The Barcelona City Council has triggered an uproar after recommending the suspension of music and dancing for Muslim students in schools during Ramadan, thereby endorsing a rigorous reading of Islamic scriptures that categorizes such activities as haram (forbidden).
For a European city to suggest that music should not take place during Ramadan is empowering extremists who want to enforce similar values to the Taliban on European society.
Just before Ramadan, the council issued an eight-page document urging schools to exempt Muslim students from music, dance, and gymnastics, adhere to Ramadan fasting and dietary regulations; and allow students to skip classes and exams. The directives also ask schools to place students who are fasting in a space separate from the dining area.
Titled “Directives for Educational Centers During Ramadan,” the document acknowledges that there is no single theological authority in Islam and that there are “many different readings of the sacred texts” and “diverse” and “contrasting” interpretations about whether Muslims are permitted to engage in music and dance during Ramadan.
It nonetheless endorses a strict reading of such texts. Urging schools to be sensitive to such interpretations, it explains that “some Muslims may consider music or dance as an activity not appropriate” for Ramadan, as it is “considered a month dedicated to spirituality in which it is especially important to have a pious attitude.”
Islamic Scholars Contest Alleged Texts Forbidding Music and Dancing
Muslim scholars fiercely debate whether music and dancing are halal (permitted) or haram (forbidden).
Shaykh Waseem Khan argues on the IslamQA website that “expert jurists and leading scholars from the early centuries of Islam until today have established the prohibition of music from Quranic verses as well as authentic traditions of the Prophet Muhammad.”
“With respect to the books of Islamic jurisprudence and law, it is well established that musical instruments are all prohibited in Islam,” he writes. “The great scholar Imam An Nawawi has also written that dancing is totally Haram (unlawful) and impermissible.”
Responding to the question “Can You Listen to Music During Ramadan?” the Studio Arabiya Institute website admits that the topic of music “has sparked discussion among Islamic scholars for centuries.”
“The Qur’an does not explicitly forbid music,” it clarifies. “However, the Hadith and the principles of Islamic jurisprudence clearly discourage engagement in music, particularly during times of peace and spiritual devotion such as this blessed month.”
“There are a few hadith traditions about music, such as Muhammad putting his fingers in his ears when he heard music being played, but none of them clearly ban it, and it is certainly not the case that all Muslims think music should be forbidden,” Martin Parsons, an independent consultant on radical Islam, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).
“But there is a broader point here that is really important—tolerance by definition means tolerating things you disagree with. For a European city to suggest that music should not take place during Ramadan is empowering extremists who want to enforce similar values to the Taliban on European society,” Parsons observed.
Islamist Impact on Catalan Administration
The directives on music and dancing have also drawn attention to the Islamist influence on the Barcelona City Council.
Barcelona, a world-renowned tourist destination and the capital of Catalonia, has been a “Salafi hotbed for years,” with the “highest numbers of Salafist mosques in Europe,” according to Lorenzo Vidino, director of the program on extremism at George Washington University.
The region, famous for the Basílica de la Sagrada Família, designed by the renowned architect Antoni Gaudí, has strong ties to radical Islam and is home to approximately 510,000 Muslims, more than a quarter of the total number in Spain, according to a demographic study by the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain, FWI earlier reported.
Prepared by the council’s Office of Religious Affairs and the Barcelona Interculturality Program, the Ramadan document for schools states that the regulations comply with the State Cooperation Agreement with the Islamic Commission of Spain (CIE).
Riay Tatary.
(Archidiócesis de Valencia via Wikimedia)
However, key figures and constituent organizations within the CIE have faced accusations of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and of involvement in financing terrorism or money laundering. The late president of the CIE, Riay Tatary, had close links to Syria’s Islamic Vanguard and was a founder of the Muslim Association of Spain (AME), a key project of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2021, anti-terrorism authorities produced a 2,000-page dossier charging CIE president Mohammed Aiman Adlbi with transferring funds to jihadi militias linked to al-Qaeda in Syria. According to El País, the investigation found the Syrian doctor carrying out a scheme of “continuous deception” by concealing the true destination of the money from donors.
A classified police report leaked to El País noted that Adlbi “recommends Salafi and Wahhabi authors, of the most radical currents of Islam, to his students at the Central Mosque of Madrid.” The 74-year-old Adlbi was arrested but was provisionally released because of health issues and later acquitted.
In 2023, Adlbi signed a statement on behalf of the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain
(UCIDE), which represents more than 800 mosques in Spain, accusing Israel of “apartheid,” “state terrorism,” and “atrocious oppression,” FWI reported.
Despite all this, CIE has received €1,835,352.04 in state subsidies from 2021 to 2025. And in 2025, the Spanish government gave an additional €444,000 to the organization under the rubric of “social inclusion.”
In comments to FWI, Duane Alexander Miller, an Islamic scholar who serves as a professor at the Evangelical Faculty of Theology in Spain, said that he found the council’s directives “offensive to Christians and secular society,” as well as a move that “could worsen Muslim-Christian relations.”
“Some Christians talk about welcoming foreigners. That’s part of the biblical story,” Miller observed. “But the Old Testament also talks about one law for you and for the foreigner. This, to me, clearly states that when immigrants come to a land, they are supposed to adopt and abide by the laws and customs of our land, certainly not the other way around.”