Singing concept

 ruhollah haji esmaeeli

Though Singing, from time to time, has been a topic on which scholars and jurisprudence experts have focused on and discussed from different sides, it remains a renewed topic being discussed and researched on by religious communities with all its fundamentals, branches, and sub-branches. It expands day after day, and religious people face new kinds and new branches related to this branching origin, making them in need of knowing their legal duty towards and how to deal with it, in order to manage their life not to fall in sin. And to avoid sin ambiguities in this concern, a well-qualified jurisprudent, who knows well of his time, the world around him, and the details of the topic he deals with, is to give his opinion about singing and music widespread in nowadays communities, and issue rulings on how to face and deal with it.
In this regard, our article discusses the question of singing through the linguists and jurisprudents’ viewpoints on the subject. The subject will be discussed in two frameworks: linguistics and jurisprudence.
In this article, the subject will be discussed chronologically, meaning that it will start with the sources nearest to the age of the Ahlul Bayt (peace be on them), ending up with the sources of the present time.
Chapter one: general basics of the study.
Chapter two: defining the term of singing due to linguists, besides other terms related to singing: (toning, ecstasy, and play).
Chapter three: singing conception from the viewpoint of Shiite and Sunni jurisprudents.
Chapter four: findings.
For some scholars, singing is defined as toning and ecstasy, and some others refer it to (community’s) tradition. This reference is either in the singing conception itself, or in the fact of ecstasy that singing leads to.
There is another group of scholars who have mentioned other conceptions that consider some voicing as singing, which we will explain in details through this article.
Keywords: singing, music, singing conception, toning, ecstasy, play, tradition, Shia jurisprudents, Sunni jurisprudents.