What is your opinion of those who permitted the drawings found in children's books by analogy with the permissibility of girls' dolls?

The questioner : In one instance, regarding the same subject as the question, some scholars, especially since I interact with publishers and others,

The Shaykh : It is necessary.

The questioner : for example, they attribute the permissibility to girls' toys, so they analogized to it and said there is no harm.

The Shaykh : Regarding the permissibility, what is it?

The questioner : The permissibility of girls' toys.

Another questioner : The toys, the toys.

The Shaykh : Yes, girls' toys, girls' toys, yes. What did they analogize to?

The questioner : That they printed books for children with pictures, as long as you consider this educational.

The Shaykh : I understand what you mean.

The questioner : So its ruling is permissibility.

The Shaykh : I am telling you something, hoping that it is the correct one, and that Allah opens the hearts of listeners in general and your heart in particular to this statement.

The questioner : Amen.

The Shaykh : If Allah wills, there is a jurisprudential rule that you must be aware of, especially since you are new to Islam and have not yet, in my opinion—and I hope my opinion is that of a believer— I think, and I hope, and I repeat, that my opinion is that of a believer, that your Islam has not been tainted by any of the strange things that entered your old religion, which was a revelation from the sky, for you know that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned in an authentic hadith his saying: There are two narrations, one of which is general and the other is detailed So there is a difference, and they are all Islamic, and they all testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, but one sect among all these sects is distinguished from all the others in that it is the saved sect. So I think you must have read or heard this hadith, is that not so?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : So, considering that you are new to Islam, you must be very, very careful that nothing enters you under the name of Islam, innocent as the wolf is from the blood of the son of Ya'qub, as they used to say in old times. So one of the Islamic rules that every student of knowledge, especially one who is new to Islam, must remember is the following truth: if there is a general rule that forbids many, and very many, particulars, such as his saying (peace be upon him): These texts are all decisive in their indication of the prohibition of every image and the cursing of every image-maker. This general rule must be preserved, and it is not permissible to extract parts from it unless a text comes to specify this general text. Then we specify and stop at the specifying text, adding nothing from ourselves by analogy or deduction. As for the children's toys you asked about, our evidence for their permissibility is the hadith of the Lady 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her), established in Sahih al-Bukhari. She said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to send me the daughters of the slave women, and they would play with me with my dolls. One day the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) came in and found me among my toys, and he found among them a horse with two wings. He said: She said: 'O Messenger of Allah, has it not reached you that the horses of Sulayman (peace be upon him) had wings?' So he laughed." And his laughter was an approval for her. Were it not for this hadith, we would have remained with the general texts entirely and would not have excluded girls' toys. Now we stop at the hadith of 'A'ishah regarding girls' toys, and we observe the differences between those toys and these toys you asked about. Some people analogize them to the toys of the Lady 'A'ishah. We say, with some of the statement of Ibn Hazm—and pay attention to what I say, "with some of the statement of Ibn Hazm," because Ibn Hazm, perhaps you know, adopted the Zahiri school. You must have read something about him.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : And part of his Zahiri stance is that he denies analogy absolutely.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : And even if he is sometimes forced to fall into analogy without noticing, when he argues with his opponents who affirm analogy and use it and argue with it much, and very much, he used to argue with them with a phrase that became for him like a stamped cliché.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : He says: "This is analogy, and all analogy is invalid, and even if there were truth in it, this would be the very essence of falsehood." So I like the last phrase from him. We do not deny analogy; we affirm analogy, but we are with Imam al-Shafi'i who says: "Analogy is a necessity." And analogy is not for a person to expand in simplifying rulings and burdening people. What has come to them of explanation of rulings in the Book and the Sunnah is sufficient for them, but necessities have their own rulings.