Assalamu Alaikum, this is your host Nosheen, and welcome to
this week's episode of Journey to Jenna, where we'll be talking
about how to stop listening to music.
I want to preface this by saying just because I'm making this
episode and giving advice in no way makes me perfect.
Rather, I'm a Sinner, just like each and every single one of us
is. But I learned from my mistakes,
I learned from my past, and from that I'm able to give this
advice. So First things first, I want to
address the actual issue of not being able to stop listening to
music for what it truly is. Because for a lot of people, at
the end of the day, it's a form of addiction.
So step one is accepting that most people are like, no, it's
not an addiction. If it wasn't an addiction, you
wouldn't be here listening to this episode of How to Stop.
If it wasn't an addiction, you would just stop.
You wouldn't need an intervention plan.
It would be as easy as just stopping.
But The thing is, it's not. It's not an easy thing to do.
Yes, some people can just stop and that's it.
But for others, it's quite literally become an addiction.
Some people are addicted to drugs, some people are addicted
to alcohol, and some people are addicted to music.
And I mean, it's not like a bad thing to admit that you are
addicted to music because that's the first step in any journey
towards fixing yourself. It's to admit the fact that you
are addicted to music. You need to accept what the
issue is in order to start the journey of actually fixing it.
And again, yes, it's a struggle to stop.
Yes, it takes so much out of you, so much discipline, and
just so much out of you mentally.
But when you realize that you don't need music in your life to
feel contempt and when you realize that everything that you
did, all the hardships that you went through, you did it all for
Allah, subhanawata Allah and he is rewarding you greatly for
everything that you do, it generally does become worth it.
Next step, let's put a why to this, a reason as to why you're
quitting music. Yes, you're quitting music
because it's Haram. Some people will argue with this
and say, well, some scholars say that music is halal.
And when they said that music is halal, I promise you they never
meant that music. Like listening to little TJ and
Drake and Lana Del Rey, whoever your favorite artist is, they
never meant that this modern music we have today is halal.
There's no scholar that will tell you that it's halal.
And I think that all of us can agree with that.
We know it's Haram. But like, putting that issue
aside, let's dig deeper into why a Lesboro matala has made this
specific thing Haram. Ellis Buhono Etala knows his
best, right? He is our creator, so who knows
us better than the one that created us?
He knows that music isn't good for us, therefore it has been
prohibited in Islam. Studies have shown that
listening to music actually releases a chemical called
dopamine inside of your brain, which is responsible for making
you happy. However, through music, what
you're doing is you're creating an artificial happiness in your
brain, an artificial high. And some people will argue that
this is a good thing, but in the long run it's really not.
This Dunya is meant to be filled with trials that we go through.
You know, this Dunya isn't meant to be our Jannah.
And Jannah is when we get our eternal happiness that we don't
get that in this Dunya. And you doing that through
creating an artificial happiness, it sort of kind of
takes away the beauty of life because if you never experience
the lows, then the highs, the happiness, it's not something
you truly appreciate. And on top of that, if all
you're doing is you're on this artificial high that you've
created, then you're looking at this dunya in a really different
perspective than the one that you should be looking at it
through. I've also found that constantly
listening to music has a a negative effect on the amount of
mental clarity that you have and on your focus.
People who listen to music tend to struggle with prayer because
of this. You're so used to that
stimulation that music brings you that when you take out your
air pods and you focus on actual devotion to your creator, it
sort of kind of seems boring compared to what you've
accustomed yourself to. And our Dean is it's based on
Salam the prophet. Sallallahu Wasallam said that
the prayer is what separates us from the non believers.
And with music you've ruined that focus, that Khushu that you
have in your Salah and it's I guess you could say it's a form
of self sabotage. I was watching a video from this
YouTube channel called Merciful Servant and they called music
something that I've never heard before.
They called it the Quran of the Shaitaan.
Like that just honestly hit me so hard.
I hadn't ever heard anyone call it in those terms.
But it honestly does make sense. When you listen to Quran, it
stays in your heart. You know you have, you hold a
very high place in your heart for Quran.
And in a way music does the same thing.
When you listen to music, it goes into your heart and it
stays there. And Shaitaan, he makes music,
this thing that everyone wants. He makes it something enjoyable,
which like everyone that listens to music is going to say they
love music. It's something that brings you
happiness. It's something that brings you
joy. That is what makes it so much
harder. You've given music a place in
your heart when it shouldn't be there in the 1st place.
And Chaitan has made it so widespread, so easy to listen to
music that even if you quit music, someone you're friends
with or someone in your family is going to be listening to
music. And that's how you're exposed to
it. You're listening to an Islamic
video and an ad comes up and it has music in it like Shaitaan.
He knows the appeal that music has.
He knows how much we enjoy it, and he's capitalizing on it.
And it's sad that the society that we live in, it's completely
just falling into this trick of Straitan.
Everywhere you go there's music and people will be like, So
what? Like they'll take it so lightly.
Oh, it's just music. No, it's not just music.
You're feeding yourself and your soul something, and when that
something is bad, it becomes dangerous because you're slowly
destroying your own soul. The mainstream music that we
have nowadays, it preaches things that Islam is against.
What do all these songs talk about?
They talk about drugs, partying, having premarital relations.
They talk about breakups, being sad, and that is what you're
feeding your soul. How do you expect yourself to be
truly happy, to be at peace? When you're feeding into this
type of content? Be mindful of the content that
you let yourself consume because it may seem like nothing to you,
but in reality that is what is subconsciously guiding your
mind, these ideologies that you're feeding yourself.
It corrupts you and furthermore it's a trick of shaitaan to feed
you these non Islamic ideologies.
You may be a very very pious person, but if all that's in
your ears are these songs about all these Haram things, sooner
or later they're going to become appealing to you.
And again, you may be taking this lightly, but allowing
something to subconsciously control your mind isn't
something to take lightly. This is your life, and you
control your life through your mind.
If you let your mind become corrupted, if you let your mind
be subconsciously controlled, where do you think your life
will go? It'll become that much harder to
do what is right, to stay on the right path.
It'll become that much harder to achieve your goals.
You're the only person that can truly make something out of
yourself. And if you don't work towards
that, if you don't work towards the life that you want, you're
not going to get it. But at the end of the day, you
get what you give. If you give your soul all of
this music that is subconsciously controlling you,
you're not going to be able to get that life that you truly
want, that Islamic life that hereafter, you know.
So really focus on what it is that you are allowing into your
mind. I heard this story about
somebody who decided to quit music, and the reason they
decided to quit, it's because of the power they realized music
had over them. Basically this girl, she had
been listening to music and then it was time to pray.
So she got up, stopped listening to music and went to pray.
However, when she went to pray, she found that she couldn't.
Why? Because her heart was singing.
It was singing the lyrics that she had just been listening to,
and this really resonated with me.
I feel like a lot of us can honestly relate as well, because
how many of us have ever had a song stuck inside of our head?
It'll play over and over and over, and sometimes I find
myself unintentionally humming a song that I heard on TikTok and
the video was only, what, 10 seconds long?
But either way, it'll still be stuck in my head, and I'll feel
like through. This is what I when I really
realized how truly addicting music can be, and just how much
of A subconscious impact it can have on you.
And after hearing this story, I connected it to this other story
I've heard about a man. He was dying and his wife was
begging him to say the Shahada so he would go to Jenna, but the
man couldn't. Instead he started talking about
football and football players because that is what he had
dedicated his life to. That is what he fed his soul.
And as I said before, you get what you give.
Imagine being in that same position, but instead of
football, it's music that's in your soul.
You're trying to say the words of Allah, la, ilaha, illallah,
but all that comes out is music. The music that is stuck in your
head, the music that you decided to feed your soul, I really
think about that because it's not something that we should be
taking lightly. Like, truly, just imagine that
for a second, you know, just like pause this episode and just
imagine all of this happening. You know, like, you put yourself
in that position and honestly, it's terrifying.
You know, like our whole entire life.
It leads up to that moment of saying la ilaha illallah before
we die and imagine not being able to because we decided to
feed ourselves music. And by saying this, I'm in no
way do I mean like to scare anybody or make anybody angry.
Like honestly, just thinking about it this way, it really
helped me. Like seeing the gravity of the
situation. I had never looked at it as
something serious, but looking at it in this perspective, it
really just shows how serious of an issue it is and how much of
an impact it truly has on your life.
So I hope that you guys can like gauge some of that and you don't
have that understanding in your heart.
Anyways, this leads us to our next step, which is creating a
sincere intention. For this, we have our purpose.
When's now we need our intention?
A great way to do this is to reflect on the purpose behind
stopping music, which we just did together.
But I also want you to do it on your own.
Create your own purpose. Create your own.
Why? This will really help in the
long run because you have a clearly set intention backed by
purpose, and if that purpose is truly meaningful to you, when it
really gets hard and all you want to do is go back and listen
to music, it'll sort of stop you in a way.
It'll help you. It helps create a strong
resolve. So like you know, tell yourself
that you're doing it for the sake of Allah.
This dunya is going to be full of struggles and this struggle
you're going through is for the sake of Allah.
Next step or tip number. I think we're at #4.
It's being mindful of what you let into your mental space.
Your life's direction and decisions are deeply impacted by
what you allow your mind to see and what you allow it to dwell
on. Be mindful of the tik toks in
reels and YouTube shorts that you watch.
It's so easy for music to be fed to us, especially in today's
world where everywhere you look on social media, it's just short
form content with music in the background.
And The thing is, with these platforms, they're designed for
quick consumption, but the content that you consume, it
leaves a lasting impression on your mind.
And often time that manifests as a snippet of music on loop in
your brain. It'll play over and over and
over. So the goal here is to maintain
control over what influences our mind.
Music is one of those really harmful things that has become
so normalized. And honestly, whatever solution
you find to this problem works. Turn your sound off if you have
to. I've honestly just deleted
TikTok all together and I have Instagram as my only form of
social media and even then I've forced myself to stop scrolling.
I just post my content, engage with my followers, and leave.
I also went through my following and unfollowed almost all the
creators who use music in their videos, and I would definitely
encourage all of you guys to do the same.
You have power over what kind of content you consume, whether
that's creators that use music in their videos or content
creators that use machines in their videos.
You have that choice and this is just like a really easy thing to
do. So just go through your
following and clean it out so that you have only creators that
use machines or, you know, just no music at all.
Another important thing, go to the apps that you use to listen
to music and delete those apps. And if you are planning on
replacing music with something such as a podcast, then keep
those apps. But personally, I just think
deleting the apps altogether is a much better solution.
However, if you do choose to keep the apps, then delete your
playlist. Like definitely delete all of
your playlists so that they're not there and you don't have
that. It's to just like go on your
phone and go to your playlist because that is where your
comfort lies. And we're sort of kind of trying
to take away from that. And if it's not there, it really
helps on that journey of just not listening to music.
And I think that, you know, as people that live in the Western
world, it's sort of kind of is impossible to live a life where
you consume absolutely no music whatsoever.
Like if you're driving to school, maybe there's somebody
playing music in their car and you hear it, you're going to the
doctor's office and they have ATV and the show that it's
playing has music. All of this is just around us.
And we can't control that. But what we can control is the
music that we let ourselves consume in our free time.
And that's honestly where it matters most.
Whether you know the constant you're consuming comes from
actual music listening apps such as Spotify or Apple Music, or
it's through social media apps such as Instagram and Tiktok, be
mindful with how you engage with those apps.
Again, delete them if you want to, or just turn the volume down
when you go on social media apps.
Whatever solution you find that works best for you, go through
and do it. Next we have tip #5, which is
getting comfortable with silence.
What I found when I was asking people that had struggled with
really, really bad music addiction in the past is that
getting comfortable with silence was really hard for them.
They had found a sense of comfort in music, and without
it, it just sort of felt really uneasy, you know?
But they also said that after a while, it's sort of kind of they
found peace within silence, just like hearing the sounds of
nature around them or, you know, people talking in the background
the car is going by. It's a lot more calming and a
lot less stimulating than constantly listening to music.
Next we have tip #6, which is to replace music with something
else. That is Hello, Replace it with
Quran. Replace it with a lecture.
Replace it with Islamic podcasts.
Replace it with something else that willpower your mind and
your heart in a positive way. Again, like being mindful with
the content that we that ourselves consume.
If you stop listening to music and then you switch to machines
that have instruments in the background that honestly like,
it doesn't do much, you know. So be like really careful with
the types of Nasheed that you allow yourself to listen to.
There are a lot of good machines out there, but this was like a
chop that I fell into listening to Nasheeds with music in the
background. It's sort of kind of takes away
from the purpose, so definitely watch out for that.
If you're going to be listening to Nasheeds, make sure that they
are all acapella. Another thing I wanted to say, I
know for a lot of people that just stopping listening to music
and then becoming comfortable with silence isn't going to be
an easy jump. I mean, honestly, it's it's not
an easy jump for anybody, which is why I'm putting in this step
of replacing it with something else that is hello.
But I want to also say don't get lost within this replacement.
You know, the ultimate goal is to be able to feel comfortable
with silence, with just listening to this Dunya, you
know, the sounds of this Dunya. And honestly, even just
replacing music with something else, at first it's going to
feel so weird because these replacements don't give you the
amount of stimulation, that amount of dopamine that music
would bring you. But what I've seen is that a lot
of people, they get stuck within the replacement.
You know, they were addicted to music and now they're addicted
to the replacement. Alhamdulillah, at least it's
something that's halal. But the goal here is to be able
to become comfortable with silence, you know?
And it's a really, really slow process.
You'll get there. Like, I promise you, you will
get there and it'll be hard on you mentally.
But again, I promise with hard work and a lot of time you will
get there. And when you do, you'll see how
much of A positive impact it has on your life.
For some people they're able to see these changes really
quickly, but for others it may take a few weeks.
A few months, but. I promise you will see the
positive impact it has on your life.
And for me, one of the biggest things that I've noticed is
mental clarity and just being able to focus on things for a
longer amount of time. You know you're able to actually
enjoy life to the fullest without having to heavily depend
on something. Another thing is it helps build
discipline. So many people when they go to
the gym, when they study, they listen to music and they use it
to get amped up to get motivation.
But without music you have to force yourself using raw
discipline. And I can attest to this like
going to the gym without music was so, so hard at 1st and
honestly it still is with time. I've just learned to push
through. Like with music, you can sort of
kind of just forget the pain that you have at the gym and
like, you're all pumped up and you have all this motivation.
And when I would remove that again, it would just make things
so much harder. But with that, you learn to be
more disciplined using simply yourself and your mind.
Over time, I've realized that I don't have to depend on music to
get that level of discipline. Another positive change I've
seen in my life is being able to feel raw emotions and moving on
from situations faster. Like before.
I would go through something and sometimes I would listen to sad
music and all that really did was elongate how long I was sad
for, how long I spent being sad because of that situation.
Where is now I can truly feel my true emotions.
They're not as dictated by music and I can help myself move on a
lot faster and instead of just listening to sad music all day
and making myself feel even sadder than I was in the 1st
place. It's also helped me build a
stronger connection with myself since all I have is silence.
And in those moments where before I would just be listening
to music, now I'm able to just be, you know, I can think I can
learn more about myself. I am able to be more in tune
with myself. With music you don't have that
because there's always something to focus on.
So just definitely having more time to be in tune with myself
has helped just building an overall stronger me.
When I would actually listen to music regularly, I was actually
never that much of like a American English music listener.
It was more Bollywood songs. And that was really hard for me
to give up. Like when I first made it a
thing that I wouldn't be listening to music, Cutting off
English music was so easy. But Bollywood, the whole process
was just so, so hard. Like I had to force myself to
not listen to Tum Hi Ho or Teres Sang Yara.
No Ativ Islam anymore. Like so much of this culture and
you know, if you're they see so much of it comes from the music.
And that was another aspect that I have struggled with, just like
not knowing a lot of the newest they see songs.
And like before when I had TikTok, I would hear snippets of
new songs on it and that was my way of, you know, getting the
new songs. And even just like watching new
Bollywood movies, if you're Daisy, you know that every
single movie is basically a musical.
So, you know, just grappling with that aspect of not being as
intact with this specific part of my culture was something else
that just made this journey really hard for me.
I also struggled with, on the other side, content creation.
Because while I was on this journey of, you know, not
listening to music, I also somewhere along the line was
like, OK, I think I'm at a point now where I should take down all
of these videos that I have on TikTok and Instagram that have
music. You know, I have enough
knowledge and I should act upon that knowledge.
It was really hard at first. Like, I took down almost all of
the videos that had music, but I left like one or two up just
because I really liked those videos and a hundred a lot.
With time, I realized that just because I liked those videos in
no way meant that I should be sacrificing my Akara for just
those videos, you know? And another thing was finding
audios that fitted the videos that I wanted to make.
It was just really hard. Also with engagement, I felt
like not a lot of people wanted to watch my videos anymore
because I didn't use music in them.
But Al Hamdulillah, everything worked out for the best.
And you know I have not used music in any of my videos for
over around a year and a half, I would say.
So Al Hamdulillah for that everything works out in the best
way possible. Alice Upon with Allah always has
a plan for all of us and we may not see where that ending is
going to be, but have faith that Allah will give you success for
you know, giving up something for the sake of Allah.
And this in no way means that like I'm perfect.
I don't listen to music anywhere at all.
You know, sometimes old habits do come back, but the important
thing is that you put yourself in check like life happens
sometimes. Your Iman is going to be high
sometimes, kids going to be low. Iman fluctuates all the time.
But the important thing is that you just constantly put yourself
in check. Telling yourself yo you can't be
doing this, you got to stop. This is Haram.
Like whatever you got to do, do it.
You know yourself best you know. So I hope this episode was able
to give you some helpful tips and motivation to start your own
journey of not listening to music.
That is honestly all I have for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening to this podcast and for
supporting me. And with that, I sit on my neck.