Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
Is it permissible to enter a grocery store where people are listening to music? If this is not permissible, how will I live?
It should first be known that it is permissible to be in a place when there is a place beside it where haram music is being played. This is like someone sitting in his house whose neighbour is playing music. It is not obligatory for him to move to another place where he doesn’t hear it, because what is haram is to be present at the place of disobedience or to intend listening to the music.
If the haram music is being played in the actual place that one is entering into, then the basis is that it is haram for him to enter that place. It is likewise haram if one is in another place but intends to listen to that music [s. from afar]. This is the default.
However, it is no secret that haram music is widespread in the lands such that even a scrupulous person–let alone someone else–cannot refrain from being present at such places in many instances. This therefore comprises a widespread affliction (‘umum al-balwa) and we ask Allah to relieve us of it.
Our imams have made an exception to the unlawfulness of being in places of disobedience if there is an excuse, such as someone who fears harm for himself by not being present in such a place, as mentioned in the Tuhfa and Hashiyat Shirwani (430/7).
The situation that we are in these days of widespread haram music is an excuse that permits a person to attend such a place provided that he doesn’t intend listening to the music, because to make people responsible to look for a place that doesn’t have music is very difficult and it would lead to the non-fulfillment of people’s needs (or even their necessities sometimes).
[It is among the established principles of fiqh that:] When the matter becomes constrained, rulings are made more easy. And pressing needs (hajat) are treated as necessities (daruriyyat). He said, Most High, “He has not placed on you any hardship in religion.”
In my view, what corresponds to the primary texts of the school (al-usul) is the following:
If it is easy to fulfill one’s needs by going to a place that does not have disobedience, then it is haram to enter a place that has disobedience, for necessities are needs are approximated to their extents (al-darurat tuqaddaru bi qadariha) [i.e. in determining the extent of a dispensation f].
If that is not the case, then it is permissible to enter the place of disobedience and it is not mandatory to look for another place because of the hardship that we just mentioned, and Allah knows best.
I asked my teacher, the faqih of exacting verification, Shaykh Muhammad al-Khatib al-Hadrami about this issue and he gave fatwa that what we have just discussed is a need and it permits entering a place of disobedience.
And Allah alone gives success.