The Day Somali Music Died
Qutb also reviled what the Somali Islamists despise: music. Like Lenin, he deemed music a distraction from the raging hatred necessary for destruction. He was stunned when, at the church dance he attended, the pastor himself dimmed the lights, creating “a romantic, dreamy effect,” and played a popular record of the time: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Qutb hated this song, just as he hated all American popular music. “Jazz is the favorite music,” he writes. “It is a type of music invented by Blacks to please their primitive tendencies and desire for noise.”
The rejection of this form of creative expression goes back to the beginning of Islam. Umdat al-Salik, the Islamic legal manual, quotes Muhammad:
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.
AdvertisementOn the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress. Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.
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.
‘There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful.’
As a result, throughout Muslim history, various branches of Islam have tried to eradicate music. The reforming Mughal emperor Muhyi al Din Aurangzeb (reigned 1658–1707) attempted to purify his land (which included most of the Indian subcontinent, plus part of Afghanistan) by banning music there.
In our own day, Laskar Jihad, the extremist Islamic group in Indonesia, considers music “a distraction from God.” In the Malaysian state of Kelantan, the government — controlled by Islamic fundamentalists — has banned singing, dancing, and even the ringing of church bells, since these things could lead to “immoral activities.”
The Taliban understood all of this very well, which is why they banned music in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. And that is precisely why Ayatollah Khomeini banned most music from Iranian radio and television. In Khomeini’s mind, music was “treason,” because, as he told Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, it involves “pleasure and ecstasy, similar to drugs.” Khomeini’s rejection of music — like Qutb’s and indeed the Prophet Muhammad’s — was directly connected to his revulsion at any form of cheer or joy in human life. He explained:
Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.
A comedy club, to say the least, can never exist in this environment; even laughter is discouraged — and is actually forbidden for women, and especially young girls. The author Nawal El Saadaw remembers that, growing up in Egypt, “if I laughed, I was expected to keep my voice so low that people could hardly hear me, or better, confine myself to smiling timidly.” When Souad, the Palestinian survivor of an attempted honor killing, was flown to Switzerland, she was shocked to find females dressing as they wished, smiling and laughing without being punished, and having people actually say “Thank you” to her — which had not happened once her entire life.
The late American journalist Steven Vincent, a warrior for the rights of women under Islam, made a careful study of these phenomena during trips he made, at great peril to himself, to Iraq. In his Iraq memoir, he noted that, at one point, he was sitting by the swimming pool at the Al-Hamra Hotel in Baghdad, where Western journalists stay. He heard two American women laughing, and a “chill” shot right through him. Their laughter made him realize that he had not heard a woman laugh in Iraq, “not in a free and unguarded manner, at any rate.” That laughter, he says, was music to his ears, and at that moment, he reflects, “I became a feminist.”
The hatred of joy and laughter is also connected to the dearth of toys and games for children in the Muslim-Arab world. As British author David Pryce-Jones notes:
There appears never to have been any such thing as an Arab toy or games for children, in the sense that Western children have had a ball or a hoop, a shuttlecock or board games. To this day, toys and games and bicycles are Western imports or imitations. Similarly, there are old and often striking folktales that Arab children may enjoy, but no classic such as Robinson Crusoe or Black Beauty conceived specifically for the imaginative child.
The only game permitted to many Muslim-Arab children is “kill the Jew” — and the game becomes reality when they become suicide bombers. After the kidnappings and beheadings started in Iraq, the “take the hostage and behead him” game became very popular among Arab youngsters.
We begin to see why Islamist terrorists so often hit places of enjoyment in their deadly strikes: dance halls, nightclubs, beaches (e.g., Israeli discos, the Bali resort). All things connected to earthly pleasure must be extinguished.
In the end, therefore, as we examine this culture and religion that is rife with the rejection of earthly joy and pleasure, it becomes obvious why it produces environments saturated with feelings of humiliation, shame, impotence, emasculation, and rage. So it is no surprise at all why the Islamist insurgents just banned music — and why so many Muslim men choose death over life.
Yet another reason everyone should rush out and become a follower of the “great religon of peace”. . . . .NOT!!
Does it not seem strange that the mullahs and immams preaching this are at the very top of the group promoting it. The immams of Iran own the prostitution rings and control the drug trade and probably not surprizing, the CD trade. Indeed these are the opiate of the masses, especially when one is filling thier pockets from it.
The prophet was none to fond of music and prohibited it to believers. Islam – putting “dys” in dysfunctional for 1400 years.
I follow and commend David Pryce-Jones argument, but wish he used either of Lewis Carrol’s Alice books as an example rather than Daniel Defoe’s novels: neither The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe nor The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was “conceived specifically for the imaginative child.”
An excellent example of tracing the sources of today’s war within Islam, Dr. Glazov. Much more of this is needed to enable non-Muslims to understand the nature of the deep reform that must be implemented to render Islam harmless to the West.
Understanding the nature of meaningful Islamic reform will arm non-Muslims against the deception of phony reformers such as Tariq Ramadan.
There are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. We non-Muslims can wield some influence to create the political conditions under which a reformed Islam can be born. Prosecuting all attempts to establish Islamic law in the West is the first step. Opposing all governments that support traditional Islamic law (the member states of the OIC) should be a First Principle of our foreign policy.
Muslims must create a peaceful version of Islam. We need to push them in that direction.
I’m reminded of the Ayn Rand quote in
WE THE LIVING:
” They came as a solemn army to forbid life to the living.”
Pretty much covers ‘em all.
The news about Somalia comes as no surprise. The radicals have been terrorizing the citizens for years. The imposition of ‘Taliban’ and ‘Mujahadeen’ rules, as were imposed in Afghanistan, indicate that this dehumanizing behaviour comes from Islam. The same story continues to repeat itself. That leading Islamic countries are not protecting the people of Somalia, indicates either their approval of these tactics, or they have no compassion for fellow Muslims. Maybe it is both. Liberal Muslims claim that ‘they (the terrorists) are not real Muslims’. That Muslims perpetrate these humanitarian crimes on other Muslims, is astonishing. I’ve been waiting for a Muslim leader to declare these actions are wrong. I’m still waiting… My blessings to Dr. Glazov and other brave writers who expose the insanity of the hateful Sharia based laws in Muslim countries.
How are they going to tell which women are wearing bras?
Mark The Great – the religious police feel the women’s chests, or make them jump up and down and watch them to see if they jiggle.
This is not a joke. They actually do this.
Another good reason to ban music is that it sticks with the listeners. How many of our Marines in WW2 could remember songs played by Tokyo Rose? A song can contain lyrics that are against the regime. Irish folk songs that are still sung blast the British.
If you are a dictator, you want to be feared. You can’t afford to be mocked. Songs are a good way to do just that.
Great article. Too many in the west don’t get what Islam is all about. This article clearly shows some of the hateful requirements which Islam foists upon its believers.
“On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.”
….hmmm, Heavy Metal, indeed!!!
Anyone remember the Underminer at the end of The Incredibles?
“Behold the Underminer! I am always beneath you, but nothing is beneath me! I hereby declare war on peace and happiness! Soon all will tremble before me!”
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If the President, the congress and the environmental whack jobs would only see clearly enough to allow us to develop fully our own abundant natural resources which are virtually bubbling up underneath our feet we could, in a very short period of time, completely free ourselves from our dependence on importing foreign oil. We have plenty of oil, coal, natural gas, within our own borders, off our coasts, to keep us solvent for the next couple of hundred years, more then enough time for our inventive and creative fellow citizens to develop a viable alternative source of energy. We would have scenes of Arab leaders, Kings and rulers coming to America on bended knee, bowing and scraping before whoever is President, begging that we buy their oil. What else do they have to sell? Sand? Then we can simply tell the entire Muslim world to kiss our collective rear ends. If the Somali leaders want to ban music, hey go for it Islamic nut jobs!!! If they want their women to grow beards as well as the men why heck we’ll be more then happy to sell them the technology to make that happen for them. If they want their 10 year old daughters, sisters and cousins to be legally married let them do so. We can just wash our hands of the entire problem.
Apparently factions of Somolian terror organizations found their way to the Chicago area, for the first time Chicago a huge populated city in the united states is finding decapitated and dismembered body parts at crime scenes. My ability to report their activity was hampered by a black caucas who didnt like my comments about their emppowering such a group of somolians locally and they have had me rendered unfit to stand trial on a disorderly conduct where I identified members of their terror cell financial fraud ring in the south burbs and was immediately persecuted because i would nOT SHUT UP ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING ON .. persons in cook county circuit court felt i would SAY TOO Much and alarm the public. having your body parts dismembered is something to BE ALARMED AND ALERT ABOUT. I am lucid and fed up with the coverup!! Pam Toll Park Forest IL USA
He despised all the comforts of modern American life. He was particularly repulsed by a dance he witnessed after a church service.
I argue that Qutb was ignored by the bobby soxers, went home to Egypt and poured out his resentments on paper.
Hence, the origins of prudish Salafism as a function of Qutb’s resentment and jealousy.
Music & rhythm are integral to the African soul, good luck trying to destroy that in Somalis.
‘There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful.’
Don’t you recline on bejeweled couches beside rivers of wine in Paradise, with houris/virgins attending your every need ?
Aren’t the joys of martyrdom sold as a libertine life awaiting you ?
What shall we make of these dancing Mullahs!?