Mohebban Fatemeh

A nice breeze was blowing, so we decided to do things differently and have our discussion outside. This week’s debate was about music!!! The most popular and common thing most teens and teenagers enjoy. In today’s society music has become an addiction. Everyone is always walking around with head phones in their ears. Its like with out it everyone would be walking around like dead zombies.

To begin our discussion, we divided ourselves into three groups, those who listen to Islamic music, those who listen to non-Islamic music and those who listen to both. We began asking ourselves, why do people listen to non Islamic music? The common answer for this question was that it has a “nice beat and rhythm”. Then we turned question over to the opponent side those who do listen to Islamic nasheeds. We asked them why they enjoy listening to Islamic Nasheeds?

The response for this question was that “Islamic Nasheeds/songs help remind you of Allah(SWT) and the prophet.” very true!!!Islamic lyrics motivate you to become closer to Allah(SWT) and the Ahlul-Bayt. In a way it actually promotes you to do good deeds(Amr be Maroof) depending on what the Nasheed/songs is about. I must thank our non-Islamic listeners group for honestly admitting the fact that most non-Islamic songs do not have good lyrics, meaning there is nothing in their lyrics that reminds you of Allah (SWT). Half the time it’s all very pointless.

Though our non Islamic music group did not approve of the lyrics, they still felt that non-Islamic music just has a better tune to it.We then had our middle group jump in saying that ” Though we do listen to both, we prefer the Islamic over non Islamic songs because of the meaning. ” True that most Muslim teens and teenagers may not listen to the lyrics of the non-Islamic music, but one thing we need to realize is that though we think these songs do not affect us, it affect our soul more that we can imagine. Allah has given to us a pure and clean soul. It is our duty to keep it that way. One of the best ways we can keep our souls pure is through constantly remembering Allah (SWT) listienng to lyrics that remind us of him. Allah says in the Quran, ” Constantly remember me (othkoroonee)”. Non-Islamic music is the best thing that can deprive us from remembering Allah.

When we look back to the 70’s and 80’s, Rap and Hip Hop music were used to promote people to rise and oppose the the politics of their time. The contents of these types of music were mostly about revolutions, racism, and politics. These musics were used as a mean to energize revolutionary people; the government starts changing the content of these musics. But they kept the shell intact, so these musics will still sound good, but the meaning will be different now. So what we are hearing today are not revolutionary songs!!! The contents of these musics have been changed and are used to deprive people’s mind from thinking and knowing of what is really going on in the world….. This way politicians can do what they want without any opposition from their people.

We know that the soul in us belongs to Allah (SWT) and we have to ask ourselves with listening to non-Islamic music are we taking good care of this soul or not? Also, what are we gaining and what are we losing when we listen to music? As we grow up, there will be more distractions in our lives and the only thing that can save us from those distractions is the remembrance of Allah.