Al-Ghazali on Proper Conduct When Listening to Music and the Experience of Ecstasy

Imam al-Ghazali
Anthony H. Johns (translation)
Paperback, 190 pages
9781911141556

Book 18 of The Revival of the Religious Sciences
Kitab Adab al-Sama wa'l-Wajd

Ghazali’s approach to the subject is that human hearts are full of secrets. What is good or defective within them is activated by listening to music. It is this central and revealing role of the sense of hearing that makes it necessary to establish if, when and for whom listening to music is a legitimate activity.

Part I of this work consists of three chapters in which Ghazali discusses the arguments for and against the permissibility of listening to music. He dedicates a chapter to the opinions of the religious scholars and the sufis on whether listening to music is lawful or unlawful, and a second chapter to those who expressly regard listening to music as unlawful and he responds to their arguments. In addition, Ghazali devotes an entire chapter to affirming that listening to music is in itself a permissible activity and he presents seven occasions when this is the case. In his arguments for the permissibility of listening to music, Ghazali constantly refers back to the practice of the Prophet Muhammadﷺ and gives examples from his life. The limitations or impediments to listening to music then lie not in music itself but in external factors and Ghazali outlines five main impediments.

Part II focuses on the effects of listening to music on the listener and the inner and outer proper responses and conduct to these effects especially if they lead to ecstasy.