were the names of righteous men from Noah’s people. When those men died, Satan suggested to their folk: “Set up markers where they used to sit and name the markers after them.” They did so, yet the images were not worshipped—until that generation passed away and knowledge was forgotten; only then did the people begin to worship them.
Ibn al-Qayyim said, “Several early scholars have stated: When those men died, their people kept close to their graves; later they fashioned statues of them, and after a lengthy period they ended up worshipping them.”
From this report in al-Bukhārī—describing how Noah’s people went to extremes in venerating the righteous, depicting them, preserving their likenesses, and setting them up in their gathering places—we realize the grave danger of image-making, the grave danger of image-making, the grave danger of hanging pictures on walls, and the grave danger of erecting statues in public squares and streets. Such practices eventually lead people to shirk, for the veneration of those pictures and statues grows until it results in their worship, just as happened among Noah’s people.
Hence Islam prohibits image-making, curses those who make images, and threatens them with the severest punishment, declaring that they will face the most intense torment on the Day of Resurrection. This shuts the door to shirk and steers people away from attempting to imitate the creation of Allah, Exalted is He.
The story also shows how eager Satan—may Allah curse him—is to mislead the children of Adam, and how subtle his schemes can be. He may exploit emotions and even cloak his invitation in the guise of encouraging good. Seeing how deeply Noah’s people loved their righteous men, he urged them to exaggerate that love by setting up commemorative images. His goal was to lead them, step by step, from truth into falsehood. His plot did not end with the first generation; it extended to later ones in whom knowledge waned and ignorance prevailed. To them he made the worship of those images seem attractive, plunged them into major shirk, and drove them to defy their prophet with the words, “Do not abandon your gods!” (Q 71:23).