Heart

The issue of music, and whether it is permissible according to Islamic shariah, is not a complex question, but it can be difficult to resolve. I have found leaving music behind to be one of the most difficult struggles I have faced in my life as a new muslim. And I admit that I am still engaged in this struggle. But I can say unequivocally that I have never failed to experience a heightened station and awareness either from leaving the impermissible or observing recommended and obligatory actions. I pray, God willing, to grow in discernment and action.

Spiritual progress is impossible without attending to these distinctions. I define that progress as drawing closer to God Most High. These days a little straitening of the desires is held to be an apogee of development, while it's in fact a sort of spiritual version of weight machines at the gym (bodies are not meant to move in one plane alone; balance suffers when machines compensate for human effort, and other analogies). On the other hand, God save me from being like a vegan smoker (misguided puritanism and addictive shadow, a saint in the street and a shaytan at home). Another challenge of the age is found in sacrificing morality to the shibboleth of non-duality. And language is indeed a matter of life or death, expressing the diseases of the heart. May God guide us to the Straight Path.

This can be neatly summed up as follows, from The Place of Tasawwuf in the Traditional Islamic Sciences:

Allah Most High says: "He who is hostile to a friend of Mine I declare war against. My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him" (Fath al-Bari, 11.340–41, hadith 6502);

This hadith was related by Imam Bukhari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bayhaqi, and others with multiple contiguous chains of transmission, and is sahih. It discloses the central reality of Tasawwuf, which is precisely change, while describing the path to this change, in conformity with a traditional definition used by masters in the Middle East, who define a Sufi as Faqihun ‘amila bi ‘ilmihi fa awrathahu Llahu ‘ilma ma lam ya‘lam,‘A man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know.’

My first success was during Ramadan (O! blessed month) last year, but I slipped back into listening to music gradually. I reached a new point that did persist however. I now find that most music (especially with profanity, violence, or lasciviousness) is impossible for me to sit through. It makes me physically uncomfortable, slightly nauseated, and certainly tense in the sternum, around the acupuncture point tan zhong. For that matter, a great deal of popular music has a similar effect for insipid, crass commercial reasons.

On the other side of that experience lies all of the music that I identify with so strongly. There are more than a few songs that seem to evoke a deeply visceral response in me, practically transporting me to another era in my life, conjuring up its mood. These feel like a part of me.

That begs the question: Which part?

That question is a lever that could move the world . I figure we'd call it the egoistic nafs. But without labelling it at all, one can ask what part of oneself actually identifies with anything: good or bad, helpful or hindrance. What part of us identifies what is right and pleasing to God, and then does it unquestioningly? Whatever it is called, it is a powerful aspect of individual consciousness. It is here that I locate an interface between Chinese Medicine, and the task of purifying one's heart to draw closer to God, Mighty and Majestic. I also remind myself: success is only from God, the Giver of all gifts.

In Ling Shu Chapter 8, we encounter the phrase: xi le zhe shen dan san er bu cang. This is translated as: "Preyed upon by elation and joy, the spirits are scared away and dispersed; hence there is no storing (of essences)." The chinese character xi is translated here as elation, and le as joy (click on the transliteration to see the characters). Both terms are associated with the Heart according to the Chinese system of correspondences. In this passage, the very animation of life is scattered from its center in the heart.

Etymologically, xi shows a mouth in the lower portion, a drum in the middle, and a hand striking the drum on top. It suggests the kind of elation that might be experienced viscerally in the context of a lively gathering. Le is a little more complex, and also specifically related to music. It shows a large drum such as one might see in a temple, with bells dangling at its side. This type of drum served a ritual function. At the time when the corpus of Chinese medical texts was created, it was understood that the unity of intent and purpose so essential to religious virtue is located in the heart. The ritual drum described here is employed to make that unity available to the entire gathering, and serves a more solemn function than the hand-drum. The beating of the drum that mimics the heart, unifies the hearts, moves the qi, and joins them together in synchronized expression.

Joining one thing with another implies transcending a limit, or crossing a boundary. It is in those liminal places that circumspection is required, like sentries guarding a palace gate or mountain pass. It reminds one of a principle of Islamic Jurisprudence, called ‘blocking the means’ (sadd al-dhara'i), a means by which “Preventing harm is given precedence even to achieving possible benefits.”

When this is not enjoined, then one's energy, vigor, and vitality is squandered. The gathering power of the life force is loosed and wasted by allowing the joy of life to be unrestrained. What is the purpose of this life we are given besides perfecting our faith, and worship of the Creator in our every action? What type of ingrate sells a vouchsafed treasure for a paltry price?

Certainly every symptom and sign is a message that demands attention. And as I mentioned above, one symptom I continue to experience with music is tension at the point tan zhong. What is this telling me? One teacher to whom I owe a debt of gratitude is Dr. Robert Johns. From him I learned to take seriously the importance of acupuncture point names. Tan (click on the word) means altar. In the point name the radical flesh is added. There are two aspects to its meaning: first, the lower right hand portion represents an eye examining the grain above and finding it to be perfect. With the earth radical applied, it means any area consecrated to spiritual communion. Here we note, as in the authenticated saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that for muslims “the whole earth has been made a masjid, and pure for me, so whenever the time of prayer comes for anyone of you, he should pray wherever he is.” Zhong means center. The meaning illustrates the role of this vital center: it receives purity in order to promote its circulation, communication, and expression; physiologically it promotes opening the chest, and maintaining the regularity of circulation and respiration. Needling this point often allows a closer connection to one's emotional experience, and accomplishes the dictum that begins Ling Shu Chapter 8: namely, "For every needling the method is above all not to miss the rooting in the spirit."

The message from my body is to not fritter away my energy in pursuits that draw me even one step further from God. If anywhere is a place of prayer, then everywhere is. If music transports one into the mood and moment of the past, or casts a shadow over the sacred, then it takes one away from the secret dwelling of eternity, and the remembrance of God Most High. The heart is consecrated to this purpose beyond itself. Moving beyond the self is giving back to the Giver.