Another consideration is that image-making is a pathway to associationism. The very first instance of associationism on earth came about because of images: when the people of Noah fashioned likenesses of a group of righteous men who had all died in the same year, they grieved over them. Satan then approached and suggested that they make representations of those pious men and set them up where they gathered, so that—as they claimed—the images would remind them to worship. They complied. When that generation passed away, Satan came to their descendants and said, “Your forefathers only erected these images so that rain would be sent down on their account and so that they might be worshipped.” Thereupon the people began to worship them instead of Allah, and associationism entered the world through image-making.

Likewise, the people of Abraham worshipped statues. Allah, exalted is He, relates that Abraham said to his people, “What are these statues to which you are so devoted?” They replied, “We found our fathers worshipping them” (Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:52-53).

The pagan Arabs were the same: they used images in their religion, hanging them on the walls of the noble Kaʿbah until the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) came and removed them.

The trial posed by images and statues, then, is ancient—and it is a grave trial indeed.

A third danger of image-making is that it can lead to moral corruption. When attractive girls and scantily clad women are photographed for magazines and newspapers, or when pictures are taken merely as souvenirs and the like, those images arouse fascination, sowing sickness and lust in the heart. Therefore the corrupters of society have turned photography into a vehicle for debasing morals, displaying seductive pictures of beautiful women on magazine covers, in films, and in other visual media that provoke temptation. For that reason, it is impermissible for a Muslim to acquire or keep any non-essential images.