I wanted to see No One Knows About Persian Cats (trailer here) because I’m curious about everyday life in Iran. The movie delivers some of that, but what it excels at is showing us Iran’s underground music scene. As with most things, Iranian officials are very restrictive about what music can be played, who can sing (females are not allowed to sing solo), even what instruments are used. You can only play publicly in Iran [...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUtfR4JWFKk Some of the comments about this video by Sami Yusuf were that music is haram (forbidden) in Islam. Some people condemned the guitar music, others conceded that his voice alone would be acceptable. I say what’s the difference? Music is music. To be fair, the vast majority of the comments (there are over a hundred) loved the song. Personally I think that music is a gift from Allah and one of the signs of [...]