Prohibition on drawing imaginary pictures of animate beings
Question Is it permissible to draw imaginary pictures such as a man with wings?. Praise be to Allah. The focus of the prohibition on image making is images of animate beings, whether they are sculpted or drawn on walls or fabric or paper, or they are woven, and whether they are drawn with a quill…
Question
Praise be to Allah.
The focus of the
prohibition on image making is images of animate beings, whether they are
sculpted or drawn on walls or fabric or paper, or they are woven, and
whether they are drawn with a quill or pen or made with a machine, and
whether the image is of the creature as it naturally appears or whether
imagination comes into play and it is made smaller or larger, or made
beautiful or distorted, or the skeleton inside is shown in the picture.
The reason for the prohibition is that what is represented is
animate beings, even if they are imaginary images such as those that are
drawn to represent ancient peoples such as the pharaohs and commanders and
soldiers during the Crusades, or images of Jesus and Mary that are placed in
churches, etc. This is because of the general meaning of the texts and
because of the imitation of the creation of Allaah, and because it is a
means that leads to shirk.
From Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah, 1/479.
Muslim narrated that
‘Aa’ishah said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah
be upon him) came from a journey and I had hung a curtain at my door, on
which were pictures of horses with wings, and he told me to take it down.
This hadeeth indicates that images of animate beings are not
allowed even if they are imaginary pictures of things that do not exist in
real life, because there are no horses with wings in real life.
And Allaah knows best.
