Mujāhid, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said—and he cited it.
I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting Muslim’s conditions. Al-Tirmidhī and others also graded it authentic. Yūnus explicitly stated that he heard it directly in Ibn Ḥibbān’s version. There is a slight weakness in his retention, but it does not impair his hadith. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful; he makes few errors.”
I say: Abū Isḥāq also corroborated him. Aḥmad (2/308) said: “ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us: Maʿmar informed us, from Abū Isḥāq, from Mujāhid,” citing it in abbreviated form according to the second version.
This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting the conditions of the two Shaykhs, were it not that Abū Isḥāq—the Sabīʿī, Yūnus’s father—became confused in his later years. The wording transmitted from him also differs: Maʿmar narrated it from him as above, whereas Abū Bakr narrated from him something similar, with the wording:
“Either cut off their heads, or make them into a carpet to be trodden upon.”
Al-Nasāʾī recorded it (2/302).
The first version is more authentic, because Maʿmar preserved it accurately, while Abū Bakr—who was Ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Kūfī—was described by al-Ḥāfiẓ as follows: “Trustworthy and devout; however, when he grew old, his retention deteriorated, though his book is authentic.”
Jurisprudence of the hadith:
First: Images are prohibited, because they are a cause for the angels’ being prevented from entering. The hadiths concerning their prohibition are too well known to need mention.
Second: The prohibition includes images that are not three-dimensional and have no shadow, due to the general import of Gabriel’s words, peace be upon him: “We do not enter a house in which there are images.” That is, images; and this is further supported by the fact that the images on the curtain had no shadow. There is no distinction in this regard between images embroidered on cloth, written on paper, or drawn by a photographic camera, for all of these are images and image-making; and to differentiate