—this is prohibited, whether the maker intends by it an unlawful purpose or even a lawful one. The very act of producing such an image is forbidden; indeed, it ranks among the major sins, for the Prophet ﷺ cursed those who fashion images and declared that the most severely punished people on the Day of Resurrection will be those who seek to rival Allah’s creation.

The second category consists of two-dimensional depictions—images that have no physical volume but are rendered simply through coloring. On this point the scholars have differed. Some permitted it, holding that there is no harm in it unless one’s aim is unlawful—for instance, to venerate the figure—because there is the fear that, with the passage of time, people may eventually worship it, just as, it is reported, happened to the people of Noah: they first portrayed righteous men and, after a long interval, came to worship those figures. Some jurists also argued that there is no objection to such colored images, citing the hadith of Zayd ibn Khalid in which the Prophet said, “except a design on cloth,” contending that this indicates an exception and that only images of beings possessing a soul are prohibited.

The stronger position, however, and the one held by the majority of scholars, is that there is no distinction between a three-dimensional statue and a two-dimensional drawing produced by hand; all are forbidden. The person who draws an image strives to display creativity that mimics Allah’s creation, and thus he falls under the general prohibition.

As for pictures captured by the familiar device—the photographic camera—it is evident that this was unknown in the Prophet’s time. What was known then were only hand-made images by which a person would imitate Allah’s creation. This apparatus, by contrast, was not present, and the person does not produce the image with his own hand or sketch its lines.