Tuesday, July 6, 2010

BBC: Muslim Parents 'Banning Children From Music Lessons'


July 1, 2010 on BBC News:
Hundreds of Muslim parents are withdrawing children from music lessons because their beliefs forbid them from learning an instrument.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said music lessons were potentially unacceptable to about 10% of Muslims.

This could equate to hundreds of Muslim children being withdrawn from the lessons, the MCB said.

It said passages from a collection of the Prophet Mohammed's teachings banned instruments.
Read more
(via Cynical-C Blog)

14 comments:

  1. I don't know how they cope with that. I mean, I would go totally nuts without music! Oh, wait...

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  2. Right! It's cruel to deny someone the beauty of music. I couldn't imagine going my whole life without hearing music. I'd blow my mind.

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  3. Bach at primary school?  Surely Wagner, being a raving anti-semite, would be more up their street...   ;)

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  4. The basic problem is the same for all religions: mindlessly sponging up ideas out of holy books. A secular mind looks at various facts to make a decision--facts that serve as context for the decision and make it intelligible. The religious mind has no such context; therefore, the stuff from holy books is intellectually arbitrary. Perhaps, in their way, religious fanatics understand that there is no "reason why" to commandments and that the only way to obey is to take them literally as the will of god(s) or some ridiculous "prophet."

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  5. Continued: I'm not sure it's even possible to communicate with the pious. I don't see any common ground between those coming at things from the perspective of reality and reason and those coming from the perspective of holy books and faith.  Yet, somehow, I suspect that the pious, at times anyway, have some glimmer of reason. Otherwise, it's hard to explain why the holy men put such emphasis on denigrating reason (often implicitly); they know that if reason is accepted, religion is finished. 

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  6. This is heartbreaking...

    Anyone else wonder if there were not other religions where parents forbade religion? Strict Evangelicals, for instance? I find it a weakness of the report that it singles out Muslims.  Is it possible that *only* Muslim parents remove their children??

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  7. Hang on - stop.
    Their beliefs forbid them from playing an instrument.
    And yet, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of Muslim musicians out there. What does that say about them?
    I want to see Cat Stevens weigh in on this. Is he suddenly 'not a real Muslim' because he plays music? Well?

    Music is a good thing to learn young anyway. Learning to play an instrument improves listening ability and emotional developement, or so I hear.

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  8. I once was a muslim and I tell you nothing of that ever happened back then, I guess Saudi Arabia is fucking with people minds... I always wished Islam would regress like Christanity did in Europe but those wishes are far from reality since oil is feeding that mosnter.

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  9. Dan, strict evangelicals are almost nonexistent in England.

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  10. LOL this shit keep getting better and fucking better 

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  11. Where can we find more on the content of this "Music Exposed" pamphlet? 

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  12. I think it's this:

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Exposed-Siraj-Yusuf-Lambat/dp/0952800853

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  13. OK, these "Music Exposed" guys are completely nuts.  I mean 'beyond-religion' completely nuts (if that's possible).  It's not about interpreting lyrics, or music's ability create sinful feelings. They believe in the hidden message of playing music backwards.

    From this link
    http://www.bangladesh.com/forums/religion/3576-does-witchcraft-exist.html

    <span>A booklet which I think is an eye-opener and I would recommend you to read is entitled, ‘Music Exposed’ by Siraj (Ibn) Yusuf Lambat. It mainly focuses on hidden messages within music. The claim is that these messages can be found by ‘backtracking’ i.e. playing the music backwards. An example he cites is from Michael Jackson in his track, ‘Beat It’. Here’s how it goes:

    Forward: ‘They’ll kick you, they’ll beat you, then they’ll tell you, it’s fair, so beat it, but you wanna be bad, just beat…’

    Backward: ‘Believe in Satan, people all worship Satan, I do believe it was Satan in me’

    Another example is Madonna in her track, ‘Like a Prayer’

    Forward: ‘When you call my name its like a little prayer I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there in the midnight hour’

    Backward: ‘O hear us Satan.’

    There is an audio tape available in Muslim bookshops called, ‘From the Shadows’. It talks about the history of the Masonic movement and does include a section on backtracking. It did play a part of Madonna’s song, ‘Like a prayer’ forward and backward. When I listened to the backtracking of this piece, the voice was very muffled, but I was able to make out the sinister words, ‘O hear us Satan’.
    What does this mean to people like me who likes Madonna’s songs? It is food for thought.

    These examples may not me Black magic, but is within the context of Satan Worship and the Occult.
    </span>

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  14. Nah, religion is worse because you have to believe it.
    But to quote the late Bill Hicks: if you play music backwards, then you are satan:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_69yvFZH9U

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