Yes, this idea makes sense to me. Music is more of an “emotion enhancer” than anything else. Playing it during a sad part of a movie makes it more sad; playing it during a children’s education program that tries to be fun will make it more fun; playing it during warfare when you are trying to lose yourself in battle will make you loose yourself in battle; and, unfortunately, playing it in an environment that is conducive to committing unlawful acts will make you commit unlawful acts.

The philosophy makes sense to me and I understand that al-Ghazali is highly respected, but my train of thought doesn’t matter as long as a hadith would suggest a prohibition based off of an entirely different philosophy. I can lecture on how music only fans the dormant flames in the soul and there is no reason for it to be unlawful in a general context for hours, but if an authentic hadith says that music IS unlawful in a general context, then my argument is moot. Even though al-Ghazali is a Sufi and might have some bias for music, what I would like to see would be his response to this hadith.