If we consider the verses about poetry in Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ, the matter becomes clear.
الشعراء : 224 و الشعراء یتبعهم الغاوون
الشعراء : 225 أ لم تر أنهم فی کل واد یهیمون
الشعراء : 226 و أنهم یقولون ما لا یفعلون
الشعراء : 227 إلا الذین آمنوا و عملوا الصالحات و ذکروا الله کثیرا و انتصروا من بعد ما ظلموا و سیعلم الذین ظلموا أی منقلب ینقلبون
“The poets are followed by those who have gone astray. (224)
Do you not see that they wander bewildered through every valley, (225)
and say what they do not do? (226)
Except for those who believe, do good works, remember God often, and defend themselves when they are wronged. Those who do wrong will soon know what fate awaits them!” (227)
Righteous poets are distinct from wicked ones!
The qualities of a poet who is accepted and pleasing to God are these: faith; righteous deeds; abundant remembrance of God; taking a stand against oppression and oppressors; and refusing to remain indifferent to oneself or to society.
The poetry of poets who themselves do not possess these qualities is rejected. Even if their poems are praiseworthy, they have no right to recite or perform them. Their recitation in mosques, and on particular occasions or in particular places, is a separate matter.
It is the spirit of poetry that determines its nature, not its outward features or certain quantitative and qualitative characteristics.
The nature of poetry
Poetry is not merely the product of meter, rhythm and rhyme. It is the spirit of poetry that gives a poem its poetic meaning; the poet’s own spirit, together with the cast of their thoughts and intentions, shapes the effects of their poetry.
Poetry is, in essence, a distinctive form of speech and expression with a distinctive character. This character can take many different forms and kinds, and it is the type and quality of that character that divides poetry into good and bad.
Thus, meter and rhyme alone cannot turn words into poetry. Poetry has a spirit, and only when that spirit is breathed into the life of words do they become poetry.
The intentions concealed within a poem’s structure and character—in its imaginative, rhymed and metrical language, its similes and metaphors—determine its true nature, both ethically and in terms of its permissibility under Islamic law.
Writing about an imagined beloved; personal, ethnic or tribal boasting; vainglory and acquisitiveness; self-interest and the pursuit of approval; flattery and materialism; moral recklessness; making sins seem attractive, such as portraying intoxicants and drinking wine as charming; sycophancy; politically malicious speech; hostility towards religion, insinuations against it, rivalry over religion, and insults to religion and its values: these, among others, are features of reprehensible poetry.
The devils who inspire unworthy poets are also part of the mystery surrounding dark, occult poetry. Devils are drawn to deviant poets, seeking to heighten the charm of their dark verse.
Other features of reprehensible poetry include speech divorced from knowledge, even when it is untrue; speech that merely stirs the listener, even when it is unethical; vulgar, shameless or sycophantic language; sensuality; defiance of social norms; the expression of feelings and emotions; private moods and intimate experiences; and exaggeration.
There is no doubt that imaginative, rhythmic, measured and rhymed words, along with exaggeration, similes, metaphors, melodies and the like, have a profound effect on people’s taste, minds, senses, spirits, thoughts and decisions. They may lead people towards spiritual things—or draw them away, attaching them to material things and making them enamoured of them.
An example of a loathsome poet and poetry
These are poets who seek knowledge in something other than God’s religion, set themselves up as a rival to it, and turn themselves into competitors with God’s religion. They direct people’s energy and attention towards themselves and their poetry, leading them away from the truth.
Like a false sweetness that gathers the deluded around it, this kind of poetry provides sustenance for the misguided, the extremists, the malicious and the hostile.
Poetry that serves as sustenance for falsehood is condemned by Islam.
Poetry that obstructs people’s attention to religion.
Poetry that, by agitating people’s minds, robs them of the ability to discern, assess and verify what is true.
Poetry that weakens morality, honour and modesty.
Poetry that makes sin and the desire to sin seem attractive and pleasing, concealing their ugliness.
Poetry sung in tainted voices or performed by corrupt people.
Poetry composed in intoxicating, provocative rhythms.
Poetry sung to deviant melodies.
Poetry composed in recognisably deviant rhythms or sung to deviant melodies.
Sweetness, delicacy and rhythms used to turn people away from the truth.
Poetry that serves as sustenance for falsehood, and anything else that Islam condemns.
Poetry that weakens society’s attachment to religion.
Poetry that functions as storytelling designed to alter, distort or insult the divine religion, or to distract people from it.
Poetry that opposes religious teachings and ethics.
Ambiguous poetry that casts its audience into doubt or lends itself to both positive and negative interpretations.
Poetry that functions as a new set of religious rulings, or promotes schools of thought and ideas outside Islam, including deviant ideas.
Poetry that distracts people from the divine religion.
Poetry that becomes a cause of misguidance.
Poetry that subtly implants falsehood in people’s minds.
Poetry that weakens people’s humane nature and strengthens their animal instincts.
Verbal techniques and forms of rhetoric that overpower the mind and deprive people of sound thought.
Poetry that amounts to frivolous amusement, or distracts people from remembering God.
Poetry that gives rise to ungodly or deviant ideas.
Poetry by people who do not promote what is right and do not avoid what is reprehensible, even if their words are good.
Poetry by corrupt people, even if the poetry itself is permissible.
Satirical verse and those who compose it.
Poetry by foolish people, or that which breeds foolishness.
Poetry by hypocrites.
Poetry by extremists, even if their poems are permissible, since it may provide a pretext for introducing their extremist poetry.
Poetry by poets associated with the jinn.
Eulogists of the followers of falsehood and hypocrisy.
Poetry by polytheists, deviants and corrupt people, even if their poetry is beautiful.
Ambiguous poetry that can be interpreted as falsehood.
Poetry that anti-religious media could exploit.
Caution should be exercised in reciting or singing praiseworthy poetry at night during the blessed month of Ramadan, on Fridays, and while fasting or in ihram.
Caution should also be exercised when reciting poetry—even praiseworthy poetry—in mosques, if it risks becoming dominant, undermining the mosque’s dignity, or overshadowing remembrance of God and prayer.