What is your opinion regarding the statement of some people that if a photograph has a line drawn on the neck of the image, meaning only the face is depicted, then there is no harm in it?

The Shaykh : The second part of the question is their claim that if there is a line on the neck of the image, there is no harm in it. This is, in reality, a trick or a despicable appearance. Those who follow this path and claim that the prohibition is lifted merely by this line drawn on the neck of the image are following a position that some jurists stated in the past. Then these later scholars expanded upon this statement until it became a trick that is not hidden from any rational Muslim. It was said in the past that if the image is in a state where its owner would not survive if he were alive, then the image is permissible at that time. So when that line is on the neck of this image, in their claim, this represents that this head is separated from the body and would not survive if it were alive; it does not survive in this state, so this is permissible. First, as is sometimes said by some jurists: what is built upon a defective foundation is defective. There is no principle in the Shari'ah upon which they built this line, which is that if the image is in a state where its owner would not survive if he were alive, it is permissible to use it. This has no basis. They used to say in the past that if the image is half, it does not survive; a person without arms, without a belly, without such things does not survive. The later scholars expanded based on this word, so they returned to the issue of the line. I said: what is built upon a defective foundation is defective. That invalidates the statement that if the image is in a position where its owner would not survive. There are two matters. The first matter is that there is an authentic hadith narrated by a group of the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), such as Umm Salama and Abu Hurayrah, and others, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had an appointment with Jibril (peace be upon him). When the time came, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was seen as if he was distressed and agitated. Some of his wives asked him, and he said: And Jibril was signaling outside the room, meaning he did not enter completely, just as the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did with the curtain of 'A'ishah. So the Messenger hastened to Jibril, and Jibril (peace be upon him) said to him: Look, he said to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), look, for there is a puppy in the house, and there is a curtain in the house with images of men on it. Order the dog to go out and sprinkle water on its place, and order the curtain to be changed so that its image becomes like the shape of a tree. This change that came in the Shari'ah: if the image is changed and its features are erased and its personality is removed, becoming like these trees, like these branches, like these twigs, then there is no harm in it at that time. But if the image still represents the person, it remains an image even if its lower half is cut off. This is the answer regarding the first type of hadiths, .
There is another hadith with which the answer concludes: So, despite the fact that this is a trick, the issue of the line, and that it does not appear to the observer that this image would not survive in this state, despite the fact that this is a trick, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) says: if there is only a head without a chest and without this line, the image is the head. And this reminds me, and I am very sorry, that some writers or jurists, or more accurately, those who are versed in jurisprudence in the present era, have resorted to trickery regarding the rulings of the Shari'ah in the same way that the Jews did in the past... In a magazine that was published by the Azhar Sheikhdom, which was called "Nur al-Islam" (Light of Islam), there was a long article by one of the sheikhs of the Azhar. It touched upon the issue of images and mentioned the well-known disagreement among jurists in the past, from the previously mentioned division into three-dimensional images and non-three-dimensional images. So-and-so said they are all forbidden, and some said the three-dimensional ones are forbidden, and so on. After he finished presenting the disagreement among the scholars, it was obligatory for him to clarify the stronger opinion among the scholars' statements, as is the practice of meticulous scholars. But in reality, he was not in this vein, and it was not his concern to present to people the correct jurisprudence in the issue he addressed. Rather, his goal was to make it easy for people in general, and for those called artists today in particular, meaning painters and sculptors and the like. So he came to them with this trick, which perhaps some of the jinn devils preceded him in. He said, based on the past disagreement among scholars, and that some permitted non-three-dimensional images and forbade three-dimensional images, the trick to escape this prohibition of three-dimensional images is what will follow.
The goal is to escape the three-dimensional image, meaning the artist wants to sculpt an idol. He said the trick in that is to come to the brain of the idol and dig a hole in it until he reaches the place of the brain, which is actually in the head of a human being; because in this state, it would not be possible for it to survive if it were alive. And this, of course, would not survive based on the previous superstition that if the image is in a state where it would not survive if it were alive.
Then he went on to say, but this is ugly for art, that the head of the idol is carved. So he brings what is called a wig and puts it on the head of the idol, so the art appears complete and beautiful. This is one of the tricks of the Jews.