Modern music is sinful:Qatari scholar ( Gulf times)
Qatari Muslim scholar has criticised young Muslims who are obsessed with listening to music and singing, saying modern-day singing is “sinful and prohibited” in Islam.
In his sermon yesterday, Sheikh Mohamed Hasan al-Mreikhi said that singing was one of the worst vice which is on the rise among young Muslims and which threatens to weaken their faith.
“Listening to music and singing is a sin and cause for the sickening of the heart. There is a wide ignorance of the Islam ruling on singing among Muslims. Although it has been prohibited, there are persons who are still refusing this ruling and trying to find other justifications permitting singing,” Sheikh al-Mreikhi told a congregation at the Omar bin al-Khattab mosque at Khalifa town.
Sheikh al-Mreikhi slammed other Muslim scholars whom he said, were trying to find justifications for permitting music and singing.
“Some try to mislead Muslims and say that music is food for the soul. Others try to promote it as some sort of culture and even established institutes to teach it. How can today’s singing which is always associated with other sins like the consumption of alcohol be food for the soul? It is not true that some Islamic scriptures permitted singing,” he added.
The scholar also lamented what he called “upside down standards” in the Muslim communities where singers and musicians have been bestowed with high degrees of status and social prestige that no other category enjoys.“Even clerics are denied the social status which people into singing enjoy. According to proper Sharia, singers have no value,” he added. “Singing is an evil that has spread to such an extent that individuals find themselves in situations where they are forced to listen to it. Young Muslims are now obsessed with listening to songs and forget about prayer time. You can hardly find a home that is free from it now,” he maintained.
As music has always evoked a heated debate both in the past and the present, there has been a group of scholars who took a more positive approach towards music and issued edicts stating that only singing unethical and sensual themes, as forbidden in Islam.
