Al-Ghazali: Proper Conduct When Listening to Music and the Experience of Ecstasy – Book 18
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Al-Ghazali’s On Proper Conduct when Listening to Music and the Experience of Ecstasy is the eighteenth book in the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya’ ulam al-din), a monumental work of classical Islam written by the renowned theologian-mystic Abü Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111). On Proper Conduct when Listening to Music and the Experience of Ecstasy, Ghazali focuses on an aspect of social life that was, and still is, considered controversial.
Part I of Proper Conduct when Listening to Music and the Experience of Ecstasy consists of three chapters in which Ghazālī 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, Ghazālī 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, Ghazālī constantly refers back to the practice of the Prophet Muhammad 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 Ghazālī 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.
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