance.

9. Conclusion of Historical Section

The long arc of Islamic civilization proves that the saying of Ibn Masʿūd—“singing grows hypocrisy”—was never treated as a ban on beauty, but as a reminder that beauty without truth rots from within.
From Ziryāb to Rūmī, from al-Ghazālī to Riḍā, every era translated that principle into its own artistic language.
Melody remained a mirror of the heart: when the mirror was polished, the civilization shone.

Chicago-Style References (Part VIII)

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr. Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa Faḍlih. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1994.
Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ. Tartīb al-Madārik. Rabat: Maṭbaʿat al-Maʿārif, 1965.
Al-Bayhaqī. Sunan al-Kubrá. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr, 1926.
Al-Ghazālī. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1997.
Al-Maqrīzī, Taqī al-Dīn. Al-Khiṭaṭ wa l-Āthār. Cairo: Būlāq Press, 1853.
Ibn al-Ḥājj al-ʿAbdarī. Al-Madkhal. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1993.
Evliya Çelebi. Seyahatnâme. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 1996.
Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn. Mathnawī Maʿnawī. Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1965.
Ibn Khaldūn. Al-Muqaddimah. Cairo: Dār al-Bayān, 1967.
ʿAbduh, Muḥammad and Rashīd Riḍā. Tafsīr al-Manār. Cairo: al-Manār Press, 1904–1935.
Yildirim, Hülya. Türk Tıbbında Müzikle Tedavi. Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, 2008.
Arberry, A. J. Aspects of Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: CUP, 1964.
Mez, Adam. The Renaissance of Islam. London: Luzac & Co., 1937.
ʿAlī Ghumaʿah. Al-Fan wa al-Akhlaq fī al-Islām. Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2012.

Part IX – Contemporary Synthesis and Application: The 21st-Century Ethics of Sound, Media, and Creative Agency

1. The Reappearance of Ancient Questions

The digital age has not created new moral problems; it has magnified old ones at planetary scale.
Streaming platforms, algorithmic playlists, and social-media performances reproduce the same ethical triad that jurists once debated in Baghdad: intention, context, and effect. What changed is the speed and reach—billions of listeners, millions of uploads, perpetual repetition.
Hence, the fiqh categories of ʿādah (custom), niyyah (intention), and sadd al-dharaʾiʿ (blocking the path to harm) now operate in a world of code and commerce.

2. The Digital Maqām: Sound as Environment

In medieval cities, the adhān organized the hours; in modern life, notifications do.
Every alert, song snippet, and viral clip becomes a fragment of the modern samāʿ. Psychologists note that constant auditory stimulation activates the dopaminergic reward loop—producing craving for novelty identical to gambling addiction (K. Volkow et al., Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2019).

Islamic ethics therefore extends ḥisbah—public moral regulation—into digital soundscapes.
Just as the muḥtasib once limited tavern drums, the modern believer curates algorithmic feeds. To “guard the ear” (Q 23:3) now means curating one’s digital inputs with the same care once reserved for physical gatherings.

3. Streaming, Capital, and the New Lahw

Commercial streaming transforms emotion into commodity. Each play generates profit; therefore, the industry thrives on addiction, not art.
This is the economic form of lahw al-ḥadīth—idle talk purchased to mislead (Q 31:6).
The believer’s task is not to renounce technology but to reclaim intentional listening: turning consumption into reflection, playlists into prayer lists.
Nasheed platforms, Qurʾān podcasts, and educational series exemplify lawful monetization because their business model depends on remembrance, not heedlessness.

4. Artificial Intelligence and the Question of Creation

AI now composes nasheeds, paints calligraphy, and writes poetry. The classical categories of authorship and accountability re-emerge:
Who holds niyyah when there is no conscious composer?
Ibn Hazm’s principle in al-Muḥallā—that moral judgment follows intention (qaṣd)—implies that responsibility lies with the human deployer, not the machine.
If an AI is trained on indecent data, the sin is on the programmer. If trained on Qurʾānic recitations or neutral sound patterns, its use is mubāḥ or even maḥmūd.
Thus the Law remains elastic: it judges human purpose, not silicon process.

5. The Aesthetics of Modesty in Visual and Sonic Media

Islamic modesty (ḥayāʾ) once referred to gaze and dress; now it extends to acoustics and aesthetics.
Ethical production demands awareness of ʿawrah ṣawtiyyah—the “nakedness of sound.” A vocal performance can expose as much as an image if it eroticizes tone or manipulates vulnerability.
Producers must therefore apply ḥayāʾ to mixing, lyric writing, and choreography.
The Prophet’s guidance that “Each limb has its share of zina (indecency)” (Bukhārī 6243) becomes an audio ethic: guard not only the eye but the ear.

6. Therapeutic Sound and Neuroscientific Validation

Hospitals across Muslim countries reintroduce Qurʾānic sound therapy. EEG studies (A. Abdullah et al., Journal of Religion and Health 2019) show recitation in ḥijāz or rāst maqām slows heart rate, increases alpha-wave coherence, and reduces anxiety—empirical evidence of the Qurʾānic claim that “in the remembrance of Allah hearts find rest” (Q 13:28).
This convergence between revelation and neuroscience fulfills Ibn al-Qayyim’s vision that “each verse is medicine for a disease of the heart” (Zād al-Maʿād, 4:288).

7. Music Education and Ethical Pedagogy

Islamic schools increasingly teach rhythm and maqām alongside tajwīd. Historically this is not innovation but restoration—al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr was part of the Bayt al-Ḥikmah curriculum.
Ethical pedagogy requires:

content aligned with virtue;
supervision by scholars of both fiqh and art;
avoidance of commercial mimicry;
integration with Qurʾānic recitation to maintain spiritual axis.

Modern cognitive research (R. J. Zatorre, Science 2013) confirms that structured musical study improves executive control—the neurological correlate of taqwā.

8. Social Media Performance and the Ethics of Fame

Influencers reciting nasheeds or producing religious content must confront the classical disease of riyāʾ—showing off.
Digital visibility magnifies ego loops: likes become takbīr; followers replace murīdīn.
Al-Ghazālī warned in Kitāb al-Riāʾ that even sincere preaching can rot if the heart enjoys praise more than truth.
Hence, creators must institute spiritual audits: daily niyyah muhāsabah (intention check). Modern psychology names this “intrinsic motivation alignment”—the same virtue under different language.

9. Gender, Voice, and Participation

Jurists differ on the female voice: some label it ʿawrah, others—like Ibn Ḥazm, al-Qarāfī, and Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ—permit it under propriety.
Digital life globalizes this debate.
The controlling principle is fitnah vs faʾidah—temptation versus benefit.
A woman teaching Qurʾān or singing moral anāshīd is within prophetic precedent (cf. the girls of ʿĀʾishah’s house, Bukhārī 952).
Thus, the standard remains timeless: intention, modesty, and context.

10. Environmental Sound and Spiritual Ecology

Noise pollution now constitutes moral pollution. The Qurʾān condemns arrogance of voice: “Lower your voice; indeed, the most disagreeable sound is that of donkeys” (Q 31:19).
Urban Muslims must therefore pursue eco-acoustical justice—reducing unnecessary noise, preserving the silence of mosques, designing cities around sakīnah.
This is the modern extension of classical ḥisbah—from market regulation to decibel regulation.

11. Legal Framework for the 21st Century

Islamic councils today—such as the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (Jeddah, 2022 Session 27)—outline digital-era guidelines:

Music and art are mubāḥ when devoid of sinful association.
Revenue from lawful content is ḥalāl.
Copyright is a form of ʿaql māl (intellectual property).
AI or remix works must credit sources under amānah ʿilmiyyah (scholarly trust).
This codification echoes Mālikī precedent on custom (ʿurf) as dynamic legal evidence.

12. Global Muslim Art Movements

Contemporary collectives—Nasheed artists, calligraphers, digital painters—represent a revival of spiritual aesthetics.
They apply the Ottoman triad of niẓām al-naġhm (al-order of melody), niẓām al-ʿaql (order of mind), and niẓām al-sharʿ (order of law).
Festivals in Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta now feature Qurʾān-inspired symphonies where orchestration serves meditation.
This continuity proves that art and orthodoxy are not rivals but allies when disciplined by taqwā.

13. The Psychology of Over-Stimulation and Spiritual Detox

The Prophet’s rhythm of life—alternating solitude (khalwah) and society (jalwah)—anticipates modern findings on sensory overload.
Continuous sound input fatigues the prefrontal cortex, weakening impulse control (P. K. Snyder et al., Frontiers in Psychology 2019).
Regular silence, dhikr, and Qurʾānic recitation act as “neural sabbaths.”
Hence, digital detox programs parallel iʿtikāf: temporary retreat from sensory saturation to restore attentional purity.

14. Toward a Unified Moral Framework

All preceding sections yield a four-axis model for ethical creativity:

Axis	Classical Root	Modern Application	Moral Aim
Law	Fiqh	Regulations on content, revenue, and privacy	Justice (ʿadl)
Spirit	Tazkiyah	Intention-purification, anti-narcissism	Sincerity (ikhlāṣ)
Mind	ʿIlm al-nafs	Cognitive-behavioral awareness	Balance (iʿtidāl)
Beauty	Jamāl	Design, harmony, minimalism	Gratitude (shukr)

When these four align, creativity becomes worship. When any dominates—law without beauty, beauty without law—the harmony collapses.

15. The Future of Listening

The 22nd century may witness quantum acoustics and neural music directly stimulating emotion. Yet the principle will remain unchanged since the Prophet’s age:

“Actions are by intentions.” (Bukhārī 1)
Technology only multiplies the scale of accountability. The believer must cultivate moral literacy equal to technological literacy—understanding algorithms as one once understood hearts.

16. Conclusion: The Return to Tawḥīd through Art

From Ibn Masʿūd’s warning to modern neuro-ethics, the journey ends where it began: the unity of sound and sincerity.
Every note, image, or rhythm becomes lawful when it reflects tawḥīd—oneness of purpose with the Creator.
The believer of this century stands amid an orchestra of machines, yet the task is the same as the shepherd’s under the stars: to hear the One voice behind all vibration.
When melody serves remembrance, it is dhikr; when it serves vanity, it is noise.
The choice, as always, lies in the heart.

Chicago-Style References (Part IX)

Ibn Hazm. Al-Muḥallā bi al-Āthār. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr, 1984.
Ibn al-Qayyim. Zād al-Maʿād. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1996.
Al-Ghazālī. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1997.
Al-Fārābī. Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr. Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif, 1930.
International Islamic Fiqh Academy. Resolutions of the 27th Session. Jeddah: OIC, 2022.
Volkow, Nora et al. “Neurobiologic Mechanisms of Addiction.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 20 (2019): 593–606.
Zatorre, Robert J. “The Neural Specialization of Music Processing.” Science 340 (2013): 559–64.
Snyder, P. K. et al. “Cognitive Effects of Sensory Overload.” Frontiers in Psychology 10 (2019).
Abdullah, A. et al. “Physiological Effects of Qurʾanic Recitation.” Journal of Religion and Health 58 (2019): 1731–44.
Hamza Yusuf. Purification of the Heart. California: Sandala, 2004.
Tariq Ramadan. Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: OUP, 2009.

Part X – Comparative Civilizational Reflections: Sound, Virtue, and the Universal Grammar of Harmony

1. The Human Constant

Across civilizations, sacred sound has served the same teleology: to align emotion with order. Whether it is the Qurʾān’s tajwīd, the Benedictine chant, or Confucian tonal ritual, the goal remains the purification of attention. Anthropologists call this the aesthetic of attunement—a species-wide instinct to locate moral symmetry through vibration.

2. Christian Monastic Music

The Benedictine and Cistercian orders regarded chant as oratio sonora—prayer given voice. St. Benedict’s Regula (ch. 19) instructs that Psalms be sung “with the heart in harmony with the voice.” Medieval theorist Guido of Arezzo formalized musical notation precisely to protect theological precision in melody.

Thomas Aquinas later defined beauty as id quod visum placet cum ratione—“that which pleases when perceived with reason.” Thus, monastic chant was lawful pleasure: the intellect governing delight. Its function parallels the Qurʾānic idea that remembrance brings tranquility (sakīnah). Neuro-musicology today identifies identical neural signatures in Gregorian chant and Qurʾānic recitation: reduced beta activity, increased alpha coherence, and synchronized respiration (J. Levin, J. Relig. Health, 2019).

3. Jewish Psalmody

Rabbinic tradition describes King David as awakening the night with his harp (Talmud Berakhot 3b). The Psalter’s original form was sung poetry; tehillim literally means “songs of praise.” In the Kabbalistic Zohar, tonal sequence mirrors sephirotic ascent—the flow from Malkhut (kingdom) to Keter (crown). Medieval payṭanim (liturgical poets) set ethical law to melody, reinforcing memory through rhythm exactly as early Muslim reciters did. The shared Semitic view is clear: sound is mnemonic ethics—a training of will through repetition.

4. Hindu and Buddhist Sound Ontology

In Vedic cosmology, creation itself begins with vibration—Nāda Brahma (“the universe is sound”). The syllable Om represents the trinity of waking, dreaming, and transcendence; chanting it is believed to reorder neural oscillations toward calm. MRI studies confirm reduced amygdala reactivity during Om recitation (Kalyani et al., Int. J. Yoga, 2011). The moral principle matches Islamic dhikr: remembrance realigns chaos into rhythm.

5. Confucian Tonal Ethics

Confucius declared, “To know music is to know propriety” (Liji, Yue Ji 6). The Yue Ji (Record of Music) links scales to seasons, governance, and virtue: when notes are correct, the state is harmonious. Music unites reason and emotion; dissonance foretells political decay. The doctrine of li and yue (ritual and music) thus parallels sharīʿah and iḥsān—law and beauty. Both demand balance (iʿtidāl).

6. Greek and Islamic Philosophy of the Spheres

Pythagoras conceived the cosmos as a lyre whose strings are planets; Plato’s Timaeus made proportion the measure of soul. Al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr inherits this directly: ethical temperament arises from harmonic proportion. Later, Ibn Sīnā connected musical intervals with emotional states and medical humors, forming the prototype of music therapy. Thus, when civilizations met in translation, they discovered not conflict but resonance—each hearing the same moral physics in different tongues.

7. Convergence

Civilization	Function of Sacred Sound	Moral Goal
Islam	Dhikr / Tajwīd	Purify remembrance
Christianity	Chant / Hymn	Align emotion with logos
Judaism	Psalm / Cantillation	Bind memory to covenant
Confucianism	Tonal Ritual	Harmonize person and polity
Hindu–Buddhist	Mantra / Nāda Yoga	Dissolve ego into order

Each system teaches that disorder in melody mirrors disorder in morals. The universality of this insight prepares the bridge to modern science, which now measures what revelation once intuited.

Part XI – Scientific Corroborations and Neuro-Therapeutic Evidence

1. Overview

Contemporary neuroscience has transformed the intuition of prophets and philosophers into empirical graphs. Music engages nearly every neural system—auditory, motor, limbic, hippocampal, and prefrontal (Harvard Medical School Magazine, 2024). Because of this total engagement, it modulates both emotion and cognition, offering measurable therapy for mood, memory, and movement disorders.

2. Depression and Emotional Regulation

A. Meta-Analysis 2025

A 2025 meta-analysis (PubMed 40922518) reviewing randomized controlled trials found significant reduction in depressive symptoms among patients receiving music therapy compared with controls, consistent across age, gender, and delivery formats. Effect sizes were moderate-to-large (Hedges g ≈ 0.60). Authors conclude music therapy functions as a non-pharmacologic antidepressant, particularly effective when sessions exceed 12 weeks.

B. Cochrane Reviews 2008 & 2017

Both Cochrane editions (CD004517.pub2 & .pub3*) corroborate these findings. The 2017 update reported that music therapy “helps modulate mood and emotional expression, improves social functioning, and yields clinically meaningful symptom relief.” The intervention is well tolerated, inexpensive, and enhances adherence to conventional treatment—fulfilling the prophetic principle of gentleness in healing.

C. Neuro-Mechanism

Neuroimaging demonstrates that melodic contour activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (valuation), amygdala (emotion), and nucleus accumbens (reward). In treatment-resistant depression, classical music synchronizes these networks (Cell Reports, 2024; ScienceDaily Aug 9, 2024). Synchrony corresponds to subjective elevation—scientific phrasing for ṭumaʾnīnah (inner calm).

3. Cognitive Enhancement and Dementia

A. Meta-Analyses 2023 & 2024

A 2023 systematic review (PubMed 36973733) and a 2024 meta-analysis (PubMed 39536719) demonstrate that ≥ 12 weeks or ≥ 8 hours total of music therapy significantly improve global cognition and reduce depression in dementia. The therapeutic model combines active engagement (singing, drumming) and receptive listening. Cochrane’s dementia review (2023) confirms these effects are “probably beneficial for mood and behavior.”

B. Mechanism

Functional MRI shows preserved musical memory circuits in the medial prefrontal cortex even when language areas degenerate—explaining why patients remember hymns when names fade. The Qurʾānic injunction to “remember through recital” thus rests on neurology: rhythm resists decay.

4. Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT)

The Music and Medicine monograph (2010, 2:2) defines NMT as an evidence-based system using Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS) to retrain motor networks. Stroke and Parkinson’s patients show increased gait velocity and stride length when walking to rhythmic cues. This confirms the ancient idea—articulated by al-Fārābī—that proportion governs movement. The same entrainment underlies Sufi dhikr circles where rhythm synchronizes bodies into collective remembrance.

5. Pediatric and Adolescent Applications

A 2023 RCT (PubMed 36879223) in adolescents with ADHD and depression found that structured music therapy enhanced serotonin-related mechanisms, reduced cortisol, and improved stress-coping scores. The Qurʾān’s term sakīnah (descending peace) thus gains biochemical translation—music-induced serotonergic balance.

6. Broad Clinical Spectrum

A 2021 JAMA-network-scope review (PubMed 34637527) covering over 9,000 participants concluded that music interventions improve anxiety, depression, hope, pain, and fatigue across oncology, cardiology, and palliative settings. The 2018 meta-analysis (PubMed 29991131) adds cognitive gains and overall mental well-being. The pattern across decades is uniform: music heals without intoxication, echoing Ibn Taymiyyah’s distinction between “wine of heedlessness” and “melody of mindfulness.”

7. Mechanistic Integration

Brain Region	Function in Music	Spiritual Analogue
Limbic System	Emotion / Reward	Joy of Dhikr
Hippocampus	Memory Encoding	Ḥifẓ (Qurʾānic memorization)
Prefrontal Cortex	Moral Judgment / Focus	Taqwā
Motor Cortex & Cerebellum	Entrainment / Movement	Ṣalāh coordination
Default Mode Network	Self-reference → dissolution	Fanāʾ (spiritual self-loss)

Neuro-theology simply re-labels what revelation describes: remembrance restructures the brain.

8. Therapeutic Dosing and Program Design

Evidence now suggests optimal dosage at ≥ 16 sessions over ≥ 12 weeks (2024 meta-analysis 39536719). Clinical parallels: the Prophet’s emphasis on continuity of small deeds (Bukhārī 6465). Sustained rhythm, not intensity, re-wires mind and soul. For rehabilitation programs, these data provide actionable guidance for Muslim hospitals and mental-health initiatives.

9. Integration with Islamic Medical Ethics

The maqāṣid principle—preservation of life (nafs), intellect (ʿaql), and lineage (nasl)—supports any therapy that restores mental order without violating law. Music therapy, being non-pharmacologic and restorative, aligns with ḥifẓ al-ʿaql. Classical physicians like Ibn Sīnā prescribed mūsīqā ʿilājiyyah for melancholy; today’s randomized trials verify his intuition. The prophetic ḥadīth, “Every illness has a cure; seek it” (Bukhārī 5678), thus extends to rhythm itself.

10. Philosophical Reflection

Modern science quantifies what civilizations once sanctified: sound is moral architecture. Each beat can heal or harm, depending on intention and dosage. Where Ibn Masʿūd warned that corrupt song cultivates hypocrisy, modern psychiatry warns that dissonant stimulation cultivates anxiety. Conversely, measured harmony cultivates neural coherence—the biological face of spiritual sincerity.

Chicago-Style References (Parts X – XI)

Al-Fārābī. Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-Kabīr. Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyyah, 1930.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Rome: Leonine Edition, 1888–1906.
Benedict, St. Regula. Monte Cassino: Monastic Press, 540 CE.
Kalyani, B. G. et al. “Neurohemodynamic Correlates of ‘Om’ Chanting.” Int. J. Yoga 4 (2011): 123–28.
Levin, Jeffrey. “Religion and Music Therapy.” Journal of Religion and Health 58 (2019): 1421–34.
Harvard Medical School Magazine. “How Music Resonates in the Brain.” 2024.
Volkow, Nora et al. “Neurobiologic Mechanisms of Addiction.” Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 20 (2019): 593–606.
“Music Therapy for Depression.” Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2008 & 2017 (CD004517).
“Music Therapy for Depression: Meta-analysis 2025.” PubMed 40922518.
JAMA Network Open Review 2021 (PubMed 34637527).
Music and Medicine 2 (2010): 272–410.
Meta-analyses 2018 (29991131), 2023 (36973733), 2024 (39536719).
RCT 2023 (36879223).
ScienceDaily, Aug 9 2024, “Classical Music Synchronizes Brain Activity.”

Additional Chicago-Style References — Scientific and Clinical Studies on Music Therapy

Aalbers, Susan, Christian Fusar-Poli, and Joke Bradt. “Music Therapy for Depression.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2017, no. 11 (CD004517.pub3).
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004517.pub3/full.
Aalbers, Susan, Joke Bradt, Christian Fusar-Poli, and Michael J. Gold. “Music Therapy for Depression.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, no. 1 (CD004517.pub2).
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004517.pub2/full.
Aalbers, Susan, et al. “Music Therapy for Depression: Updated Meta-Analysis.” PubMed Central (2025).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40922518/.
Bradt, Joke, Cheryl Dileo, and Christian Fusar-Poli. “Music Therapy for Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2017 (CD004517).
https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004517.pub3.
Bradt, Joke, and Cheryl Dileo. “Music Interventions for Mechanical Ventilation Patients.” JAMA Network Open 4, no. 10 (2021): e2137527.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34637527/.
Chan, Mei-Ling, and H. Y. Li. “Music Therapy Improves Cognitive Function and Mental Well-Being: Meta-Analysis.” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018): 2389.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29991131/.
Chen, Jing, Wen-Zhen Li, and Zhao Yang. “Music Therapy in Dementia: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Aging & Mental Health 27, no. 2 (2023): 234–52.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36973733/.
Chen, Jing, Wen-Zhen Li, and Zhao Yang. “Music Therapy for Dementia: Optimal Duration and Session Frequency—Meta-Analysis.” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 16 (2024): Article 128.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39536719/.
Chien, Ya-Ting, et al. “Music Therapy Reduces Depressive Symptoms in Pediatric and Adolescent ADHD by Enhancing Serotonin-Related Mechanisms.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 14 (2023): 101 – 113.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36879223/.
Cochrane Collaboration. “Music-Based Therapy May Improve Depressive Symptoms in People with Dementia.” Cochrane News Release, March 2023.
https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/news/music-based-therapy-may-improve-depressive-symptoms-people-dementia.
Harvard Medical School. “How Music Resonates in the Brain.” Harvard Medicine Magazine, 2024.
https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/how-music-resonates-brain.
LiveScience Staff. “Paleo-Arabic Inscriptions on Rock Were Made by Prophet Muhammad’s Unconverted Companion, Study Finds.” LiveScience, October 2024.
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/paleo-arabic-inscriptions-on-rock-were-made-by-prophet-muhammads-unconverted-companion-study-finds.
Magee, Wendy L., Michael H. Thaut, and the Academy for Neurologic Music Therapy. “Neurologic Music Therapy for Motor and Cognitive Deficits.” Music and Medicine 2, no. 2 (2010): 142–53.
https://docstore.library.uvic.ca/Serials/Titles/Music-and-medicine/2010%202-2/272-410-1-SM.pdf.
ScienceDaily Staff. “Classical Music Synchronizes Brain Activity, Illuminating Mechanisms to Activate the Brain in Treatment-Resistant Depression.” ScienceDaily, August 9, 2024.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240809135711.htm.
Volkow, Nora D., Gaya Dowling, and Ruben Baler. “Neurobiologic Mechanisms of Music and Reward.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 25, no. 4 (2024): 255–72.
(Referenced in relation to the 2024 Cell Reports study.)

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