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Dancing in Islam:
To a person who accepts logic this should be very informative, unless stupidity, pride and shallowness of
thinking have taken over.
What does Islam say about dancing? What both our Sunni and Shia scholars acknowledge is that dancing is
forbidden, because it is considered as an expression of soul through a type of sexuality. This may create a
position of desire that may lead to negative sexual results in the society, therefore it is forbidden.
The scholars also say that each dance could differ from another. There is the sexual dance that illustrates
desire and a materialistic view to an individual, meaning once seeing this type of dance, it will create slowly
a status of sexual emergency. These are the issues that Islam rejects considering the negative ethical results
of it.
There is also another forbidden issue, which is the issue of mixed dancing (of a man and a woman). The
nature of the dance itself and the connection of male & female may generally lead to some feelings that are
not in the favor of Islamic ethics in this issue.
On the other hand, there is the dance of expressionism, meaning that it expresses an idea, or is about a
humanitarian happiness in a subject (as it is known in our history by the word ‘Dabkah’). So when we move
dancing away from sexual moves & gender mixture, and use it as only a humanitarian expression issue we
open to a lot of horizons, maybe a horizon that reaches to souls. 1
Dancing in Islam
Permitted: Dance
Forbidden
of Expressionism
Leads to
Nature of the unwanted sexual
Promotes dance itself is feelings that are Can be good for Leads to public
Illustrates Desires
Materialism
the soul
awareness
problematic
against Islamic
Principles
1
Translated from Arabic to English from the interview done by Sayed Fadhlallah called “The status of Islam toward
arts, drawing & imaging, and music” http://bit.ly/bdbk6D
You are free, but you will be accountable. If we are honest enough, we’ll realize there are 100 other ways to
socialize without sexual effects.
Conclusion:
I see another result of many false equations that I warned before. Remember the rumor? “They teach them
dancing in Bahrain Polytechnic!!” Some students rose up angrily saying: “No! That’s not true! These are
rumors.” Now it is for real, created by your own hands. Hypocrisy should be put to an end.