The tendency of learning one’s religion from reports of isolated incidents is an old one. As a practice, it is fraught with danger even if all those reports happen to be true. Trying to construct a coherent theory from applications (isolated incidents) is impossible. Unfortunately, way too many folks fail to understand this. Hence, the innumerable attempts that continue to this day. Sadly, there appears no end in sight to the practice.
By way of an illustration of what I am talking about, I propose to take up music. But what is true of music is true of numerous other issues as well, issues regarding which people keep misguiding themselves and many others. One common way to do that is creating a hotchpotch of their religion by basing their religious world view on isolated and fragmented reports of incidents.
There is this widespread perception, not only among the Muslims but among outsiders as well, that there is something inherently unislamic, even evil, about music. Mullahs are apt to tell you that listening to it is a major sin. Even laypeople, for the most part, have a complex love-hate relationship with music. Of course, many of them enjoy it. But a large proportion feels guilty while doing so. If one asks for justification, one is invariably told some incident where the Prophet (peace be upon him) reportedly prohibited singing and/or musical instruments.
It is simply impossible to build any coherent system of thought based on isolated and fragmented reports of incidents (without their complete contexts), some of which (of necessity) happen to be untrue as well. A major problem with constructing a theory out of such reports is that a counter incident, one that goes against the theory, can always be presented. As the theory is modified to take that in, and then the next one, it becomes more and more convoluted and ridiculous.
When it comes to music, such counter incidents are well known. The hardliners who had first declared music and musical instruments to be categorically forbidden had found themselves facing an early challenge. For it was immediately brought to their attention that when the Prophet (peace be upon him) had migrated to Madina, it is reported that young girls had sung songs welcoming him to their city and they had sung to a tambourine accompaniment. What is more, the Prophet (peace be upon him) had not discouraged any of it. The ‘Musical instruments are forbidden’ stance therefore needed an urgent modification.
This could have been done by adding the clause: ‘except percussion instruments’. The problem with this ‘relaxation’, however, would have been that items such as the drum, the dholak, and the tabla could also sneak through into the permissible territory (and apparently all hell would then have broken loose if they did. It is not usually told why though). To prevent this calamity, a stricter qualification had to be introduced. This was that only the tambourine (and no other musical instrument) was allowed.
Some people have traditionally taken a different approach to ‘solve’ the same problem. They maintain that the Prophet’s arrival to Madina was a special event, to which no ordinary occasion in our lives could be compared. Therefore, it cannot possibly be taken as a precedent for any of our everyday activities. This ‘solution’ also breaks down spectacularly when these people are asked to account for the narrations where the Prophet (peace be upon him) allowed listening to music on the occasion of some festival and even encouraged singing of poetry at a wedding. To address this difficulty, the ‘Music is forbidden’ stance is relaxed to include the clause: ‘except at weddings’. Of course, with the additional provisos that it must not be a mixed gathering and that certain dress codes and other protocols must also be adhered to.
There are those who on the one hand believe that music is forbidden but on the other they also know that some famous and influential Muslims (whom they happen to love) were not exactly averse to sessions of ‘spiritual’ music and dance. The way they ‘reconcile’ this contradiction is by taking a step back and saying that ‘Music and dance are forbidden except when they are spiritual in nature’.
Seen in the light of the theory, all incidents (applications) can be made to fit in and make sense. If, on the other hand, a theory is constructed to account for all applications, true or false, howsoever shoddily reported, then that is the surest recipe to arrive at an inconsistent and absurd world view.
The problem with all such on-the-fly ‘solutions’ is only too obvious. They are absurd, and/or arbitrary. For those who build theological systems on the foundations of isolated reports are inevitably left with only two choices when an incident is reported that does not quite fit their favoured stance: Either declare the report to be unreliable, not because there are legitimate grounds for that but because it causes them problems; and thereby be guilty of picking and choosing arbitrarily. Or keep revising their position on the issue to ‘accommodate’ the new information, making their stance more and more absurd with every new amendment. Neither is a particularly good option. The right thing to do, of course, is to rely on a more coherent and reliable basis for one’s religion. This is easier said than done as it requires breaking of quite a few idols.
For a Muslim, the coherent and reliable basis for religion is none other than the Quran. The Quran offers clear advantages that no narration of incidents ever can. All Muslims are in agreement that it is the verbatim speech of God (not a paraphrase), so the precise words used are not at issue. Also, being a coherent book as opposed to an isolated collection of verses, it comes with all the necessary context as well. Finally, there is no disagreement regarding its accurate and faultless transmission from cover to cover.
The Quran expressly states that outside foods and dinks, there are five things (and five things alone) that are forbidden. Music does not happen to be one of them. Music can very well be forbidden if it contains any of those five things; but as far as the Quran is concerned (which by its own claim is complete in terms of guidance), there is nothing wrong with music per se.
This brings one back to the old problem of theory vs application. Seen in the light of the theory, all incidents (applications) can be made to fit in and make sense. If, on the other hand, a theory is constructed to account for all applications, true or false, howsoever shoddily reported, then that is the surest recipe to arrive at an inconsistent and absurd world view.
