What is the ruling on photographic images?

The Shaykh : I said, except according to the view of the Zahiris of the present age. I say: The truth is, I am surprised by the spread of this opinion. I am not surprised by its spread among some of those known as Islamic preachers who did not graduate from the Salafi school, but rather from the Al-Azhar school and its like. So there is no wonder in the case of such people, especially when their Shaykh in this religious innovation is Shaykh Bakhyt, the Mufti of Egypt in his time. It was he who innovated this religious innovation to tell people that there is no likening here. So I want to say: If humans have progressed in manufacturing a device that saves the manual painter or the one using a brush from enormous efforts, due to the efforts of dozens of people over the years until they were able to produce this machine, which, once pointed at the target to be photographed and a button pressed, produces an image, how can it be said that there is no likening here? I say: This is a likening more severe than that likening. The reason, first, is that this image produces the image of the photographed subject with more precision than the image of the manual painter. And this, too, is not open to argument or discussion, because the manual painter might have a stray hair from the beard that does not come out with him, whereas this machine photographer does not leave a single hair but it appears. Once, a discussion took place between me and one of the students of Hasan al-Banna (may Allah have mercy on him) long ago, about thirty years or more, and the discussion took place at the Muslim Brotherhood center in Damascus regarding this specific issue. I spoke with what Allah pleased, similar to what you have just heard. So I directed the following question to him, because the doubt, as I mentioned and more, is that this image was not in the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), nor the machine that photographs. So I raised the following question to him. I said to him: You know that there are today in Europe very large factories that produce idols, simply by pressing a button, where a melted mixture comes out as idols there by the dozens, meaning three-dimensional images. So I said to him: What is your opinion of these images, are they forbidden or not? He had no choice but to say: They are forbidden. I said to him: But these were not carved as they were carved before, but rather they were molded. A mold was made for them, naturally like this machine prepared to produce this image in an instant. Likewise, a mold was made for the image, for example, an image of a lion or a dancing woman, as you see in some European fashions today, and they come out there either of silver or gold or iron or copper, etc. So I said to him: May Allah reward you. It is not befitting for us to look at the tool, because this is part of human progress in misguidance. But we must look at the fruit and the result. What is the name of this one that was made by hand? An image. What is the name of this one that was made by the photographic machine? An image. What is the name of this one that was kneaded by the large machine and then came out as an idol there? Also, its name is an image, and so on. So, the difference in the means that produce these images which the Wise Lawgiver has forbidden, it is not befitting for us to look at the means, but rather we look at what? The fruit and the goal. And we know that the Wise Lawgiver does not look at the means except through the lens of the goal that comes out of that means. If the goal is prescribed, then it is a prescribed means. And if the goal is not prescribed, then it is a non-prescribed means, and so on. And this is known from the legal maxims, such as the saying of the scholars without dispute among them: That without which the obligatory cannot be established is itself obligatory, and that which leads to the forbidden is itself forbidden, .