How Music Impacts Your Brain | Imam Tom Weekly

Summary

In this discussion, Imam Tom delves into the multifaceted impacts of music on individuals, particularly within the context of Islamic perspectives. Rather than focusing on the simplistic halal vs. haram debate, he navigates through how music influences emotions, attachments, and personal identity. He addresses potential dangers of music consumption, noting that it can stir emotions leading to loving what may be disliked in Islam. The discussion highlights how performers can become consumed by their stage personas, risking arrogance and detachment from their true selves. Additionally, the discourse examines the commercialization of music and its societal implications, cautioning against the manipulation of desires and the portrayal of misleading artistic stereotypes. The overall message underscores the importance of conscientious consumption and understanding the deeper effects that music can impose on believers and society at large.

Highlights

• Music can create attachments that sway your emotions. 🎶
• Performers risk being overtaken by their stage personas. 🎭
• Music industry commercializes art, affecting authenticity. 💼
• Beware of societal stereotypes about artists. 🤔
• Not all perceived beauty in music aligns with spiritual values. 🌟

Key Takeaways

• Music influences emotions and attachments beyond religious rulings. 🎶
• Performing can lead to identity conflicts and arrogance. 🎭
• Commercial music often manipulates desires and perceptions. 💰
• Artistic stereotypes, like the 'tortured genius,' can be harmful. 🎨
• The music industry may prioritize profit over genuine expression. 🏢

Overview

Imam Tom presents a compelling discourse on the complexities surrounding music in the life of a Muslim. Steering away from the common debates of what is halal or haram, he sheds light on the subtler yet profound effects that music has on the human psyche and emotions. By illustrating how music might influence attachments in misleading ways, he emphasizes the importance of awareness when engaging with artistic expressions.

The conversation takes a deeper dive into the life of performers, highlighting how the act of performing can sometimes lead to an identity crisis, where artists become trapped in their alter egos. This is exacerbated by societal pressures and the glamour associated with performance art, potentially leading artists away from their true selves and spiritual paths. Imam Tom uses personal anecdotes to further elucidate these challenges, drawing from experiences as a former musician.

The analysis doesn’t stop at the artistic level; it extends into the music industry itself, which often prioritizes commercial gains over genuine artistic expression. By critiquing how the industry manipulates consumer desires and sustains harmful stereotypes, Imam Tom urges a reconsideration of how music is consumed and valued. The conversation ultimately encourages listeners to maintain a discerning approach, recognizing music's powerful influence while safeguarding spiritual integrity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview In this chapter titled 'Introduction and Overview', the focus is on the discourse regarding Muslims and music. The narrator explicitly chooses to avoid the common question about the permissibility (halal) of music, acknowledging it as a well-known topic among scholars. Instead, the chapter aims to highlight other important considerations and potential dangers associated with music that have been addressed by scholars for centuries, irrespective of one's theoretical stance on the permissibility of music.
• 00:30 - 01:00: The Emotional Influence of Music The chapter "The Emotional Influence of Music" explores the profound impact music can have on emotions and attachments. It delves into the concept that music can create love and stir deep emotions within individuals. The narrative cautions about becoming too attached to certain feelings or art forms, emphasizing the need for awareness of how these elements shape our desires and perceptions. The chapter highlights the fluid nature of personal desires and tastes, illustrating how music and art contribute to the evolving nature of one's emotional state.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Case Study: Music and Marriage This chapter discusses the influence of music on personal emotions and beliefs, particularly how music can potentially lead people to love what is forbidden and hate what is permissible in the context of Islamic teachings. It provides a concrete example of a pre-Islamic situation involving a non-Muslim wedding where attendees discuss the choice of songs to be played. A popular song is suggested, highlighting the deep impact music can have on such significant life events.
• 01:30 - 02:00: The Performer's Perspective The chapter 'The Performer's Perspective' explores the subtle influence of music on listeners. It suggests that even catchy songs with themes like infidelity can implant their messages into the listener's psyche. Singing along is not just a benign activity; it subtly shapes personal beliefs and attitudes, turning the listener into a medium for the song's message, making such themes a conceivable reality.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Stereotypes and Social Constructions The chapter explores the implications of being a performer in the music industry, highlighting the spiritual and emotional susceptibilities that come with public admiration and fame. It discusses the concept of an 'alter ego' that many performers, like Beyonce, may develop in response to these pressures, illustrating how this alter ego can affect one's persona and potentially lead to arrogance.
• 03:00 - 04:00: The Dark Side of the Music Industry The chapter, titled "The Dark Side of the Music Industry," explores the challenges and psychological impacts faced by artists, particularly the struggle with maintaining a separate identity from their on-stage personas. It discusses how performers may develop alter egos while on stage, which can sometimes become overwhelming and detrimental, overtaking their true selves and leading them down harmful paths. There is a focus on the societal and cultural factors that influence artists in this environment.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Commercial vs. Community Music This chapter discusses the cultural stereotype of the 'tortured genius' often associated with artists and performers in western society. It explores the assumption that individuals with significant artistic sensitivity and expressive ability are frequently seen as eccentric, conflicted, and potentially self-destructive or harmful to others. The chapter delves into how this stereotype can be widely accepted and propagated.
• 05:00 - 06:00: The Illusion of Authenticity in Music The chapter explores the concept of authenticity in the music industry, suggesting that it is largely a social construct. It discusses how individuals may adopt certain behaviors based on societal expectations of how artists and musicians should act, often justifying harmful actions to themselves. The chapter also highlights the corrupt nature of the music and film industry, suggesting a deeper level of dysfunction and ethical compromise within these fields.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Conclusion: Beauty and Desire The chapter "Conclusion: Beauty and Desire" explores the relationship between the music industry and capitalism. It highlights how certain artists, like Dawood Warsby, differentiate between community music, such as nasheeds or widely known poems, and commercial music. The discussion extends to the roles of executive producers, studio recordings, marketing, and big executives in shaping the music industry.

How Music Impacts Your Brain | Imam Tom Weekly Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] There's a whole lot to talk about with Muslims and music, but I want to sidestep the question that most people come at right away, which is halal. I have my own opinions about that and that's a well-known discussion within the scholarly discourse. But there's other things that you need to be aware about other than just the cut and dry ruling that hopefully whatever your opinion on music theoretically that at least you will realize the dangers. Okay? Because the scholars have talked about the dangers of music for hundreds
• 00:30 - 01:00 of years. And part of the danger of music is that it creates love in you. It stirs the emotion. It creates attachments. And you have to be very very careful about the things that you come to love and the things that you come to feel. You're not just like this static entity that like you're just the way you are and you're always going to feel the same way. No, you're there's a plasticity to you that your desires, your wants, the things that you think are cool, the things that you think are acceptable, they're always in flux. And every piece of art and music is part of
• 01:00 - 01:30 art is going to influence that. So if you're not careful, music will have you loving things that Allah hates and hating things that Allah loves. And I'll give you an example, a very concrete example back from, you know, here's a a before Islam story. I knew of somebody who was uh who was going to get married and you know non-Muslims and they were talking about the songs that they wanted played at their wedding and one of the friends suggested a particular song and the song was very very popular at the time. The lyrics of the song were all
• 01:30 - 02:00 about cheating on your spouse but there wasn't even a recognition that that's what the song was about because it was such a a catchy song. So sometimes you will be even caught within music. You're going to be repeating those words and that's actually an act of subject formation that you are now becoming a vessel for that message. You might think that you're able to sing along and it's just a song and who cares and I'm not changing. No, you're becoming a vessel for that message and now the message that that song contains is becoming slowly slowly slowly a possibility for
• 02:00 - 02:30 you to act upon. Another dangerous component of music is for the performer, right? And as someone who used to be a musician before Islam, I can tell you that to be a performer is to put yourself in a very spiritually sensitive position that you've got people looking at you and you know admiring you in a certain way. It very much leaves you susceptible to arrogance. People talk about Beyonce and stuff like that like she has like an alter ego for herself when she's on stage or something like this is real. like you have almost like
• 02:30 - 03:00 an alter ego when you're on stage that you are performing for other people and sometimes it's hard to get out of that. Sometimes you end up being swallowed by your alter ego. That performer who you are, that sort of alienated or mediated version of yourself that's packaged for consumption. Sometimes it can overtake the real you and it can lead you down to a very very harmful and destructive path. And there's other considerations when it comes to performing music or being an artist in general that need to be taken into account of in our culture. In our society, we have certain
• 03:00 - 03:30 stereotypes or certain associations with artists or performers such as the the stereotype of the torture genius. Right? There's an assumption in western culture that you know the people who are have the greatest sensitivity and thus the greatest ability to express art and to have artistic insight are also these tortured conflicted people who are very eccentric and sometimes even prone to harm harming themselves and harming others that you can really buy into this association
• 03:30 - 04:00 that's by and large socially constructed and then that can become you. You can identify this is how an artist is supposed to act. This is how a musician is supposed to act and you'll give yourself reasons and ration and justifications to do all sorts of things that are harmful to yourself in your afterlife. Another component is the industry and especially with some things lately going on within the music industry or the film industry, a lot more attention has been placed off this that the industry is very very dirty. Now, I'll take it one step further. Not just is the industry dirty, but the
• 04:00 - 04:30 industry itself, the fact that the industry exists is a consequence of capitalism. Meaning that if you take people who do nasheed such as Dawood Warsby and other people that they've made a distinction or they've articulated a distinction between community music which might look like a nasheed or it might look like a poem that everybody knows, right, versus commercial music. Uh now we have the executive producers and we have the studio recording and we have the marketing and we have the big execs.
• 04:30 - 05:00 They're telling you what to say. They're telling you what you should look like on stage. They're telling you, "Well, you're not this enough or you're not that enough or that. No one's going to listen to that. Everybody wants to see this." Those are two very, very different things. So, within the idea of a commercialized, commodified music that this is something that creates a whole new layer of liability and danger that now it's not even like take this fact like for the, you know, the fans of rap
• 05:00 - 05:30 out there. Most gangster rappers, quote unquote, have no actual gang ties or don't have any experience in gangs. They're really they're gang adjacent and know enough about that life or grew up in those areas that they can speak about it in their music, but they weren't actually unless you're like in like actual drill or grime or stuff like that. Like they're not actually about that life. But the producers package that life and sell it to you that you think that it's authentic that you don't know the difference. And so you're consuming that as an image. I think you
• 05:30 - 06:00 see what I'm saying here that there's a whole other layer of danger to this where people who are paid a lot of money are sitting in a boardroom somewhere trying to figure out what to package to you, what's going to hit on your desire, what's going to make you move and motivate you and tantalize you and incite you so that you'll buy that and consume that and keep on coming back for more. That's a very very different dynamic than someone who knows a folk song and gets up and sings it in front of his relatives while they're
• 06:00 - 06:30 harvesting the wheat. So the whole idea of a music industry is a very very dangerous thing. And we've seen with the revelations about Diddy and the revelations about this and revelations about that. The the final conclusion or the logical conclusion to a lot of this, it's a dark dark place. It's a place that you don't want to be anywhere near. And so some people will argue and they'll say, well, you know, music is beautiful and God is beauty or Allah is al j and he loves beauty. But let's not get it twisted. Allah is beautiful and
• 06:30 - 07:00 he loves beauty. But not all beauty leads to God. Some beauty is simply desire. Some beauty is base. Some beauty is calling you to your worst self. [Music]