Ayatollah Khamenei’s Jurisprudential and Sociological Views on Music
Is music halal or haram according to Islam? Or does it depend on the type of music, its content, and what kind of behaviors the particular piece of music will undoubtedly drive the listener to commit?
Rather than relying on our own imaginations and biases, let us simply rely on what the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei has said about music, as derived from his website Leader.ir which is dedicated to various religious issues including jurisprudence:
Q1121. What are the criteria by which one can distinguish ḥalāl from ḥarām music? Is classical music ḥalāl?
A: Any music which is lahwī (makes people forget God) and deviates people from the way of Allah is ḥarām whether it is classic or not. To distinguish the subject of a ruling depends on the view of the mukallaf (the one who follows a particular Islamic religious cleric, such as Imam Khamenei, in regards to Islamic rulings relating to their practical life) as a part of common people. There is no objection to other kinds of music in itself.
Q1122. What is the ruling on the issue of listening to cassettes sanctioned by the organization of Islamic propagation or other Islamic institutions? What is the ruling on the matter of using musical instruments, such as a violin, or flute?
A: The permissibility of listening to a cassette depends on mukallaf’s view. If he maintains that it does not contain ghinā’ and lahwī music — which deviate people from the way of Allah — or untrue speech, then there is no objection to listening to it. Therefore, its sanction by the Islamic Propagation Organization or any other Islamic institute does not serve by itself as a shar‘ī proof of being permissible. It is not allowed to use musical instruments to produce ḥarām lahwī music which deviates people from the way of Allah. However, it is ḥalāl to use them for rational purposes. To distinguish the instances rests with the mukallaf.
Q1123. What is meant by lahwī music which deviates people from the way of Allah? And how best can one recognize it?
A: Lahwī and deviating music is that which due to its characteristics keeps human beings away from Allah, the sublime, and away from moral merits and drives them towards sinful acts and carelessness. Its recognition rests with the common people.
Therefore, music can be either halal or haram depending on the nature of the piece. If it takes people away from God and drives them towards sinful acts, it is haram. Just think of a disco party: what kind of music do they want to fuel their spree of drugs, alcohol, and illicit sexual relations? Music whose lyrical and instrumental content which pokes and prods them towards such behavior. If you were to play a musical piece which enhances the intellect and does not encourage sinful behavior, the partygoers would all stop and look around with disgusted looks on their faces and begin to protest the DJ. Haram music is haram even if it is listened to in private, even if not in a sinful gathering like a disco party.
Ayatollah Khamenei has also addressed the issue of hip-hop music but with intelligent and revolutionary lyrics relating to Islam and the martyrs:
His response was interesting: “in general, any music which takes people away from God is haram. Because of its characteristics, [forbidden music] takes people away from God Almighty, spirituality, and moral virtues, and leads them towards unrestrainedness, futility, and sin.”
Rather than saying rap music with positive lyrics with Islamic and revolutionary values is outright haram, he gave the general guidelines as to what haram music is, and that anything that isn’t that, is thus halal (his other rulings on music and statements on music can be referred to, which we posted a week ago).
Before hip-hop music became associated with sin, stupidity, and Satanism, it originally started out as a form of political protest from the oppressed African Americans, due to all their leaders being killed by the FBI, CIA, and Zionists. It was a form of poetry aimed at waking up the masses to the situation of the world. It had ties to the Nation of Islam, making Louis Farrakhan the unofficial godfather of political hip-hop music.
The Zionists did not like this, so two Jewish entertainment executives, Lyor Cohen on the east coast and Jerry Heller on the west coast, introduced gangster rap and the rest is history. This form of protest poetry was eliminated by the Satanic powers in exchange for the worst expression of idiocy and corruption.
Due to ignorance of history, some people think this style of music is only meant for vulgarity. However, it is a form of poetry which can be used for waking people up or keeping them asleep in Satan’s traps.
In the Islamic world, there are also songs which have rhythmic beats with drums, stringed instruments, and flutes, which Wahabbi-minded people, due to a very crude/black-and-white misinterpretation of certain hadith against stringed instruments and flutes, would also declare to be haram, despite those hadith referring to haram music, not halal music. If it wasn’t for the Leader being the one who inspired the song “Salam Farmandeh,” these very same stone-minded people would have declared it to be haram.
Rhythmic beats and instruments doesn’t make something haram, unless it is designed to encourage sin. The style doesn’t determine if it is haram — as only a handful of styles are totally dedicated towards sin, such as electronic dance music (EDM) which is used solely in rave parties for people who are on drugs, or heavy metal.
Therefore, revolutionary Islamic rap music is not haram if they do not promote anything which takes people away from God through their words. If random, unqualified people on social media think they are better than the Leader, they should admit they are inventing their own religion without the proper qualifications to do so, instead of doing so under the banner of Islam and Wilaya.
A layperson’s opinion, from a rank-and-file Islamic scholar to a random social media user, is irrelevant. Only other high-ranking scholars of a similar level to Imam Khamenei, such as Ayatollah Sistani, are worthy of comparing their opinions and using our intellect when analyzing which one to adhere to.
Those are the jurisprudential opinions of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution. What are the Leader’s sociological and philosophical opinions on music, art, and culture in general?
“The pervasive soft war staged by the enemy today is undeniable. In this war, artists & intellectuals resemble the armed forces in an actual military war.”
– Imam Khamenei
This means that the cultural and artistic battlefront should be taken seriously and treated as if we are in an actual war against the army of the devils of the earth. We must have soldiers on this battlefield.
“A cultural battle can only be countered with its own medicine.”
– Imam Khamenei
We must enter the arena of specific art forms, like music and movies, so long as we don’t enter into haram categories. For example, it is impossible to have halal rave music since those gatherings are sinful by nature. It is impossible to have certain genres of movies be halal, such as horror movies, since they are all about glorifying murder and other heinous crimes. However, outside of those areas, Muslims should be on the scene. We should encourage our children to develop talents in the arts so that we have more soldiers on this battlefield, as we are quite understaffed!
The importance of our presence in this arena should not be sabotage by stone-minded people whose mentality is the same as Ibn Tamiyyah or Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab. Stone-minded types and self-worshiping liberals may seem at odds with each other, but they are two sides of the same coin. Two extremes which take mankind away from its true potential as servants of the divine.
“Islam wants woman to learn so she may come to know the essence of Islam according to its magnificent reality, not to become familiar with the moral looseness of Western women and the close mindedness of the Eastern ones.”
– Martyr Amina Bintul Huda al-Sadr (ra)
Islam is neither western liberal arrogance nor eastern stone-minded ignorance. Our understanding of Islam and what its ideals for society are should be based on primary sources, namely wise and knowledgeable scholars like Ayatollah Khamenei, instead of relying on our own imaginations and cultural baggage.
Our artists must arm themselves with their pens, papers, cameras, and microphones – otherwise the souls of our youths will be left to be devoured by the pedophile Zionist executives of music and movies like Lyor Cohen or Harvey Weinstein.
