Instruments of Satan: Islam versus music

Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for August’s horrific stabbing attack at a German music festival, which killed three people and injured countless others. In a Telegram statement, the group said that the suspect was a ‘soldier of the Islamic State’ who carried out the attack ‘in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.’ 

The tragedy occurred in the west German city of Solingen, where thousands of people had gathered for a three-day celebration commemorating the city’s 650th anniversary—which, in a darkly ironic twist, had been branded the ‘Festival of Diversity.’ Given that the suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian national who was denied asylum and whom the authorities failed to deport, the case serves as a tragic reminder of the German state’s overwhelming fixation with multiculturalism über alles. 

Islamist fundamentalism differs from other extremist movements—such as the far-right, which now appears to encompass anything from sharing inflammatory memes on social media criticising immigration and multiculturalism to flying a St. George’s flag outside mosques—in that it opposes everything the West stands for. As evidenced by the Solingen attack, Islamists are increasingly targeting music venues.

In 2015, three armed members of IS stormed into the Bataclan theatre in Paris and opened fire, killing 90 people and seriously wounding hundreds more as they were watching an American rock band. Two years later, IS claimed responsibility when an armed assailant killed 39 people and injured 70 others at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day. Just a few months after that, Britain experienced its worst act of terrorism since 2005 when a suicide bomber killed himself along with 22 others at an Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena. The youngest victim was an eight-year-old girl. 

Then, in March this year, 145 people were murdered in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall while attending a gig by the band Picnic. As with the Manchester bombing, IS claimed responsibility. And, shortly before the Solingen attack, a handful of Taylor Swift’s European tour dates were cancelled after Austrian police arrested three young men, one of whom was described as an ‘ISIS sympathiser’ who was planning to carry out an Islamist attack. 

Islamic extremists consider music to be immoral. The bell is described in the Hadith as an ‘instrument of Satan’, although some Islamic scholars disagree as to whether it is haram (forbidden). As soon as ISIS took control of swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, they outlawed the playing and selling of music and musical instruments. Patriotic songs were declared blasphemous, and people were arrested for having pop songs on their phones. A band received 90 lashes apiece in 2015 for playing an electronic keyboard.

Following the disastrous U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban re-took control of the country. The supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has issued more than 50 decrees affecting various aspects of society. The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (PVPV) is tasked with enforcing a number of new ‘vice and virtue’ laws that have been introduced by the regime. Women are—you will not be surprised to learn—consigned to the status of second-class citizens, in strict compliance with ultra-conservative Islamic law. 

Ignoring the resurgence of stoning, flogging, and public executions, the Taliban still harbours strong animosity toward music. Singing is now off-limits to women, even in the family home. If a woman is discovered singing by the morality police (mohtaseb), it will be considered a legal infraction, and she will be subject to punishment. Last year, in the western province of Herat, the Taliban confiscated and set ablaze hundreds of instruments following the issuance of a fatwa by scholars. ‘Promoting music causes moral corruption and playing it will cause the youth to go astray,’ stated Uzair-ur-Rahman Mohajer, deputy director of the PVPV.  

Islamists use the act of declaring music to be illegal as a means of promoting binary oppositions: East versus West, them versus us. This is a tactic that anyone familiar with the culture wars will recognise. Following the attack on the Bataclan, IS described Paris as a place ‘where hundreds of apostates had gathered in a profligate prostitution party.’

A landmark survey conducted on French Muslims and their views on secularism and religion last year found that nearly 50 per cent of Muslim students in French schools declined to take part in music classes due to their religious beliefs. After radical jihadists killed teachers Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, French educators, no doubt in a state of terror and fearing reprisals, can perhaps be forgiven for acquiescing.

What Islamists hate, in addition to the concept of equality of opportunity for women, is the right to free speech. Music possesses the powerful ability to transcend socio-cultural and geographical boundaries, question the status quo, and hold power accountable. Islamists detest music produced by young, often radicalised individuals who reject their antiquated theocratic laws. (Can it be a coincidence that Hamas launched its brutal assault on Israel last year at a music festival, I wonder?)

Although this form of cultural jihad is frequently directed towards the West, it is also directed against dissidents within Muslim-majority societies (and, as we have seen, to ordinary members of those societies who dare to enjoy pop music). Consider Toomaj Salehi, the Iranian rapper who received a death sentence for supporting the women’s revolution against the harshly repressive Islamic Republic of Iran under Ayatollah Khamenei. Or Saman Yasin, a young Kurdish rapper who criticised the regime. Even though their sentences have since been commuted, the message is clear: music encourages free thought, and free thought will not be tolerated. 

The rise in Islamic fundamentalism has made music a potent tool of rebellion. We must offer our support to the courageous youth, from Paris to Tehran, who use music as a means of self-expression—for, whatever the genre, music serves as a powerful antidote to one of the most poisonous ideologies of the 21st century. 

Related reading

Rap versus theocracy: Toomaj Salehi and the fight for a free Iran, by Noel Yaxley

A Small Light: Acts of Resistance in Afghanistan, by Zwan Mahmod

The Taliban’s unceasing war on Afghan women, by Khadija Khan

The ‘Women’s Revolution’: from two activists in Iran, by Rastine Mortad and Sadaf Sepiddasht

‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp

‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie, by Emma Park

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

Celebrating Eliza Flower: an unconventional woman, by Frances Lynch

Can art be independent of politics? by Ella Nixon