This isn’t just cowardice. It’s systemic rot. When music is tethered to capitalism, its soul is for sale. And capitalism punishes truth-telling when truth threatens profit.
Even the biggest stars now reflect how hollow the system has become. Drake, often held up as proof of modern musical dominance, has recently been dragged into allegations that his massive streaming numbers were artificially inflated through bots and manipulated plays. Whether every claim holds up in court is almost beside the point—the scandal itself reveals the truth of the era. Success is no longer measured by connection, impact, or honesty, but by numbers that can be engineered, bought, and automated. When music has to fake being listened to in order to look successful, it stops being a voice of the people and becomes just another financial instrument, optimized for optics rather than meaning.
Even Muslim creatives, once expected to be voices of conscience, now perform like PR-trained influencers. The industry has tainted Islamic expression with the same poison-commercialization, aestheticization, dilution. Nasheeds are now remixed with trap beats and romantic tropes. The call to Allah is often sandwiched between product plugs and vanity shots. It’s one thing to elevate Islamic art through excellence. It’s another to hollow it out and wear it like costume jewelry. Capitalism’s genius is that it doesn’t kill culture by opposing it. It kills by imitating it, buying it, branding it, and then making it forget its purpose.
VIII. Islam and the Sacred Sound
Islam does not treat sound, voice, or art as disposable. It does not reduce creative expression to indulgence or trend. It sees it as amanah-a trust given by Allah ﷻ. A trust that must serve meaning, truth, justice, remembrance.
In Islamic civilization, art has always had a purpose. The voice was sacred. Poetry was daʿwah. Sound was a bridge between the soul and the Divine. The earliest nasheeds were not stage acts-they were invocations of love, loyalty, and longing for truth. In Islamic tradition, art and music are not for self-worship. They are for remembrance. The human voice is a sacred tool. The daff, the poetry, the qasida-these weren’t tools of ego. They were vessels of devotion, of community, of collective meaning. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ heard poetry in battle that lifted hearts toward Jannah. Music was tied to justice, not distraction. When Islamic civilization flourished, it gave birth to soundscapes rooted in beauty, humility, and truth -they weren’t built for Spotify charts. They were built to nourish the soul and awaken the mind and heart.
When the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ entered Madinah during the Hijrah, the Ansar welcomed him not with hashtags or sponsorship banners-but with song. It was the people. It was sincerity. It was song-not for entertainment, but for honor.
The Ansar lined the streets and sang:
Ṭalaʿa al-badru ʿalaynā
Min thaniyyāti al-wadāʿ
Wajaba al-shukru ʿalaynā
Mā daʿā lillāhi dāʿ
Ayyuhal mabʿūthu fīnā
Ji’ta bi-al-amri al-muṭāʿ
Ji’ta sharrafta al-Madīnah
Marḥaban yā khayra dāʿ
“The full moon rose over us
From the valley of Wadaʿ
And we owe it to show gratefulness
Whenever a caller calls to Allah.
O you who were sent among us
You have come with a command to be obeyed
You have brought to this city honor
Welcome, O best of those who call (to Allah).”
This was music-rooted in love, in truth, in meaning. No filters. No royalties. Just light meeting light.
And today, the Ummah is waiting again.
Waiting for Muslim creatives to rise. To reject the glittering shackles of the industry and produce what matters. To write songs for the orphaned. To speak verses that lift the crushed. To sing for Gaza, for truth, for Allah ﷻ. To turn platforms into minbars. Art into ‘ibadah. . Just truth meeting truth.
This is what sacred sound looks like: Not self-worship. Not platforming. Not distraction.
But the honoring of the Messenger ﷺ, and the remembering of Allah ﷻ.
Because this is an amanah. And the silence is not neutral. It is betrayal.
IX. The Amanah on Muslim Creatives
And this is where the mirror turns toward us.
We, as Muslim creatives, are no longer on the outside of the machine.
We are inside it.
We have learned to speak its language: algorithms, aesthetics, brand kits, media kits, launch calendars, influencer packages.
But at what cost?
When Muslim art becomes indistinguishable from capitalist art—with Arabic calligraphy and “Ummah” messaging pasted on top-it has already been conquered.
This amanah is not about whether art is permissible.
It is about what your voice is for.
It is about your niyyah. It is about your eternity.
Allah ﷻ did not give you reach so you could remain silent when the Ummah bleeds. He did not give you talent so you could decorate injustice with vibes. He did not give you creativity so you could chase relevance while Gaza is erased.
He did not give you talent to turn revelation into wallpaper.
He did not give you creativity so you could chase applause while truth is murdered.
The Ummah does not need more influencers.
It needs witnesses.
Witnesses who will risk careers.
Witnesses who will lose deals.
