Islam discourages music not because sound itself is evil, but because of what it can do to the heart.
In Islamic tradition, anything that distracts from remembrance of Allah, inflames desire, or pulls a person away from presence and accountability is treated with caution.
Music, especially when it becomes constant stimulation or emotional escape, has the power to bypass reason and go straight to the heart, shaping mood, attachment, memory, and identity.
For many scholars, the concern isn’t a single song or sound, but how easily music becomes a replacement for reflection, silence, or spiritual awareness. When something consistently fills inner space, it leaves less room for remembrance, prayer, and intentional stillness.
That understanding matters to me, because the discouragement never felt arbitrary. It wasn’t about punishment or control. It was about guarding the heart.
And that’s exactly why this was so hard for me.
Before I converted to Islam, music was a big part of my identity.
I was a big music lover. I would wake up and start my day with music. I listened to it at work just to get through the day, played it in traffic, played it when I got home, and fell asleep to it at night. It was constant.
Looking back, it functioned like an addiction, or at least a dependency. I’d been this way since childhood.
For the longest time, my dream wasn’t even to make films at first, it was to write, direct, and edit music videos. I loved how music and visuals came together to tell stories without words.
That pull toward rhythm, movement, and emotion shaped not just what I listened to, but how I imagined my creative future.
Islam didn’t necessarily get in the way of those dreams, I was already struggling with things like performance anxiety, low confidence and had an unhealthy fixation on perfectionism when it came to any project.
So when I chose Islam, those dreams felt even further away.
There’s a lot of conversation online about whether music is haram or permissible, often reduced to certainty and confidence. But what gets lost is the internal experience of someone who deeply loves music and then chooses a faith that asks them to question its place in their life.
For me, it was never just about rules. It was about attachment.
There was a period of time where I stopped listening to music altogether.
And surprisingly, it wasn’t as miserable as people might imagine.
Without music constantly filling space, my inner world became quieter. More exposed. I became more aware of my thoughts, my emotional patterns, my impulses. Silence forced me to sit with myself instead of escaping into sound.
It felt raw, but also grounding.
I don’t regret that period at all. It taught me that I could live without music, and that my nervous system didn’t actually need constant input to survive.
But I’d be lying if I said I stayed there.
At some point, I eventually caved and went back to listening to it more. Not as much as I did before of course, but I just couldn’t cut it out completely. Like Indefinitely.
I also started to notice how deeply I had conditioned my body around music. I trained myself to work out with it to the point where exercising without music felt almost impossible. Silence made movement feel dull and unmotivating.
Traditional workouts felt boring to me, which is why I was always more drawn to things like dance cardio, movement that stayed rhythmic, expressive, and stimulated. Without music, my body didn’t know how to engage in the same way.
And I had to confront something uncomfortable, that my relationship with music wasn’t neutral. It could soothe me, but it could also pull me back into emotional states I had worked hard to leave behind.
Old identities. Old wounds. Old versions of myself. I didn’t like that very much.
That’s where the struggle really lives for me, not in whether I can listen to music, but in how deeply it can move me away from presence if I’m not too careful.
Over time, especially after taking a long break from music, I started to notice something clearly. Fast, loud, rhythm-heavy songs, the kind of music I’m most drawn to, had been contributing to my anxiety .
When I tried listening again while doing something neutral like homework, the reaction was obvious. I would start to feel shaky and overstimulated, even though I don’t normally feel that way when I study.
My heart would race, my thoughts would speed up, and my body would feel unsettled. I realized it wasn’t just enjoyment, it was a dopamine rush. When the music stopped, silence felt uncomfortable rather than calming.
Once I understood that this kind of music stimulates my nervous system and stress hormones, it finally made sense. What I had once experienced as emotional release was often just overstimulation.
It also helped to learn how music affects the brain scientifically. Music has a powerful neurological impact. It activates the dopamine reward system, stimulates the emotional centers of the limbic brain, and can influence nervous system arousal almost immediately.
While this can be soothing or uplifting in the short term, excessive or constant exposure can make the brain reliant on stimulation, reduce tolerance for silence, and keep certain emotions looping rather than fully processing.
Because music bypasses logical thought and connects directly to memory and emotion, it can feel deeply comforting. But that same pathway can also resurface old memories, including painful or unresolved ones, before the mind has a chance to filter or ground them.
In doing so, music can subtly pull me away from stillness, reflection, presence or even feeling peace. Over time, calm states can begin to feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable.
Realizing this helped me limit how much I listen to music. I no longer aim for perfection. I aim for awareness. I accept that this is part of my jihad (struggle).
Honestly, Vanessa 