Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, is refusing to remove medieval artistic depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, despite being flooded with complaints from Muslims demanding the images be deleted.
Read the rest of the article here:More than 180,000 worldwide have joined an online protest claiming the images, shown on European-language pages and taken from Persian and Ottoman miniatures dating from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, are offensive to Islam, which prohibits any representation of Muhammad. But the defiant editors of the encyclopaedia insist they will not bow to pressure and say anyone objecting to the controversial images can simply adjust their computers so they do not have to look at them.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.Chapter 21, verses 52-57: “We formerly bestowed guidance on Abraham, for we knew him well. He said to his father and to his people: ‘what are these images to which you are so devoted?’ They replied: ‘They are the gods our fathers worshipped.’ He said: ‘Then you and your fathers have surely been in evident error.’ ‘Is it the truth that you are preaching,’ they asked, ‘or is this but a jest?’ ‘Indeed,’ he answered,’ your lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth. It was He that made them: to this I bear witness. By the Lord, I will overthrow your idols as soon as you have turned your backs.’ He broke them in pieces, except their supreme god, so that they might return to him.’”
Chapter 42, verse 11: “Creator of the heavens and the earth, he has given you spouses from among yourselves, and cattle male and female; by this means He multiplies His creatures. Nothing can be compared with Him. He alone hears all and sees all.”
The prohibition on idolatry isn’t original to the Koran so much as a restatement of Old and New Testament teachings. But prohibition on idolatry isn’t an outright prohibition on images, whether of God, Muhammad or others. It merely opens the door to interpretation as prohibition. Therefore we use the Hadith, which clearly says that animated pictures are not allowed.
You seem to draw a distinction between idolatry and images. If I read you correctly, the Koran allows for images but the Hadith prohibits them because they can become objects of idol worship?The prohibition on idolatry isn’t original to the Koran so much as a restatement of Old and New Testament teachings. But prohibition on idolatry isn’t an outright prohibition on images, whether of God, Muhammad or others. It merely opens the door to interpretation as prohibition. Therefore we use the Hadith, which clearly says that animated pictures are not allowed.
Never heard the half thing before. Can you link those directions please?There are permission to paint a picture when it is needed, necessary, required. But to admire and honour something painting is not allowed. And paint alive figures at entire is not allowed but half of figure is allowed.
Asked that question in a recent thread about images. Never got an answer. But the ones I’ve heard before are all over the map; there is a difference of opinion within Islam on how far to apply this, just as there is with music, death to apostates, death to homosexuals, etc. Might explain why there is such a paucity of book published in Muslim countries.What about photographs? Of your children, or family. Are these allowed? Photography is a medium, like drawing or painting. And then there are television and cinema. Are you allowed to create and view tv programs and movies? These are “animate objects” preserved by modern media.
There are movies about Mohamed made by Muslims. Aren’t those images?
There is **NOT **a single verse in the Quran forbidding pictures of people/animal/ etc…
I didn’t see any, either, but I could be mistaken.Question: Images and the Prophet Muhammad: What Do the Koran and Islam Say?
Controversies have exploded over images depicting the Prophet Muhammad, namely his depiction as a turbaned terrorist in one of a dozen cartoons by Danish artists.
Muslims explicitly prohibit images of God, Muhammad, and other prophets—Christians and Jews included. Muslim tradition generally prohibits the representation of the human figure in art.
But does the Koran actually ban representations of Muhammad or others?
**Answer: The immediate answer is no. **
There isn’t a single verse in the Koran that explicitly prohibits images of Muhammad—or of Allah, or God, for that matter. And the Prophet Muhammad has been depicted in art frequently in Islamic art, without reprisals.
As About’s Austin Cline notes, “We can also find many visual images of Muhammad in European history, all without Muslims rioting and threatening to destroy civil liberties.”
(Cline’s image gallery illustrating both points is instructive.)
middleeast.about.com/od/religionsectarianism/f/me080322.htm
Interesting question.…"except their supreme god, so that they might return to him.’”
Why break all of the idols except “their supreme god”…