The Taliban believe music is un-Islamic. Why? Hadith Qudsi 19:5: “The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance.”
The Hadith Qudsi, or holy Hadith, are those in which Muhammad transmits the words of Allah, although those words are not in the Qur’an.
Muhammad also said:
(1) “Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.”
(2) “On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.”
(3) “Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.”
(4) “This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones.” Someone asked, “When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?” and he said, “When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful.”
(5) “There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ….” — ‘Umdat al-Salik r40.0
“Let the music play: musician prays for Taliban demise,” by Lehaz Ali for AFP, October 23 (thanks to James):
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Mohammad Akbar says he prays every day for the Pakistani army to crush the Taliban so he can make sweet music once more without fearing for his life.
“They smashed it into pieces and warned me of serious consequences if I ever played it again,” said Akbar as he recalled the day two years ago that the Islamists forced him to give a recital of his rubab — a traditional lute-like instrument that is popular in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“I recite from the Holy Koran every morning and pray for the success of the military operation and when they are defeated I will buy another rubab,” he said. […]
Akbar looked visibly distressed as he spoke about his ordeal which started two years ago when a Taliban delegation turned up at his home, following a tip-off from one of his neighbours.
Not knowing they were from the Taliban, he served them tea, played his rubab and sang for them in his living room.
And then they grabbed the instrument and smashed it.
“It was a warning from them. I was forced to stop playing an instrument that I started playing in 1981,” he said.
Pakistan has seen creeping religious conservatism over the years in parts of the northwest and in July 2007 Taliban extremists launched a bloody insurgency to impose a harsh brand of Islamic law in the Swat valley.
Memo to AFP: “religious conservatism” in the Western sense doesn’t involve smashing musical instruments, blowing up music stores and murdering musicians.
They blew up hundreds of music and DVD shops in the troubled North West Frontier Province (NWFP), calling the practice against the tenets of Islam.
Shop owners were forced to display the pro-Taliban material which ranged from tirades against the United States to gruesome clips of beheadings and bomb attacks.
Tears rolled down Akbar’s cheeks as he talked about one of his very close friends Ahmad Shah, whom he says was executed by Taliban for playing the flute.
“They slit his throat because he ignored their warning,” said Akbar.
The musician also recalled his childhood friendship with Qari Hussain, a reputed mass trainer of suicide bombers whose home town is now surrounded by the army, saying that Hussain also did not like his hobby of playing the rubab.
When he confronted Hussain, who returned to South Waziristan in 2007 after living for years in Karachi, about the Taliban’s behaviour, he received an icy reply.
“I went to him to lodge complaint but he asked me to be thankful to God that they did not kill me on his request,” he said….