In the 2014 film Timbuktu Ansar Dine jihadists prohibit music in their occupation of Timbuktu. Modern Salafists have often regarded music (or sometimes instrumental music specifically, or sometimes all instruments except the daf) as haram. (Citing Al-Isra 17:64 and Luqman 31:6, I think.)
I suppose my question is: how far back does this view go? Is it a pretty recent view? It seems that al-Ghazali at least regarded the anti-music view as serious enough to write a refutation of it. Was it regarded as an ill-informed fringe view (although still one common enough to be worth refuting) at the time? Or were there significant authorities pushing the music-is-haram line? Did the relatively hardline Islamic authorities of the era, such as the Almoravids and Almohads, issue rulings of music as haram? Did any actually attempt to enforce legal prohibition of music?
What about later figures such as Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab?
I can answer parts but not all of this. Negative views of music occur in the hadith: https://sunnah.com/search/?q=music . The provenance of the hadith is complicated (i.e. whether or not Muhammad actually said any of this or whether much of it was a later juridical fabrication) but the Six Books of sound hadith date to the 9th century, with the sayings that they compile dating at least to the 8th if not the 7th.
Was it regarded as an ill-informed fringe view (although still one common enough to be worth refuting) at the time?
Fringe perhaps insofar as by all accounts I'm familiar with music was always popular, but anti-musical views were hardly ill-informed. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, one of the founders of the four main schools of Sunni jurisprudence, took a poor view of instrumental music (Edit: I mean the middle passage in the following link): https://books.google.ae/books?id=HXzZAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=ahmad+ibn+hanbal+music&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWt-Gd6bPSAhWrJsAKHRdMDYwQ6AEIHjAB#v=onepage&q=lute&f=false
His views on religious non-instrumental chant music were ambiguous but did produce quite possibly my favorite story from Medieval Islamic scholarship:
He may have been of two minds even about spiritual concerts. On the whole, he and his followers strongly disapproved of music-making, seeing it as a frivolous distraction from performing devotions and trading hadith. Yet a shocking story is circulated in Hanbali circles from about the end of the ninth century-- from Ahmad's lifetime, if it is genuine. His son Salih invited an Ibn al-Khabbazah to sing renunciant poems, one night. By one account, he thought it was safe because his father had gone to bed, then heard a noise on the roof, went up to investigate, and, in his words, "saw my father on the roof, listening with his train under his armpit, prancing about on the roof as if he were dancing." According to other versions, Ahmad listened from behind a door, swaying gently.