Question
Al-salamou alaykum oua rahmat Allah oua
barakatouh,
May Allah grant you Paradise for your hard work and your service offered for
the Ummah!
I have a question that always scares me and I, with my limited knowledge,
can't answer it at all! When I discovered your site and your "email a
question" link, I was so happy.
It scares me because I always imagine Allah asking His Prophet (pbuh):Is this
the recitation that you taught your Ummah and he replies no, so Allah
asks his Angels to put me in Hell.
I like to listen to Abdul Basit Abdul Samad tajweed (not tartil, the long
tajweed) but I always hear these people cheering in the crowd: "Allah! Allah!"
and I ask myself why do these people do that?
Is Abdul Basit Abdul Samad's recitation considered as music-recitation? Also
theres a hadith that talks about the muazzins that will sing the adhan and be
put in Hell, is this happening today in Makkah?
If not, can you give me an example, a partial recitation of some Koran that is
sang?
I am willing to leave anything that comes against the saying of Allah and his
Messenger as I dont want to go to the Hellfire.
Jazzakum ALlah khayr al Jazaa'. Al-salamou alaykum oua rahmat Allah oua
barakatouh
Answer
Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa
barakatuh.
Ameen, wa jazaka Allahu khairan.
Masha' Allah it is good that you have the
fear of exceeding the bounds of what Allah and his Messenger,
, have set for us in the recitation of
the Qur'an. Allah, Ta'laa, said in the Glorious Qur'an:
: Meaning
"And recite the Qur'an in a measured recitation". There are many hadeeths and
chapters written about what "tarteel" is, and other hadeeths tell how we
should recite the Qur'an; one particular hadeeth tells us we should read the
Qur'an in a melodious tone: The Messenger of Allah,
, said "One who does not read the Qur'an
melodiously is not from us" Related by Abu Dawood and graded as saheeh by
Sheikh Albani. We also know that the Prophet had a good voice and was
pleasing to listen to: Baraa' bin 'Aazib, may Allah be pleased with him, said,
"I heard the Prophet, , recite in Isha'
prayers "wa-t-teen wa-z-zaytoon", and I have not heard anyone with a better
voice than him." Bukhari and Muslim.
There is however, a hadeeth warning us against reading the Qur'an in the way
that the lewd (or wicked) read.
In a hadeeth related by Al-Imaam
Maalik, An-Nisaa’ee, Al-Bayhaqee, and At-Tabaraanee, the Messenger of Allah
,said,
“Recite the Qur'an with the tone of the Arabs and their sound, and beware of
the tone of those that are wicked and those that do major sins, for verily
there will come groups after me that repeat the Qur’an as the repeating of
songs, monasticism, and wailing; it does not go beyond their throats, their
hearts are spellbound, as well as the hearts of those that like their matter.”
This hadeeth though, is weak.
We then see from these two hadeeths, that
there is a balance that we need have, beautify our voices with the tone of the
Arabs, but not exceed the bounds and read it like "singing". Once you listen
to the proper recitation of the sheikhs with ijaazah of strong chains of
transmission of the Qur'an, you will begin to be able to determine what is
acceptable and what is not as far as beautifying our voices without
transgressing the bounds of what is set forth.
Instead of us putting forth names and
examples of those who may be reciting the Qur'an in the way in the way the
Prophet,
described
in the hadeeth about those that read like the wicked (or lewd, we feel it more
appropriate to point out those that recite the Qur'an correctly with the tune
of the Arabs. There are many qualified shuyookh (plural of sheikh) but the
ones we are most familiar with are listed in the second link above. We will
give you links to listen to Sheikh Al-Husray:
http://islamicity.com/multimedia/radio/ch100/ , and Sheikh Basfar:
http://www.islaam.com/audio/quran/basfar/ .
www.islamway.com also has their recitation, but the
site is not working at this time. We always suggest that you listen to the
"tarteel" recitation instead of them reading to a group or leading taraweeh
prayers, it is almost always better quality recitation, with better tajweed,
and clearer.
As
to the adhan, we need to recall that the Prophet,
, ordered Bilal, may Allah be pleased
with him, to make the adhan because of his beautiful voice. The last part of
the long hadeeth about the adhaan is: "The following morning, I went to the
Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and told him
what I had seen. He said, “This is a true dream, in sha Allah. Get up with
Bilaal and teach him what you saw, for he has a more melodious voice than
you.” So I got up with Bilaal and taught him, and he gave the call to prayer.
‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab heard that in his house and he came out, dragging his
lower garment and saying, “By the One Who sent you with the truth, O Messenger
of Allaah, I saw the same as he saw!” The Messenger of Allaah (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, “To Allaah be praise.” Classed as
saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood, 469
So you can see that the adhan should be melodious and
its purpose is to draw the Muslims to the salah. The adhans of Mekkah and
Medinah are in clear words and indeed call the hearts of the Muslims to salah.
We do not feel qualified to discuss the adhan further other than to say we
have heard of no scholars complaining about the adhan of Mekkah and Medinah
Surely, they would have done so if they thought is was "singing". If you
would like to refer to a fatwa on the subject of the adhan, please click on
the following link.
http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=eng&ds=qa&lv=browse&QR=10523&dgn=3
We
admire your fear of Allah, but at the same time, we have to have a balanced
picture and measure in our fear. Insha' Allah weighing both hadeeths and
listening to strong masters of tajweed will help you in achieving the correct
recitation of the Qur'an. May Allah guide you to the highest level in
Paradise and grant you the recitation that is pleasing to Allah.
Wa
iyyakum wa-l-muslimeen. Wa assalaam alaikum wa rahmatu Allahi wa
barakatuh.
