Excerpts from judge's decision in Khalife case

From Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology
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[...]

Although, in the first place, it is not for this court in any circumstance to indulge in discussing whether the action of the defendant mentioned above constitutes a deviation from Islamic tradition and its prohibitions, it is necessary to note that human societies have always known - since the advent of religions until this day - forms of behavior that touched the various aspects of life while not always observing all religious rules or abiding by them without that necessarily forming a desecration of the religious sanctity of the texts from which these rules have emerged.

[...]

Whence, it is clear from listening to the tape and CD at hand that the defendant has chanted the poem in gravity and composure that reveal a deep perception of the humanism expressed in the poem ornamented with the holy phrase. [He is] committed in his expression - in form and content - to a performance that bears no infringement on the holiness of the Qur'anic text, or offense to it or its content, nor reveal any intent to incite disparagement of it explicitly or implicitly, neither by words, meaning, nor music.

Translated from the Arabic by Manal Swairjo.