Posted by Aly Balagamwala
When I started turning towards Islam in university, I was faced with the question of abstaining for music. It was a hard decision but I eventually took the plunge and gave it up. It wasn’t an easy journey for me and I moved back to listening to music, then gave it up only to once again start it again. I finally gave it up completely Alhamdulillah over five years ago (May Allah help me stay on this path).
There are many who would argue that there is nothing wrong with music, it is just another gift of God, etc. The below just serves to confirm to me that my decision was indeed a wise one, an attempt to raise my level of Taqwa, an attribute that needs constant work from our part. As we enter the last ten days of Ramadan, we will need to start the struggle to continue the momentum of Ramadan. For indeed if we were to walk away from Ramadan without a positive change it would be a big travesty on our part. Your positive change could be giving up music. Insha’Allah I hope the below will help you towards this change.
Ramadan Kareem and may Allah (SWT) accept our deeds and have this month serve as time for our forgiveness and for the shower of His mercy.
A few months back, the following email sent to the list serve of Al-Huda Canada was forwarded to another list I am on. The content of the email (reproduced below) was amazing.
Bismillah
Assalamoalaikum wrwb
Few weeks ago my daughter, who is in first grade had a science fair at her school. We decided to do an interesting experiment. Our Hypothesis was that listening to Qur’an has physical effects just like listening to music has physically visible effects. To prove our point we took an apple which also has 60-70 percent water content like human bodies. We cut the apple into half, put each half in a zip lock bag and then for seven days played Qur’an for one half of the apple and music to another half of the apple .. Both apples were kept on room temperature. The results were amazing and so our hypothesis was accepted.
In Quran Surah Luqman Allah(s.a.w) says:
And of mankind is he who purchases idle talks (i.e.music, singing, etc.) to mislead (men) from the Path of Allah without knowledge, and takes it (the Path of Allah, or the Verses of the Qur’an) by way of mockery. For such there will be a humiliating torment (in the Hell-fire).(6)
In surah Yunus Allah SWT says about Quran:
O mankind! There hath come to you a admonition from your Lord and a healing for the (diseases) in your hearts and for those who believe, a Guidance and a Mercy. (57)
Please look at the attached pictures. The first picture is of the apple when it was freshly cut. Second picture is after 3 weeks of the experiment.
JazakAllah Khiaran
