Thinkers on the political significance of sound have highlighted the capacity of specific audial environments and listening practices to create and propagate ‘affective’ subjectivities and communities (Attali, Nancy). And, indeed, the Islamic tradition has from early on and very controversially thought about the significance of listening practices and sound because it precisely recognized aurality’s power. These debates have gained revived interest recently within the Islamic revival movement, given the emergence of a new music and artistic scene in its midst. By investigating the ethical and political entailments of these contested and evolving music styles and listening practices that take place within Britain’s emerging Islamic cultural scene, this presentation aims to contribute to a larger discussion about the significance of “aurality” within the anthropology of religion. On the one hand is the Islamic cultural scene in Britain marked by internal contestations around what constitutes a legitimate form of contemporary ‘Islamic’ music. And while the doctrine of the illegitimacy of musical instruments is not globally shared by the revival movement, too much beat, too much synthesizer, or too much bass are still often judged as rendering difficult the capacity of the ethical ear to listen and to contemplate on the messages. Rather, it is said to distract by addressing the bodily inclination for rhythm and movement. Yet, for others, it is precisely this effect that is deemed to reinforce the ear’s capacity to listen and to feel. These debates, however, are not only reducible to normative or moral concerns, but reflect a complex articulation of these concerns with questions of taste or aesthetic sensibilities defined by generation or cultural and ethnic background. Such debates expose a clear concern with “listening” as a central activity within Islamic ethical practice. Though these issues invite us to reflect phenomenologically on questions of sensory experience, perception, and embodiment, I abstain from using these notions in terms of a self-evident and authentic realm. I intend, instead, to elaborate them by articulating the insights from phenomenological approaches to listening with a body of literature that thinks through the lens of power, modes of habituating and governing the body, producing and governing affect (i.e. Asad, Massumi, Foucault, Bourdieu). In this case, modes of listening are defined and redefined as much by the moral pedagogical impetus of the Islamic revival movement, as by post-9/11, post-7/7 ‘preventing extremism’ discourses and policies of British state actors.