month’s space the people who were gathered round him in the desert ate no food,
and the children neither wept nor asked for milk; and whenever the folk departed it
was found that many had died of the rapture that seized them as they listened to his
voice...Then God, wishing to separate those who listened to the voice and
followed their temperament from the followers of the truth who listened to the
spiritual reality, permitted Iblis to work his will and display his wiles. Iblis fash-
ioned a mandoline and aflute and took up a station opposite to the place where
David was singing. David’s audience became divided into two parties: the blest and
the damned...The people of meaning were conscious of nothing except David’s
voice, for they saw God alone; if they heard the Devil’s music, they regarded it as a
temptation proceeding from God, and if they heard David’s voice, they recognized
it as being a direction from God; wherefore they abandoned all things that are
merely subsidiary and saw right and wrong as they really are. When a man has
audition of this kind, whatever he hears is lawful to him.^56
Thus al-Hujwiri argues that the medium is never the problem. Corruption
occurs not in type of object, but in the subjective, internalized experience of
reception.
The Brethren of Purity recognize similar pitfalls, saying:“The reason
why music has been proscribed in some of the prophetic laws is that people
have made use of it in a way different to that of the sages, in fact, for idle
entertainment, and to incite a craving for the pleasures of this world and its
deceptive desires.”^57 Although at the end of his treatise, Ahmad al-Ghazali
notes that“by common consent,”instruments of diversion including the
viol, lute (oud), Persian lute (barbad), reed-pipe, and all except the tam-
bourine are prohibited, he initiates his discussions of the metaphysical
benefits of audition by equating an absolute prohibition with blasphemous
disrespect for the example of the Prophet. Noting thoseHadithwhere the
Prophet is mentioned listening to music, he explains:“He who says that
audition is absolutely forbidden must acknowledge that the Prophet did
what is forbidden, looked at what is forbidden, and confirmed others in
what is forbidden. If thatflutters in anyone’s mind, he is an infidel by
general consent, and the paths of the favours...are closed to him.”^58
The ambivalences of audition complement the seemingly contradictory
relationship of Islamic societies with wine. Unlike the image or music, the
Quran explicitly prohibits intoxication in association with gambling
(Q2:219, 5:90). Yet passages also refer to the wine of paradiseflowing in
rivers and deliciously slaking the thirst of the pious (Q47:15, 83: 22, 25). In
contrast,Hadithliterature unequivocally recounts the enforcement of the(^56) al-Hujwiri, 1959 : 402–403. (^57) Wright, 2010 : 124–125. (^58) Robson, 1938 : 70.
72 Seeing with the Ear