The Difference Between the Prohibition of Qawwali and That of Eating Pork

Question

A fatwa was received. It states that whatever the Holy Qur’an has declared unlawful (haram) is unlawful in itself (haram li-‘aynihi), and its prohibition is severe; at times the commission of a certain haram is transitive (muta‘addi — its harm spreads to others). It then states that whatever kind of prohibition obtains in a given case, censure (nakir) of it will be in the same measure. Therefore the prohibition of qawwali (Sufi devotional singing with music) with musical instruments and pipes (ma‘azif and mazamir)

Answer

You have written down the harms of qawwali, but in comparison with them you have made the evil of pork, wine and zina very light by declaring it non-transitive. Yet no attention was paid to the blood that is produced from unlawful food and reaches the heart, the mind and the limbs, and to the kinds of views and deeds that then emerge from it; nor was thought given to the evils…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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