Page 45 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

Fig. 1.2. “Beware: Death Is
Coming,” a tape compiled
from the sermons of various
religious scholars.

Image right unavailable

est kind. Not ready to concede the point, the driver continued: “Do you believe
there is nothing that is haram in religion [din]?” “Of course not,” the boy coun-
tered, “but I must know where the proof [dalil] is for the haram. Someone can
tell you today that driving a car is haram, and you’ll stop driving. Then later
you’ll ¤nd out it was wrong, and start to drive again, unless you found out from
the beginning whether what was called haram was really haram or just an erro-
neous invention.” The driver, realizing now that he had better take another tack,
asked: “Don’t you think that drinking alcohol is haram? Do you know why? Be-
cause it interferes with prayer. It’s the same with songs, when you hear songs
your mind goes somewhere else and you can’t pray.” The boy retorted vigor-
ously: “Alcohol is one thing, but the Quran says nothing about music. I pray,
fast, and do all my obligations of worship [i"badat], and what is wrong if I hear
songs as well? I am not doing anything haram!” At this point one of the women
sitting in the back next to me entered the debate:
But all the words of songs are about love and all of these things, so that when you
go out you think about that rather than think about God. Your ears get used to
hearing the songs, until you don’t like to listen to the Quran. Well, then songs are
prohibited so that at an adolescent age you don’t think about things that would
lead you to illicit desire [shahwat] and sin [al-dhanb]. Especially in this era and
time, when the world is full of seductions that are always seeking to occupy your

34 Charles Hirschkind