The Meaning of “That Which Has No Flowing Soul” and the Depiction of Insects
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, does the phrase “that which has no flowing soul” mean that they are not included in the prohibition of depicting images, such as depicting a fly, a bee, or spiders?
Answer:
The intended meaning is not the spirit; the intended meaning is blood. The “flowing soul” is blood; blood is not the spirit. No, everything has a spirit, even beetles, even spiders, and even ants have a spirit, and it is not permissible to depict them. But they do not have blood. The discussion is about blood, not about the spirit.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, does the phrase “that which has no flowing soul” mean that they are not included in the prohibition of depicting images, such as depicting a fly, a bee, or spiders?
Answer:
The intended meaning is not the spirit; the intended meaning is blood. The “flowing soul” is blood; blood is not the spirit. No, everything has a spirit, even beetles, even spiders, and even ants have a spirit, and it is not permissible to depict them. But they do not have blood. The discussion is about blood, not about the spirit.
Source
الفوزان -أشرطة- شرح زاد المستقنع مع الأسئلة - 009-الحيض والنفاس - 8-8-20 هـ — archive.org (51:03)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.