Ruling on a woman dancing before women or before her husband
Question:
A woman dancing before her husband, and similarly women dancing together, that is, dancing as a group, and likewise men performing dhamal and bhangra. We know that this is definitely haram, but what is the proof that it is haram? Please answer us. May Allah reward you with goodness.
Answer:
This question comprises three matters:
First:
A woman dancing and performing a dance before her husband.
Second:
A woman dancing and performing a dance together with women like herself.
Third:
Men performing dhamal and bhangra.
The first matter:
It is this: a woman dancing before her husband is not prohibited if it is a natural dance, meaning she has not learned it formally through training, as is the modern fashion of today. And if the woman’s dance arouses the desire of the man, there is no text prohibiting such a dance, provided that this dance is only between husband and wife.
However, if she has adopted this dance as a hobby and has studied and learned the formal rules and principles of the dance as practised in the present era, then it is not permissible, because I am certain that if she dances before her husband, she will at some point dance before someone other than her husband.
As for her dancing before women? I would say: if the dance refers to the dance of the present era, then it is entirely clear that it is not permissible. And if it is said: what is the evidence for your statement? I would say: moderation and balance in matters is indeed very rare; excess and deficiency are mostly displayed, especially when people have deviated from a specific thing and lived for a long time in it. When the reality becomes clear to them that the thing they are involved in contains a deviation from the Shariah, and the Shariah denies its correctness, they turn away from and deviate from the Shariah (instead of accepting it), and so a strong negative reaction arises against it.
This is the thing we face in the present era. Common Muslims spent several centuries knowing nothing other than this: “This is such-and-such a madhhab, this is such-and-such a madhhab; the four madhhabs are the madhhabs of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama’ah, and these are separate from the madhhabs that have departed from the way of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama’ah.” As for reliance on “Qal Allah wa Qal al-Rasul,” it existed in those times whose goodness has been testified to (by the Prophet ﷺ); then for a long period this reliance ceased, until the time of Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) and his sincere students came, and they warned the Muslims that returning to the approach of the Salaf, who relied on the Qur’an and Sunnah, is obligatory.
There is no doubt that the call of Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) and his students had a very good effect, but in their time its circle was extremely weak, and intellectual stagnation prevailed and dominated not only common people but also the elite. Then came a period when this awakening that Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) had produced was again suppressed, and people again fell into jurisprudential stagnation, except for that period and a little before it. So many scholars arose who warned that the call to return to the Qur’an and Sunnah needed to be renewed, and among those who took the lead in this work was Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who indeed called to following the Qur’an and Sunnah. But looking at the areas in which the Najdi Arabs lived in the country of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (may Allah have mercy on him), and considering the state of the idol worshippers who lived in the Shaykh’s regions, the Shaykh’s greatest effort at that time was to establish the call to Tawhid.
As far as I understand, it is a very natural matter that human power is limited, so, as people say, a person cannot fight on all fronts at once. On this basis, all of the Shaykh’s efforts were devoted to spreading the call to Tawhid and to fighting against the causes of shirk and idol-worship. He was granted great success in this matter, and later his pure call spread throughout the Muslim world. Sadly, several wars took place between him and his opponents. This is the same practice and method of Allah Ta’ala regarding His creation, and you will not find any change in the way of Allah.
However, in the present age some scholars undertook the renewal of the call to the Book and the Sunnah, and considerable awareness on this issue arose among the general and the elite in the Arab countries. But regarding the non-Arab countries, it must be said with regret that they remained in their stupor.
Yet in these Arab countries a weakness remained, to which I have just pointed: among some of them there was no moderation, rather they were aware of one thing and completely ignorant of another. So you will see that the common person among them, who has no understanding at all, when he asks a scholar a question, “What is its ruling?”, even if the answer is a negation or prohibition, he quickly demands, “What is the evidence for it?”
Sometimes it is not possible for the scholar to present evidence, especially when the evidence is derived through inference (istinbat) and the Book and Sunnah do not contain an explicit text on that issue so that evidence could be presented. Therefore, in this type of issue it is not proper for the questioner to go into depth and detail and say: “What is the evidence for this?” He should know himself, whether he is among the people of evidence or not. Does he have knowledge of the general and the specific, the absolute and the restricted, and the abrogating and the abrogated? When the situation is that he understands none of these things, would it be beneficial for him to say: “What is its evidence? And what is its basis?”
I say: On the question of whether a woman dancing before her husband, or a woman dancing before her Muslim sister, is permissible or prohibited, and on the ruling regarding men performing dhamal and bhangra, if the questioner seeks evidence, then in truth we have no explicit evidence from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on this issue. The manner of its evidence will be only through reflection, inference, and deriving understanding (tafaqquh).
For this reason we sometimes say: not every issue has a detailed evidence that any Muslim can understand, whether he is a common person, an ignorant one, or a student; and not every issue is like this. Therefore Allah Ta’ala said:
فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ (16-النحل:43)
“If you do not know, ask the people of knowledge.”
One form of going beyond the bounds of moderation, to which I have just pointed, is that an ignorant person among the people turns away from inferential evidence. Indeed, many people attributed to the call to the Book and the Sunnah accuse that when a question on some issue is asked of a scholar, it is obligatory for him to say in it ”قال اللہ “ and ”قال الرسول “.
I say: this is not obligatory, and it is among the benefits attributed to the methodology and biographies of the righteous predecessors (may Allah be pleased with them), and their fatwas, as I have explained, were based on inferential evidence.
Thus, mentioning evidence becomes obligatory only when the reality of the matter requires it, but it is not obligatory upon him that whenever a question is asked of him, he must say: “Allah said so,” or “the teaching of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on this issue is such,” especially when that issue is one of the subtle and disputed matters of fiqh.
The first implication of Allah’s saying: فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
is that it is absolutely obligatory upon you to ask the person whom you think is among the people of knowledge. Then, when you have heard the answer to the question you asked him, following it becomes obligatory upon you, unless you have a doubt about which you have heard something from another scholar; then there is no harm in presenting that doubt, and at that point it becomes obligatory upon that scholar to make every effort, according to his knowledge, to remove the doubt that the questioner has.
Summary of the discussion:
A woman dancing in front of her husband is permissible under the stated condition. However, a woman dancing in front of other women like herself also has two forms, just as I have just described the two forms of dancing in front of a husband: if dancing is not her habit, but only the moving of the hands is arranged for entertainment, and in it the buttocks and other limbs are not moved in a way that stirs desire within the self (towards sin and fornication), or gives rise to doubts (about the intention and conduct of the woman dancing), then if this manner can be called dancing, there is no harm in performing it. But if any of the aforementioned defects is present in this dance, then the principle is that it should be prohibited. As for men’s dhamal: if it resembles the dhamal that we commonly see combined only with singing, let alone when it contains unlawful words, then this style of play and entertainment is not such that one should show inclination and interest in it; rather one must keep away from it, as the Prophet ﷺ said:
كل لهو يلهو به ابن آدم ، باطل ، إلا مداعبته لامرأته ، وملاعبته لفرسه ، ور ميه بقوسه والسباحة
“Every game through which the son of Adam becomes heedless is false, and if any game is permissible, it is that a man plays with his wife in fun, with horses, shooting arrows and swimming.”
From this hadith we see that the aforementioned dance is false, and since the state of this play, even when it is free from any unlawful element in every respect, is that it deserves to be avoided and is not counted as “haqq” (right) and approved, then we would say: the aforementioned dance is permissible, but in light of the hadith we have just mentioned, it is not preferred but disliked (marjuh).
So, in my estimation (and Allah knows best), I do not testify that it is impossible for this kind of dhamal to be free from things contrary to the Shariah. For example, we sometimes hear dhamal in which music is included, while the muezzin is calling the adhan from nearby and the imam is reciting the Qur’an aloud, yet they pay no attention to any of these things, but remain absorbed in their play.
Then this dhamal would be from the disliked (marjuh) play. And we would not say that it is haram, unless some thing contrary to the Shariah is mixed with it in any respect; in that case it is definitely haram.
