The Refutation of Those Who Interpret the Previous Hadiths by Claiming That the Images Prohibited in Them Are Only Those That Cast a Shadow, and Other False Interpretations in This Field

The Shaykh : Therefore, the one who takes these hadiths to refer to three-dimensional images that cast a shadow, and does not include in them the images drawn on clothes, curtains, walls, and paper today, is one of two types. Either he has not looked into these hadiths and what they contain of clarification that the Messenger (peace be upon him) directly intended the images that do not cast a shadow. This type is only conceivable regarding some of the early scholars who did not live in an era when the Sunnah had been collected.
As for the other type, they are those who looked into these hadiths after they were written down and access to them was made easy, and they are the contemporaries today. They interpret these hadiths with false interpretations, and their falsity is indicated by two things together. The first is the generality and absoluteness of the hadiths, as you heard in some of them: . The one who says: No, not every image-maker is in the Fire, but the intended meaning of the image-makers here is those who carve idols... The second, which is clearer as we mentioned, and indeed repeated, is that the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned these hadiths that you heard in the chapter regarding images that were drawn on curtains and were not carved from stone as the disbelievers did in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance.
So interpreting these hadiths to mean that the intended images are only three-dimensional ones is a rejection of these hadiths. We fear that the one who interprets them with this false interpretation, after this falsity becomes clear to him, will fall into the generality of the saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in the Qur'an: . If the Messenger says: , or , and says that and similar things on the occasion of images that do not cast a shadow, how can a Muslim who believes in Allah and His Messenger say that the forbidden images in these hadiths are those that cast a shadow—that is, three-dimensional images? So we conclude that the forbidden images, in their generality and comprehensiveness, include those that cast a shadow and those that do not, including three-dimensional and non-three-dimensional ones.
And among the deviations and stratagems against the rulings of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His Shari'ah, after the refutation with such texts that indicate that the forbidden images are also non-three-dimensional images, some writers in the modern era devised a stratagem that I think preceded the Jews in this. I say it plainly, and you will say it with me when you hear what he did and what he did?
It came in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, which detailed for us the refusal of Jibril (peace be upon him) to enter the house of the Messenger, even though he had an appointment with him. He mentioned to him that there were statues—that is, images—on the door and on the curtain. So he ordered the images on the curtain to be changed until they became like the shape of a tree. This means that this curtain was embroidered, and it had statues—that is, images of winged horses as in some narrations. So when Jibril (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered this image to be changed until it became like the shape of a tree, it meant adding new threads to this image so that the features of the previous image would be erased and it would appear to represent the image of a tree. So the scholars took from this hadith that if an image is changed, it exits from the prohibition and becomes permissible. But—regrettably—they did not stop at or adhere to this change that Jibril specified for the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon them both); that is, they did not stop at this total change, which is the one by which the features of the previous image are obliterated and another image appears like the permissible shape of a tree. They did not stop at this comprehensive change, but said, for example: If an image on paper, for instance, is changed and a line is drawn on the neck, they claimed that this image has changed its form. Why? They claimed that the head became separated from the body and a person does not live with this image. Because this image was changed, it became permissible. And the changes cascaded—if this expression is correct—the absolute, comprehensive change mentioned by the Messenger (peace be upon him) regarding Jibril, they narrowed its circle. So they said, as you heard in the first change, that a line was drawn on the neck and the image remained as it was; so it is a permissible image because it was changed. So this is change number one, compared to the total change ordered by Jibril (peace be upon him) in the previous hadith. Then they were not satisfied with this change, so they moved to another stage. They said: If the image is half—this is a widespread calamity—then this is a permissible image because a person does not live with half of himself, unless he has legs and a belly and I don't know what else! This is a changed image.
And we all know that the essence of everything, and especially in the case of a human being, is his head. So if the head remains and the legs are removed, for example, it has not eliminated the image and its impact in the society that the wise Lawgiver fears, even in the distant future. And for this reason, as one of the causes of the wisdom of prohibiting images, He prohibited images so that they not be worshipped besides Allah (Mighty and Majestic), even in the distant future. This is the second change.
The writer mentioned, who is one of the scholars of al-Azhar, came with a change that is astonishing, and this is what I meant when I said he preceded the Jews in this stratagem. He wrote an article long ago when the al-Azhar magazine was appearing under the title "Light of Islam." He wrote in it an article mentioning the schools of thought regarding the forbidden image. There are two schools: the school of prohibiting images in general, as is the indication of the previous hadiths, and the second school, which is narrated from Imam Malik, that the forbidden images are only the three-dimensional ones. So this writer, the one mentioned, without paying attention to these hadiths and studying them in depth, adopted the school of Malik, which is undoubtedly contrary to these hadiths. He adopted this school, which says that only three-dimensional images are forbidden, for a purpose in his own mind. Then he proceeded from this first step, in which he deviated from the previous hadiths, to another very dangerous step by which he eliminated all the schools, even the school of Malik. He fabricated from the school of Malik, which also prohibits three-dimensional images along with the majority of scholars, and from the saying of the scholars that if an image changes its form, it becomes lawful; he fabricated from the combination of these two statements the following issue. He said:
Based on that, if the artist—so he says—the artist carves an idol, in order to escape the prohibition, he digs a small hole in the top of its head until it reaches the brain. In this state, that is, this idol, represents a human being who does not live, because a human being cannot live with a hole reaching his brain. He said: But this is a defect in the idol, in the statue, from an artistic standpoint. So he teaches the artists—ma sha Allah!!—he says: place a wig on the head of the idol, so the idol appears, from an artistic standpoint, in the most complete form and the most beautiful shape. And by that, this sculptor, the carver, escapes from contradicting the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Have you done among the Jews what this Al-Azhari man did, who schemed against the prohibitions of Allah like this man? This is the realization of the saying of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): . This is a type of scheming that some scholars have suffered from in the present age. And there is no doubt that those who read the article of that writer, and they are from the masses of people who do not know these hadiths or their jurisprudence, are ensnared by his explanation and proceed in carving and image-making, and they scheme against it with such a trick that a student, or even a Shaykh of Iblis, learned. This is his distortion!!