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WillyT

(72,631 posts)
Sat Jan 10, 2015, 08:56 PM Jan 2015

The Koran Does Not Forbid Images of the Prophet - Newsweek [View all]

The Koran Does Not Forbid Images of the Prophet
By Christiane Gruber - Newsweek
1/9/15 at 4:43 PM



<snip>

In the wake of the massacre that took place in the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, I have been called upon as a scholar specializing in Islamic paintings of the Prophet to explain whether images of Muhammad are banned in Islam.

The short and simple answer is no. The Koran does not prohibit figural imagery. Rather, it castigates the worship of idols, which are understood as concrete embodiments of the polytheistic beliefs that Islam supplanted when it emerged as a purely monotheistic faith in the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century.

Moreover, the Hadith, or Sayings of the Prophet, present us with an ambiguous picture at best: At turns we read of artists dared to breathe life into their figures and, at others, of pillows ornamented with figural imagery.

If we turn to Islamic law, there does not exist a single legal decree, or fatwa, in the historical corpus that explicitly and decisively prohibits figural imagery, including images of the Prophet. While more recent online fatwas can surely be found, the decree that comes closest to articulating this type of ban was published online in 2001 by the Taliban, as they set out to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

In their fatwa, the Taliban decreed that all non-Islamic statues and shrines in Afghanistan be destroyed. However, this very modern decree remains entirely silent on the issue of figural images and sculptures within Islam, which, conversely, had been praised as beneficial and educational by Muhammad 'Abduh, a prominent jurist in 19th century Egypt.

In sum, a search for a ban on images of Muhammad in pre-modern Islamic textual sources will yield no clear and firm results whatsoever.

<snip>

More: http://www.newsweek.com/koran-does-not-forbid-images-prophet-298298




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Oh dear.... Turbineguy Jan 2015 #1
Kind of like the Fundy Christians blowing up clinics and killing people because LiberalArkie Jan 2015 #3
but Christianity at large condemns those acts without hesitation samsingh Jan 2015 #6
Yep... Fundamentalists Of All Stripes Are Willig To Kill For Their Beleifs... WillyT Jan 2015 #7
Extremists being extreme, misrepresenting the faith. Happens all the time. NYC_SKP Jan 2015 #2
Kind of like whites killing blacks hoping it will start the proverbial "race riots" LiberalArkie Jan 2015 #5
They did do that, like after the Rodney King verdict. NYC_SKP Jan 2015 #8
"Misrepresenting the faith"....how convenient brooklynite Jan 2015 #34
Were you thinking that the attacks were really representative of the faith? Were you? NYC_SKP Jan 2015 #36
Representative of the faith as most people practice it? No brooklynite Jan 2015 #38
I guess it's a little bit a matter of semantics. NYC_SKP Jan 2015 #39
Might it be that the purpose of castizing the worship of idols, while not prohibitng their imagrey Fred Sanders Jan 2015 #4
The original fear was that images of the prophet Warpy Jan 2015 #27
No, "they" have not. A few mad men have, because mad men are like that. Fred Sanders Jan 2015 #30
A. No, only a few have. B. It's not unique to Islam. NYC_SKP Jan 2015 #37
Maybe the author can present a Mohammed drawing of her own oberliner Jan 2015 #9
Why Should She... The Point Is Already Made... WillyT Jan 2015 #10
To underline her point oberliner Jan 2015 #11
The Bible/Torah Are Far Older Than That... WillyT Jan 2015 #12
Yes indeed they are oberliner Jan 2015 #16
And How Does "Modern" Christianity Feel About Sodomy ??? WillyT Jan 2015 #24
Yeah so what? The Bible doesn't say Jesus was born on Christmas day. rhett o rick Jan 2015 #13
But.. but... I Thought There Was A War On Christmas ??? WillyT Jan 2015 #14
Even people that don't believe that Christmas had anything to do with the birth rhett o rick Jan 2015 #23
Are you comparing the day people celebrate a birth to murdering people over a picture? joeglow3 Jan 2015 #18
No of course not. The OP is about how some read something into the Quran that isn't there. rhett o rick Jan 2015 #25
Sorry. I was just fucking with you. joeglow3 Jan 2015 #26
Dang I am really poor at catching sarcasm. rhett o rick Jan 2015 #33
Does DU forbid images of the prophet ? Rhinodawg Jan 2015 #15
Did you miss the one in the OP? RandiFan1290 Jan 2015 #29
Here is how I interpret the broad religious warnings against "graven images" and why Warren DeMontague Jan 2015 #17
Take a break from all this for a bit, and listen to SLAYER !!! Burf-_- Jan 2015 #19
So what? It is a commonly-held belief in Sunni Islam, and that's all that matters. kwassa Jan 2015 #20
Correction Burf-_- Jan 2015 #21
I stand corrected. kwassa Jan 2015 #22
Except where you do... brooklynite Jan 2015 #35
This message was self-deleted by its author JonLP24 Jan 2015 #28
Islam as practised by the majority Muslims today, however, does. Donald Ian Rankin Jan 2015 #31
That's what the Taliban and ISIS would like you to believe Turborama Jan 2015 #32
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