Fitzroy Morrissey is a historian and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he teaches Arabic and Islamic Studies courses. A specialist on Sufism, modern Islamic thought, and Muslim-non-Muslim relations, his most recent book is A Short History of Islamic Thought (Head of Zeus 2021). The following is an edited summary of his remarks at the July 2022 Windsor Dialogue conference.

The status of music in Islam has long been controversial. Writing in the twelfth century, the Islamic jurist Ibn al-Jawzi observed that “people have talked on and on about singing (al-ghinaʾ): some have said that it is forbidden, others have deemed it to be permitted, while others have deemed it to be permitted but disliked.” These debates, which have covered the permissibility of both singing and musical instruments, and have featured some of the most important names in the history of Islamic thought, have gone on into the present day. They offer an illuminating perspective on the relationship between law and religion and freedom of religion in Islamic contexts.

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