A seeker wrote,
How do we understand the role of music in the tasawuf of Maulana Room ( Allah have mercy on him)
specifically the Ney(flute)
Ashrafiya replied,
It (ney) is to be ignored. Hazrat Maulana (Allah have mercy on him) is in overwhelming state (magloub al haal).
Even his mathnawi is not for everyone.
http://www.ashrafiya.com/2010/08/01/mathnawi-tasawwuf/
the present day melvis and their musical assemblies are a much later development.
After reading Haqq us sama you will see the difference between real sama: audition and the present day musical qawwali: where everything goes.
In Urdu there is book Islam aur musiqi by Hazrat Mufti Mohammaed Shafi (Allah have mercy on him). It has been incoperated in the english book the slippery stone by brother Khalid Beg http://www.albalagh.net/bookstore/?action=view&item=1355
Both of them include the stance of sufiya on this topic.
Islahi emails:NS
Ajman, 🇦🇪
Assalam
I am not an expert on this topic yet I have an opinion on this flute matter.
Hazrat rumi gives lot of TASHBEEHAT ( similes, comparing one with other. I don’t know the exact translation of it). The flute is compared to body ( jasad jism) and soul ( rooh). The flute without air is nothing, when air goes through it from one end toward mouth then only the pleasing sound comes from it. the sound emits from the other end and there are four to five holes which manipulate the sound when ever they are covered. Now consider this, the flute is body the air going through it is the soul, the mouth end is aalam i ghaib the other end is the aalam in which we are living, the sound which emits is our aamal and the holes are our sense organs and they play a lot in our aamal. if you read few verses more in mathnawi you will understand that it is the rooh which maulana meant when he says flute.
I have a theory, why start the mathnawi with something that is controversial matter, because maulana wants to avoid disbelievers from reading the mathnawi. similarly Hafiz in first verse mentions of wine.
با مدعي باز مگوئید اسرار رنج و مستر
بگزار تا بمیرد در رنج خود پرستی
meaning don’t tell intricacies of tasawwuf in front of disbelievers let them die in their own ideologies.
Talib i dua
Imdad Ali