The Status of Music in Islamic Law: Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī's (d. 974/1567) Treatise Against Recreation in its Polemical Context

Abstract

Kaff al-ra'ā' 'an muharramāt al-lahw wa-l-samā' is an influential treatise on the legal status of music and other recreational activities written by the Shāfi'ī Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī (d. 974/1567) in 958/1551. This article offers the first analysis of this “treatise against recreation”. Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī argues for the impermissibility of most musical activities on the basis of the Qur'an and Hadith, the consensus of the 'ulamā' (particularly from his Shāfi'ī school), and the incompatibility of recreation (lahw) and piety. These arguments are forged in response to claims found in more permissive texts by the Zāhirīs Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064) and Ibn al-Qaysarānī (d. 507/1113) and the Mālikī Muhammad al-Shādhilī al-Tūnisī (d. 882/1477). I suggest that it is Ibn Hajar's negative attitude to lahw that underlies his restrictive views on music, highlight the gendered element in this attitude, and observe that attitudes to recreation are not interchangeable with affiliation to Sufism.