The Shaykh’s response to those who interpret the aforementioned hadiths by claiming that the images prohibited therein are only those that have a shadow, and other false interpretations in this regard

The Shaykh : Therefore, the one who restricts these hadiths to three-dimensional images that have a shadow, and does not include images drawn on clothes, curtains, walls, or paper today, is one of two types. Either he has not looked into these hadiths and the clarification within them that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) intended by them the direct creation of images that have no shadow. This type is only conceivable regarding some of the early scholars who did not live in an era when the Sunnah had been compiled. The other type is those who looked into these hadiths after they were written down and access to them became easy, namely the contemporaries today. They are interpreting these hadiths with false interpretations. Two things indicate the falsity of these interpretations. The first is the generality and absoluteness of the hadiths, as you heard in some of them, The second, and it is clearer as we mentioned, indeed we repeated it, is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned these hadiths that you heard in the chapter regarding images that were drawn on curtains and 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 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 under 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 about images that have no shadow, how can a Muslim who believes in Allah and His Messenger say that the forbidden images in these hadiths are those that have a shadow, i.e., three-dimensional images? We are certain that the forbidden images, in their generality and comprehensiveness, include those that have a shadow and those that do not, including three-dimensional and non-three-dimensional.
Among the deviations and stratagems against the rulings of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His Shari'ah, after the refutation by such texts that indicate that the forbidden images are also non-three-dimensional images, some writers in the present age have 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 is mentioned in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah that detailed the refusal of Jibril (peace be upon him) to enter the house of the Messenger, although he had an appointment with him. He mentioned to him that there were statues, i.e., images, on the door and on the curtain. So he ordered the images on the curtain to be changed until they became like a tree. This means that this curtain was embroidered and had statues, i.e., images of winged horses as in some narrations. When Jibril (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered the change of this image until it became like a tree, it means adding new constraints to the image so that the features of the previous image are erased and it appears to represent a tree. The scholars took from this hadith that if an image is changed, it exits the prohibition and becomes permissible. But unfortunately, they did not stop at or adhere to this change that Jibril specified for the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon them both), i.e., they did not stop at this total change, which is the change by which the features of the previous image are erased and another image appears like a permissible tree. They did not stop at this comprehensive change. They said, for example, if an image on paper 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 the expression is correct—the absolute, comprehensive change mentioned by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) via Jibril, they narrowed its scope. 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. This is change number one, the total change ordered by Jibril (peace be upon him) in the previous hadith. Then they were not satisfied with this change and moved to another stage. They said if the image is half, this is a great calamity, so this image is permissible because a person does not live with half of himself unless he has his sides and belly and so on. This image is changed, and we all know that the essence of everything, and specifically of the human being, is his head. If the head remains and the legs go, it has not eliminated the image and its impact on the society that the wise Lawgiver fears, even for the distant future. And for this reason, as one of the causes of the wisdom of prohibiting images, images were prohibited so that they are not worshipped besides Allah (Mighty and Majestic), even in the distant future. This third change came from the writer mentioned, who is from the scholars of al-Azhar. He 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 published under the title "Light of Islam". He wrote an article in it mentioning the schools of thought regarding the forbidden image, and there are two schools: the school of prohibiting images in general, as indicated by the previous hadiths, and the second school, which is narrated from Imam Malik, that the forbidden images are only the three-dimensional ones. This writer, without looking at these hadiths and understanding them, adopted the school of Malik, which is undoubtedly contrary to these hadiths that say only three-dimensional images are forbidden. He adopted this school for a purpose in his mind. Then he reached, after this first step where he deviated from the previous hadiths, to another very dangerous step that eliminated all 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 scholars' saying that if an image's form is changed, it becomes lawful, he fabricated the following issue from the combination of the two sayings. 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 hole in its head until he reaches the brain. In this state, this idol represents a human being who does not live; a human being cannot live with a hole reaching his brain. He said, but this is a defect in the idol or statue from an artistic standpoint. So he instructs the artists, may Allah reward them! He says he places a wig on the head of the statue. From an artistic standpoint, it is in the best form and most beautiful shape. And by that, this sculptor escapes from contradicting the hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Have you seen among the Jews anyone who stratagems against the sanctities of Allah like this al-Azhari man? This is the reality of the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): This is a stratagem by which some scholars in the present age have been afflicted. And without doubt, those who read that writer's article, and they are the masses of people who do not know these hadiths or their jurisprudence, are entangled by its explanation and proceed in carving and imaging, and they stratagem against it with such a stratagem that the student, indeed the Shaykh of Iblis, learned. This is its distortion.