Greetings Ansar,
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Originally Posted by Ansar Al-'Adl Its going to affect the youth, and they're not going to be racing towards Bach, Mozart or whatever other benign form of music. They're going to be racing towards what you describe as 'horrendous', 'filthy', 'wrong' and 'horrible' because this is what western youth listen to today. |
I think you underestimate the eclectic tastes of Western young people. Fair enough, a sizable minority of under 13s basically dictate 99% of what appears in the British charts, which is invariably the worst kind of fabricated mindless drivel. Outside of that, there's a bewildering array of genres and subgenres of music that teenagers can discover; usually they include some kind of thought, and musicianship.
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Secondly, as you'll recall from the music thread, most scholars do not consider all forms of music absolutely forbidden. So we're not placing any restrictions on anyone and if someone finds some music that has nothing wrong with it, then they can listen to it. But in general, I would advise Muslims to stay away from music, because at any rate it will not bring benefit that cannot be achieved through better means.
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I take your point that we're not talking about a serious restriction here. But just because some Western music is awful, why would you advise people to stay away from all Western music? Plus, music can move the mind in ways nothing else can.
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The reason why I said your argument was ethnocentric was because you argued (or at least strongly implied) that Muslim culture was lacking because we don't listen to western music. And that's judging abother group by the standards of your own culture because western music is an integral part of western culture, and so you falsely assume that cultures lacking western music lack an integral aspect. But, as I pointed out, the Qur'anic recitation and Nasheeds play a parallel role in the Muslim world so we're not really lacking in anything.
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OK, I see what you mean about being ethnocentric, but I think you've misunderstood me. I don't think Muslim culture is lacking because Muslims generally don't listen to Western music, I just think that any culture that tends not to look to other cultures will stagnate in insularity. I would suspect that the amount of different music available in the West (including music not even made in the West) would dwarf the amount available in a Muslim country. It's connected with the idea of imitating the
kuffar being considered wrong, a view I've seen expressed here. Is it really fair to say that an attitude which is prepared to encounter a multiplicity of cultural viewpoints is more ethnocentric than one which would prefer to remain within its own cultural environment, avoiding others in order to protect that culture's purity from corruption by 'outsiders'?
Having said all that, it's difficult to avoid sounding ethnocentric in discussions like this, because we're both constantly judging each other's culture by the standards of our own.
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And the reason for avoiding music was because overall, in general there is more harm than benefit.
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But I thought we agreed that there is much more material that is benign than there is harmful? Didn't we?
Great to be debating with you again Ansar!
Peace