Assalamualaikum Warathmatulah-

Sister Ruth:

Thank you for your honest assessment of the performance by the young brothers you speak of. First I would like to say that being “hot”
is not a sin. Yusuf (as) was beautiful as you know

(14) So when she heard of their accusation, she sent for them and prepared a banquet for them; she gave each one of them a knife (to cut the foodstuff with), and she said ((to Yoosuf (joseph)): “Come out before them.” Then, when they saw him, they exalted him (at his beauty) and (in their astonishment) cut their hands. They said: “How perfect is Allah (or Allah forbid)! No man is this! This is none other than a noble angel!”
( سورة يوسف , Yusuf, Chapter #12, Verse #31)

Second, Dressing up in nice clothes is also not a sin (evidence)

(1) It Is narrated on the authority of Abdullah b. Mas’ud that the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him), observed: He who has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter Paradise. A person (amongst his hearers) said: Verily a person loves that his dress should be fine, and his shoes should be fine. He (the Holy Prophet) remarked: Verily, Allah is Graceful and He loves Grace. Pride is disdaining the truth (out of self-conceit) and contempt for the people. (Book #001, Hadith #0164)

, I was there at that concert with very good seats Alhumdulillah and they were not wearing anything bad or tight. Third, please be careful of criticizing good efforts one of the characteristics of the hippocrates is to criticize in At-Taubah

79 Those who defame such of the believers who give charity (in Allahs Cause) voluntarily, and those who could not find to give charity (in Allahs Cause) except what is available to them, so they mock at them (believers), Allah will throw back their mockery on them, and they shall have a painful torment.

. Fourthly, these brothers are working in the Islamic field, which I am sure you know by now has many trials and afflictions. They are trying to provide a “halal” alternative to the junk music and entertainment that you and I both see floating around us day in and day out which is the Sunnah.
(1) Narrated Abu Said al-Khudri: Once bilal brought Barni (i.e. a kind of dates) to the Prophet and the Prophet asked him, “From where have you brought these?” bilal replied, “I had some inferior type of dates and exchanged two Sas of it for one Sa of Barni dates in order to give it to the Prophet; to eat.” Thereupon the Prophet said, “Beware! Beware! This is definitely Riba (usury)! This is definitely Riba (Usury)! Don’t do so, but if you want to buy (a superior kind of dates) sell the inferior dates for money and then buy the superior kind of dates with that money.” (Book #38, Hadith #506)

Please try to be more appreciative. Even shayookh and/ or Muslim leader(s) who are good looking get marriage proposals (even though they are married) and live in the U.S. Girls will be girls, but you don’t stop providing an alternative for 1100 people b.c “12 little girls” can’t control themselves.

Let us please be more positive in our approach.

Thanks.

Shirt man

12/ 1100 isn’t the audience amigo :)

Please try to be more appreciative. Even shayookh and/ or Muslim leader(s) who are good looking get marriage proposals (even though they are married) and live in the U.S. Girls will be girls, but you don’t stop providing an alternative for 1100 people b.c “12 little girls” can’t control themselves.

I’m not a fan of 786 boys’ music. The brothers may have good intentions, but from what I had seen a while back at ISNA didn’t go to well with me.

Shirtman you said that scholars also get proposals from girls, but the girls that propose are probably not the screaming ones at concerts. They are most likely students of knowledge who want to be within a family of ilm.

Native Deen and 786 boys are very similar in their music, but yet Native Deen does not come across as a “boy band” rather as a group of brothers singing nasheeds. Why is that? Is it because of their looks? No it’s not. It’s ND’s adab, its ND’s communication with the audience, its their entire attire and the environment they surround themselves in. Native Deen frequently says “Takbir, or Alhamdulillah, or MashaAllah”. I have not been to a 786 boys concert in a long time (few years now) but the one I went to back in ISNA 03 or 04 (not sure which year) they weren’t really trying to remind the crowd of Allah but rather they were acting like the Backstreet Boys.

Plus, they remind of the typical desi student at any university thats part of the MSA AND part of the desi club.

Allah knows best. May Allah (swt) forgive me for anything wrong I have said.

perhaps shirtman can help us find a hadith permitting muslim men to perform for muslim women and/or vice versa? :-)

i’m just sayin, concert, music haram, halal, whatever…lets keep the social intermingling of the sexes to a minimum :-|

You very well know you can’t make people “want” otherwise: if people want concerts, people will inevitably have concerts. But lets limit our male performers’ audience to males only, our women performers’ audience to women only…

And my brothers, YOU KNOW how guys are! You can’t tell me boyband artists don’t enjoy performing in front of screaming women! And if you if u don’t believe me, have a boyband perform in front of an all guy audience and see how long that lasts…

Ruth,

The fatwas I have seen from religious scholars about mucic state that:

(1) Out of all the percussion instruments, only the Daff is allowed
(2) That its allowance too is predicated on occasions like weddings and Eids
(3) That this allowance is only for women, not for men

While I am not sure if all the scholars hold this same view, I have seen these conditions being mentioned by more than one scholars, belonging to more than one school of thought. I have also seen these conditions backed up by Ahadith by the ones giving the ruling.

Since in the show you have written about, none of the above three conditions was met, it is clearly NOT a halal alternative for anything–at least if one subscribes to the opinion I have alluded to.

I wish for the day when we in North America would have just as large gstherings solely to hear the Qur’an being read. Imagine a “concert” where the only thing read is the words of Allah: Not as a token, not just to put Barakah at the beginning of some other Islamic function, but as the “Main Event”, for an hour or two straight.

That would be a much more enriching and uplifting experience!

Wassalam

Ruth N: Do teenage American girls who are raised Muslim in this culture struggle with that too?

Nope. Not everyone anyways. I went to a few fundraisers where Native Deen and 786 performed, and when I saw some of the girls screaming and singing along loudly, I thought to myself that this couldn’t be right. Plus, if you go to a performance and watch these brothers and are thinking to yourself, “Wow, they’re hot” you should lower your gaze…and maybe just leave the room.

I used nasheeds to stop listening to music, but even gave that up afterwards. Like FearAllah said, you’re not getting reward from it. You can do dhikr without having music playing in the background. Besides, reading a book or listening to a lecture would be so much more beneficial…

The absyn. thing if you look at the whole hadith and Aisha’s commentary it wouldn’t count as a proof. Otherwise Shirtman would have pulled it Alhumdulillah.

Don’t flatter yourself ibn! ;)

(4) Narrated ‘Ursa: aisha said, “While the Ethiopians were playing with their small spears, Allah’s Apostle screened me behind him and I watched (that display) and kept on watching till I left on my own.” So you may estimate of what age a little girl may listen to amusement. (Book #62, Hadith #118)

(5) Narrated ‘aisha: The Prophet was screening me with his Rida’ (garment covering the upper part of the body) while I was looking at the Ethiopians who were playing in the courtyard of the mosque. (I continued watching) till I was satisfied. So you may deduce from this event how a little girl (who has not reached the age of puberty) who is eager to enjoy amusement should be treated in this respect. (Book #62, Hadith #163)

this actually reminds me quite a bit of the article yvonne ridley wrote regarding sami yusuf:
http://siraaj.wordpress.com/pop-culture-in-the-name-of-islam/

Except I felt that this post had a bit more tact. Masha Allah, good insight. I wrote something similar about MAS Youth’s Outlandish concert in Chicago

I do, however, feel that the way that Junaid Jamshaid sang his songs, was very peaceful and “fitnah-free” so to speak. I could be wrong, but there was an admirable ambience, he also called people to the remembrance of Allah, like he actually gave mini lectures with his nasheeds, and when he asked people not to clap or whistle; scream they listened, and replied with JazkAllah as requested. So maybe it is about presentation. SubhanAllah, the more I think about this article, the more I think of how we should dress when we give talks at the Masjid or at conferences or at Khutbahs.

Presentation is what it’s all about. I agree.

I am a muslim munchkin brother (that would be a cool website name minus the brother part!) – who goes to highschool and I have to say I’m not sure why many muslims have taken it upon themselves to make muslim ‘alternatives’ to things like music. In effect, I believe all we are doing is imitating the kuffar and not following the deen the way we should be.

Like Native Deen – It seems that a lot of Muslims grow up as hip hop junkies – and when they are Islamically conscious they use Native Deen to get their fix and feel like “it’s all good”. Then they defend themselves saying that Native Deen says good Islamic stuff too! – so does one who listens to Native Deen completely and whole heartedly does so with the intention to get closer to Allah? – C’MON!! Stop fronting!

I’m not saying that nobody should listen to Native Deen – but I’m just using it as an example where Muslims try to find “alternatives” to things they think they can’t live without. Subconciously or Consciously, Muslims therefore don’t believe that the Islam is not a complete deen – that the way of the prophet SAWS is not complete and that they need to find something similar to the activities of the kuffar, but can label it halal.

This alternative/imitation problem is all over these fan girls of Muslim singers etc. All we have done is recreated Nsync or the backstreetboys with its entire environment and hypocritically labeled it as “Halal”

Just a thought

IMHO, I don’t listen to nasheeds with any sort of tune or catchy rhythm to them (as per Shaykh Uthaymin). Without going into any detail, I’d rather listen to the Quran and spend my time listening to that as opposed to spending my time listening to nasheeds. For me, its less about ‘Islamic Culture’ which I see to be trivial in this case, than it is about pleasing Allah swt.

another set of articles that I thought would be relevant on this topic, however these focus more on the entire phenomenon of “manufacturing music” via boy/girl “bands”:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1282756,00.html

the article makes the point that many of these individuals who are in this form of entertainment are no different than eunuchs/castrated males in the Middle Ages who sang and danced for kings/queens. Shouldn’t be all that surprising since many of them have admitted to being and promoting homosexuality actually:

http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2006/08/11/jordan_knight_urges_boy_band_members_to_

http://www.afterelton.com/archive/elton/music/2005/8/ukboybands2.html

keeping in mind that the guy who recently manufactured most of these boy bands in Florida i.e. N’Sync and Backstreet Boys just went to prison:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/orl-bk-lou-pearlman-boy-band-052108,0,3312606.story

Q: these are the people and forms of entertainment that we are holding up as role models for Muslims?

I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to make this point: we cannot decouple the issue of the permissibility of these nasheeds and concerts from the ‘bad environment’ that reportedly exists at these events. We need to think carefully about the permissibility of ‘halal’ nasheeds and concerts – where the performers are professionals whose sole purpose is to ‘entertain’ the crowd.

We need to understand that the scholars, who have deep wisdom and insight into this religion and the reasons for its legislation, have pointed out that music (in whatever form) is usually accompanied by evil things – alcohol, dancing, gender mixing etc. etc. This is the very nature of music. I once heard Sh. Suhaib Hassan say that everything has a key to it, and “Al-ghina Miftah-u-zina” – Music is the key to zina.

mcpagal:

Therefore, asking ppl to ‘calm down’ is not going to solve anything because the *essence* of music (even with Islamic wordings – doesn’t matter – is anyone really paying attention to the wordings?) is that it is a doorway to evil and therefore the only solution is to shut this door for good. Because its sole purpose is only ‘entertainment’. And the sad part is that we’ve now made an ‘Islamic’ justification for it.

I know that many scholars have permitted anasheed etc. but there is a difference between a brother/sistetr impromptu singing a nasheed in an informal gathering that has a nice Islamic meaning to it that encourages good deeds etc. vs. making a whole professional industry out of it where Muslim nasheed ‘artists’ get paid to entertain other Muslims. There is a world of difference in that and we have to understand this and know that we are headed in the wrong direction if we encourage such activities in our communities.

I was shocked to see some of the youtube videos linked from this article. If I hadn’t known better, I would never have been able to tell that this was an Islamic event with Muslim performers and Muslim attendees. Are we really so keen on spending this much money (stage, lights etc.) to listen to a nasheed when our brothers & sisters are suffering all over the world? How would a Muslim in Gaza feel if he saw this concert?

We need to hold ourselves accountable before we are held to account.

MashaAllah salafFollower.

My thought exactly.

May Allah reward you InshaAllah.

Wasalaam

Abu Ninja

p.s. How anyone can say music is ok and these anasheed concerts are ok after listening to Kamal el-Makkis beautiful lecture ‘The End Of Music,’ in my opinion has to be a follower of hawaa.

I think the problem lies in the fact that young girls find that behavior to be normal and it is characterized as “normal” behavior for a concernt. Its like “hey, this is a concert, what am i supposed to do?”

I think a nice solution would be for the band themself to, at the beginning of the concert, set the guidelines for how they would like sisters to respond or appreicate their performance. If it came straight from them most likely i would be honored. Maybe make it a point next time to announce at the beginning “Sisters, we appreciate your support and would love it if you would show that support by waving your glowly stick. Our best female fans are the ones who bring their haya to our concerts.”

Someone wanna call their PR guy a memo? ;)