Salam,

The question of music is not an easy one to answer because it is hard to define music these days. Also for those of us who live here in the West, it is very hard to avoid as well. I went with my family to Books-a-Million today, there was loud rock and roll music on throughout the store. We went to Ross the next door, it was the same. This is the case with most places you need to go on a regular basis. And it is hard to avoid it, even though at home we do not play or listen to music, if you mean songs with instruments mainly expessing emotions or feelings. I personally cannot bear this "music" for more than few minutes.

Before I was a practicing Muslim, I used to listen to Pakistani, Indian, and English songs without paying attention to their contents, "for fun". Like many others I did not think there was anything wrong with that.

Alhumdolillah, now its a different story, after knowing about haram and halal. It was natural that when a song played in my mind from the past, I would slow it down in my head and pay attention to what it was saying. That's when I realized that I was not paying attention to the words before, and now that I do, most of those songs have content that are simply haram to say. When anything is haram to say, it is haram to listen or to do anything with it. As far as music, the instrumental part is simply, to enhance the emotions behind the words making them more effective. In my experience the music (the instruments) and its noise have a kind of numbing effect on the mind and I know that we should not use anything that takes away our ability to have complete attention from keeping our thoughts focused on more important things rather than blocking them.

Now that does not mean at all that as Muslims we don't have music in our lives. Here is the West, any rhythm is said to be music. When Adhan (Azan) is called, it is called with a very balanced voice and beautifully measured length of each phrase. In itself, it is music to the ears, but with the most useful message heard loud and clear without any enhancers (instruments), because its words and message do not need any help. And that is why we never heard any instrument played with Adhan.

There is a lesson in that, that if we listen to anything, it should be useful. And any useful words do not need anything (instruments) to support or enhance them.

After paying attention to the contents of most popular songs my conclusion is that their words are so weak in message and that background noise and instruments are essential to make them a sellable product.

Also, we can see the behavior that comes with music in general, a lot of other haram things take place in process of producing, performing and selling music as we know it, in general.

As Muslim, my goal is to stay away from anything that increase the distance between me and Allah. Instead, I'd rather do what will decrease the distance, the ultimate goal of this life. I can sing His praise by reciting beautiful suras and verses from the Quran, recite them clear, in a measured rhythm. That's the music Allah loves, and I feel I must do this at its best.

Hasan