—he must also sketch the eyes, the head, the nose, the ears, and the rest; it inevitably requires deliberate effort. By contrast, a photograph is captured in a split second, as though it merely transfers the image Allah has fashioned onto a card. This is the sounder view, although today’s scholars differ over whether photographs fall under the curse and the prohibition. The correct position is that they do not, for the person plays no creative role and therefore is not an image-maker. If he truly intended to draw, he would spend a quarter of an hour or more on the picture, whereas the camera finishes the job in an instant.
An exact parallel would be a man who writes a letter to his brother. The brother then places that letter in a photocopier and a copy emerges. Would anyone claim that the person operating the copier actually wrote the words and letters? Of course not. The copy appears only because the machine’s intense light reproduces what is already there, and no reasonable person would say that the letters impressed on the new sheet are the operator’s handwriting.
For the same reason, one can take a photograph in the dark, and even a blind person could do so; if you taught him the procedure, he could photograph a book. Whoever reflects on the textual evidence and the underlying wisdom will realize that the prohibition and the curse target the one who seeks to rival Allah’s creation—who labors to originate and delineate it as though he were its creator. What we are dealing with here is merely the capture of an image.
That said, the purpose for which the picture is taken still demands scrutiny. Once we understand that taking a photograph is permissible and does not qualify as image-making, we must judge it like any other permissible act: for what aim was it done? The ruling of a lawful act shifts according to the intention behind it. For example, if a person travelled during Ramadan solely to obtain a license to break his fast, we would rule his journey sinful, even though travel is intrinsically lawful. Likewise, if someone wanted to buy a rifle in order to kill with it