A person who is convinced that image-making is not permissible; is it permissible for him to keep some pictures for the sake of memory, knowing that he does not display them?

The Shaykh : A person who is convinced that image-making is not permissible; is it permissible for him to keep some old pictures for the sake of memory, knowing that he does not display them?
This question is frequent, and it is a strange matter. If we are convinced that image-making is not permissible—neither acquiring it, nor making it, nor the like—then why do we keep it in our houses? They claim it is for the sake of memory. This type of memory is not an Islamic memory; it is a disbeliever’s foreign memory. They deal with these models of these memories; they go on a trip and take a picture of one standing on a rock or in front of a tree, and so on. That is their memory. As for the correct Islamic memory, it is mutual advice, mutual remembrance in knowledge, and dealing with good, beautiful morals. This is the true memory, and this is what the Muslim benefits from.
Therefore, I believe that every Muslim youth who has been tested in his time with this disbeliever’s foreign memory, and who keeps pictures of his friends, should hasten to tear them up and not keep them. Because keeping them gives, at the very least, the impression that he sees image-making as permissible. Even if he says, “I am convinced that image-making is forbidden,” this conviction, as he said, “Every vessel emits what is in it.” If this conviction is true, he will hasten to tear up every picture he has, except for what is absolutely necessary. Do not go and think, some of the listeners, that we will say: tear up the passports and IDs and the like. Because you will be forced to add another necessity; you need to take a picture a second time. The first time is enough. “Necessities permit the prohibited” is correct, but “Necessity is estimated according to its measure.”
And we know from the biography of the righteous Salaf, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) with them, despite the great difference between us and them. We lived in an Islamic atmosphere, and yet, unfortunately, we do not live in an Islamic atmosphere. As for them, they lived in a pre-Islamic age of ignorance, then Islam came to them, and it treated many of the wrongs among them, including intoxicants. When the prohibition of intoxicants was revealed, what did they do with the intoxicants that were with them, which they had bought when it was in the category of permissibility or lawfulness? They poured it out until the roads in the city flowed with intoxicants. None of them said, “My brother, I did not know, and he is excused because there was no legal ruling at that time.” As for image-making, it has been fourteen hundred years since rulings and hadiths from the Messenger (peace be upon him) have come to us in succession that , and . Then we live in a non-Islamic atmosphere, as I hinted at earlier. Why? Because the Muslims do not know their Islam, they do not know their religion. This was the case, then Allah guided whom He willed of the Muslim youth. So they should make good repentance and abandon all these pictures, and tear them up thoroughly if they are truly convinced of their prohibition.