—whether produced by hand or captured photographically with a camera—impermissible. It is forbidden to acquire such images or keep them in the home, save for those necessitated by genuine need, such as the photographs required in passports, national identity cards, or driver’s licences. These items have become compulsory for people and therefore count as a pressing necessity. Any other image kept for adornment—whether to beautify the house or as a so-called keepsake—is unlawful. The one who does so commits a grave sin, for the Prophet ﷺ informed us that the angels do not enter a house that contains an image or a dog.

As for children’s toys, the scholars have granted a concession concerning images that take the form of toys intended exclusively for children. There is proof for this in the Sunnah: the Prophet ﷺ once saw something of this nature with ‘Ā’ishah when she was still a young girl, and he left it undisturbed.

Accordingly, children’s playthings are allowed—or at least overlooked—provided they are solely for children. Yet the images mentioned in the ḥadīth cannot be confirmed as resembling today’s lifelike figures. They were most likely dolls fashioned from sticks or similar materials, the simple toys known in that era and, until quite recently, familiar to children: people would join sticks or bones together and drape them with scraps of cloth in a shape approximating clothing so that children could practise, play, and enjoy themselves. Such items contain nothing objectionable.

By contrast, the dolls now available—so lifelike in colour and form that they imitate real bodies—ought to be destroyed and not retained, even for children. Instead, children should use the sort of homemade figures we described, the ones they assemble themselves from sticks and the like.

Question: Yet some people deem it permissible to possess or play with such items, particularly for children?

Answer: Yes, there are scholars who hold that keeping these images with children for the sake of