Is it haram to listen to music?

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The word music is very fluid nowadays. There was a debate among classical scholars in the past about the permissibility of listening to music. The debate was about pure sounds of music or decent, motivational, and meaningful songs.

The majority of scholars did not allow it due to the fact that during their times, even pure music was accompanied by lust and drinking alcohol.

The scholars that allowed some songs and music allowed it as stand-alone music without bad lyrics. Classical music and decent, motivational, and meaningful songs are examples of pure music.

During our time now, when people ask about the permissibility of listening to music, they mean listening to modern songs with their broadest spectrum.

The question you mentioned was about playing the piano, which falls under the debate that our respected scholars had a different opinion on its permissibility.

All scholars agree that listening to music containing evil, filthy, lust, sinful, and shirk (associating anything with Allah or preferring anything more than Allah, like this Life and what it pertains over the Hereafter) is considered to be clearly haram and sinful.

Today’s songs are mainly destructive, teach us to disconnect from any type of faith, and promote shameful ethics; therefore, it is considered to be haram to listen to.

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