Ibn Abi al-Dunya


Abdullah ibn Muhammad, known by his epithet of Ibn Abi al-Dunya was a Muslim scholar. During his lifetime, he served as a tutor to the Abbasid caliphs, al-Mu'tadid and his son, al-Muktafi.
Ibn Abi al-Dunya's treatise on music, Dhamm al-malālī, is believed by Amnon Shiloah to have been the first systematic attack on music from Islamic scholarship, becoming 'a model for all subsequent texts on the subject'. His understanding of malāhī, as constituting not just "instruments of diversion" but also musics forbidden and for the purposes of amusement only, was an interpretation that 'guided all subsequent authors who dealt with the question of the lawfulness of music'.

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