The Shaykh’s remarks on the prohibition of images.

The Shaykh : Regarding the prohibition of images, you will find today, and praise be to Allah, that many scholars say this is forbidden. Otherwise, if it were said to be permissible, we would have nullified the texts prohibiting images. Here we pause for a moment. As you all know, this idol that the so-called artist spends his days and nights carving, with the press of a button, idols emerge one after another in various shapes and colors. Some are made of copper, some of marble, some of plastic, and so on. Are these idols that are produced by the press of a button and by machines not idols, just like those that are carved for days? What is the difference between this and that, my brothers? If there is no difference between an idol that is carved and an idol that is produced by machine, then there is also no difference between an image drawn with a brush and pen, and an image taken with the press of a button in an instant. All these techniques...

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : The image of a human being on water.

The Shaykh : The image of a human being? Glory be to Allah! And is this image that appears on water fixed? Someone else says the image one sees in the mirror is a fixed image, or does it disappear when the person leaves? This is not to be compared to that, my brother. Otherwise, you would have to say that the Messenger (peace be upon him) prohibited image-making, and yet he did not prohibit and permitted a person to look in the mirror and adorn himself. This is what a Muslim would say. Therefore, in reality—and do not hold me to this—this speech and what is similar to it are among the reasons that turn people away from understanding the legal ruling. The legal ruling—may Allah bless you—requires that we keep in mind His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): . So, does the questioner say...The questioner : Why did the Messenger (peace be upon him) prohibit the image that was in Aisha’s house, which he tore down, and permit the image in the mirror or the image in the water? This is not like that. . The polytheists objected: Why does Muhammad (peace be upon him) permit selling and prohibit riba? Because there is a difference between what Allah has made lawful and what He has prohibited. Just as He permitted marriage and prohibited zina and the like. Marriage involves enjoyment and the fulfillment of desire, and zina also involves enjoyment and the fulfillment of desire, but where is the comparison between the two in terms of the outcome? So he permitted the image in the mirror. What is the outcome of this image? Nothing. When it leaves the mirror, the image disappears. As for the images we take today, enlarge, and magnify, and place in the fronts of gatherings, can it be said that this image is like that? They are not equal in example.
The important thing is that we must fear Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in our religion and our jurisprudence, and that our sweeping ignorance does not lead us to make lawful what Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) has prohibited by the slightest of tricks, so that we fall into what the Jews fell into, about whom the Messenger (peace be upon him) spoke in words like: , . This is by the explicit text of the Noble Qur’an: . The Messenger (peace be upon him) referred to this verse in the previous hadith. So, due to the injustice of the Jews, our Lord prohibited fats for them. Did the Jews patiently accept this just divine ruling? They did not patiently accept it; rather, they tricked it. What did they do? He (peace be upon him) said: . They boiled them, meaning they melted them. They threw the fats into large pots and lit a fire underneath them, and they took on another shape, a shape other than the natural shape. So Satan adorned it for them and said to them: This is not what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) prohibited. How did He adorn it for them? By changing the shape. As for the fat, it remains fat in terms of chemical composition—as they say today. So they deserved the curse of Allah because of their trickery with the sanctities of Allah, among which was that they did not hunt on the Sabbath, but they tricked the fish by catching them on Sunday, so they obtained from the hunt what they would not have obtained if they had actually hunted on the Sabbath. Therefore, the Messenger (peace be upon him) prohibited the Muslims from following the earlier disbelievers, as we mentioned earlier, and among that is that we do not trick the legal rulings. So we say, for example, as some said: The image here is the same as the image placed there; the only difference is that this is a hand-drawn image, so it is forbidden, and this is a photographic image, so it is permissible. Glory be to Allah! Have we no minds left? What is the difference between the two images except the difference in the means? This, when drawn with a pen and brush and the like, is forbidden. This, when taken by machine, which is undoubtedly much more precise in rendering the image than the so-called artist who drew that image with his hand, I say: This is in reality one of the misfortunes of the present age, and I call it modern superficiality. Modern superficiality in which many scholars whom we revere and respect have fallen, but the slip of a scholar is the slip of the world—as it is said. So they differentiate between this and that, and there is no difference between them except the means. What is the difference between the fat taken from the animal, which is forbidden, and the fat melted by fire, which is permissible? Far be it from Allah! ... Because of this trickery, therefore, we should not stop at formalities.
I say: This is modern superficiality, and what is required of the people of this age is to benefit from the rigidity of some of the earlier Zahiris, one of whom said regarding: . The Messenger of Allah prohibited urinating in stagnant water. This is an authentic hadith with no doubt in it. So one of their Zahiris said: If a person urinates in an empty vessel and then pours this urine from the empty vessel into stagnant water, this is permissible. Why? Because the hadith: does not apply to him. In truth, the man did not urinate in stagnant water; he urinated in the empty vessel. But, glory be to Allah, what is the difference between the two images? The difference is like the difference between the two images. The difference is the same difference between the two images. The goal is that the harm does not occur. In this hadith, he prohibited urinating in stagnant water, meaning the least intended by the Messenger (peace be upon him) in this hadith is preserving the purity of the water, if not preserving its ritual purity. And this differs whether the urine is much and the water is little, or the reverse. So either the result is that he did not preserve the purity of the water, or worse, he did not preserve the ritual purity of the water. If you permit, if you permit, there is no difference between this image which the hadith addressed directly and the other image which the Zahiri imagined, saying: If he urinates in an empty vessel and then pours what is in the empty vessel into stagnant water, it is permissible; because he did not urinate in stagnant water. I am speaking in clear Arabic, sound speech: he did not urinate in stagnant water. But legally and jurisprudentially, there is no difference between the two images. Likewise, I say: There is no difference between those two images. This is modern superficiality, and that is a superficiality of a past era, but history repeats itself. Yes.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : That is enough, that is enough, my brother. We do not want to lose the night in a vortex that has no beginning and no end.