 |
Depictions of Muhammad
Totally Explained
|
|  |
|
NEW! |
All the latest news in the worlds of
computer gaming,
entertainment,
the environment,
finance,
health,
politics,
science,
stocks & shares,
technology
and much,
much,
more.
|
Everything about Depictions Of Muhammad totally explainedThe permissibility of depictions of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, has long been a concern in Islam's history. Oral and written descriptions are readily accepted by all traditions of Islam, but there's disagreement about visual depictions.
The Qur'an doesn't explicitly forbid images of Muhammad, but there are a few hadith (supplemental traditions) which have explicitly prohibited Muslims from creating the visual depictions of figures under any circumstances. Most contemporary Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of the prophets generally should be prohibited, and they're particularly averse to visual representations of Muhammad. The key concern is that the use of images can encourage idolatry, where the image becomes more important than what it represents. In Islamic art, some visual depictions only show Muhammad with his face veiled, or symbolically represent him as a flame; other images, notably from Persia of the Ilkhanate, and those made under the Ottomans, show him fully. However, many Muslims who take a stricter view of the supplemental traditions, will sometimes challenge any depiction of Muhammad, including those created and published by non-Muslims.
Background
Some major religions have had times in their history when images of their religious figures were forbidden. In Judaism, one of the Ten Commandments forbade "graven images." In Byzantine Christianity during the period of Iconoclasm (8th century, and again during the 9th century) visual representations were forbidden, and only the Cross could be depicted in churches. Even in modern times, there are disputes within different groups of Protestant Christians about the appropriateness of having religious icons of saints. The concern generally boils down to the concept of whether or not the image is becoming more important than what is being represented. In Islam, although nothing in the Qu'ran explicitly bans images, there are some supplemental hadith which explicitly ban the drawing of images of any living creature; other hadith tolerate images, but never encourage them. Hence, visual depictions of Muhammad, or prophets such as Moses or Abraham, are avoided..
Athar Husain gives a non-pictorial description of his appearance, dress, etc. in "The Message of Mohammad". According to Husain, Muhammad was a little taller than average, sturdily built and muscular. His fingers were long. His hair, which was long, had waves, and he'd a thick beard, which had seventeen gray hairs at the time of his death. He had good teeth and spare cheeks, brownish black eyes. His complexion was fair and he was very handsome. He walked fast with firm gait. He always kept himself busy with something, didn't speak unnecessarily, always spoke to the point and without verbosity, and didn't behave in an emotional way. He usually wore a shirt, trousers, a sheet thrown round the sholders and a turban, all spotlessly clean, rarely wearing the fine clothes that had been presented to him. He wanted others to wear simple, but always clean, clothes.
Visual depictions
The Persian tradition of visual depictions of Muhammad begins around 1300 ( Ilkhanid period). The earliest extant Persian manuscript representation of Muhammad is found in the Marzubannama manuscript, dating to 1299. The Ilkhanid MS Arab 161 of 1307/8 contains 25 illustrations of Al-Biruni's The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries, of which five include depictions the Prophet, including the two concluding images, the largest and most accomplished in the manuscript, which emphasize the relation of Muhammad and `Ali according to Shi`ite doctrine. Depictions of Muhammad remain common in Timurid Persian and Ottoman art throughout the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. Perhaps the most elaborate cycle of illustrations of the Prophet's life is the late 16th century copy of the
14th century biography Siyer-i Nebi produced by order of Murat III.
The Qur'an forbids idolatry, but doesn't specifically forbid representative art. » Behold! he said to his father and his people, "What are these images, to which ye are (so assiduously) devoted?" They said, "We found our fathers worshipping them." He said, "Indeed ye have been in manifest error - ye and your fathers." sura 21, 52-54)
However, there are hadith, or recorded oral traditions, that have been interpreted to forbid any representational art:
» Allah, Most High said: "And who is more unjust than those who try to create the likeness of My creation? Let them create an atom, or let them create a wheat grain, or let them create a barley grain."
» [...] All the painters who make pictures would be in the fire of Hell.
Just like "drinking of wine was more sternly and unequivocally forbidden in the Qur'an then was painting of pictures, but drunkenness has been a common features from days of Umayyads down to modern time". Similarly "despite the fulminations of the theologians the painter went drawing the figures of men and animals". However, "the figure of Muhammad seldom occurs in a picture painted by a Muslim artist, and when it's found the face is generally veiled or the prophet is symbolically represented by a flame of golden light. This very rarity of the subject matter" leads to presenting those figures in this article.
Image:Banu Qurayza.png|Detail from miniature painting The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions at the Massacre of the Prisoners of the Jewish Tribe of Beni Qurayzah, illustration of a 19th century text by Muhammad Rafi Bazil. Manuscript (17 folio 108b) now housed in the British Library. Note that the artist depicted both Muhammad (upper right) and Ali (center) as columns of golden flame rather than illustrate them directly.
Cinema
Very few films have depicted Muhammad. The only modern one to do so was the 1976 The Message, also known as Mohammad, Messenger of God. The movie focused on other persons and never directly showed Muhammad. When Muhammad was essential to a scene, the camera would show events from his point of view.
Two well-known Fatwas from Al-Azhar University and Shiite Council of Lebanon were issued about The Message. » "It is certainly probable that this isn't the result of the creativity of the filmmakers but of the rules announced by the Islamic scholars of the Azhar and the Shiite Council of Lebanon, who prohibited any representation of Muhammad’s wives as well as of the Prophet himself."
Other contemporary Shi'a scholars, outside Shi'a majority Iran, have taken a relaxed attitude towards pictures of Muhammad and his household, the Ahlul Bayt. A fatwa given by Ali al-Sistani, the Shi'a marja of Iraq, states that it's permissible to depict Muhammad, even in television or movies, if done with respect.
A devotional cartoon called Muhammad (PBUH): The Last Prophet was released in 2004
Depiction by non-Muslims
Muhammad figures frequently in depictions of influential people in world history. Such depictions tend to be favourable or neutral in intent; one example can be found at the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, DC. A frieze including major historical lawgivers places Muhammad alongside Hammurabi, Moses, Confucius, and others. Because of a 1997 controversy surrounding the frieze, tourist materials have been edited so they call the depiction "a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor to honor Muhammad" that "bears no resemblance to Muhammad." In 1955, a statue of Muhammad was removed from a courthouse in New York City after the ambassadors of Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt requested its removal.
There have also been numerous book illustrations showing Muhammad.
Dante, in The Divine Comedy: Inferno, placed Muhammad in Hell, with his entrails hanging out (Canto 28):
» No barrel, not even one where the hoops and staves go every which way, was ever split open like one frayed Sinner I saw, ripped from chin to where we below.
His guts hung between his legs and displayed His vital organs, including that wretched sack Which converts to whatever gets conveyed down the gullet. » As I stared at him he looked back And with his hands pulled his chest open, Saying, "See how I split open the crack in myself! See how twisted and broken Mohammed is!" Before me walks Ali, his face Cleft from chin to crown, grief–stricken.
This scene is frequently shown in illustrations of the Divina Commedia. For example it's represented in a 15th century fresco in Bologna, Italy, in the Church of San Petronio, and artwork by Salvador Dali, Auguste Rodin, William Blake, and Gustave Doré.
Recent controversies
During the 2000s, controversies over depictions of Muhammad, both over recent caricatures or cartoons and over display of historical artwork, have received worldwide media attention, in particular the 2005 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
In 2002, Italian police reported that they'd disrupted a terrorist plot to destroy a church in Bologna, Italy, which contains a 15th century fresco depicting an image of Muhammad.
Cartoons
In 2005, a Danish newspaper published a set of editorial cartoons, many of which depicted Muhammad. In late 2005 and early 2006, Danish Muslim organizations ignited a controversy through public protests and by spreading knowledge of the publication of the cartoons.
In 2006, the controversial American television program South Park, which had previously shown an image of Muhammad in the July 4, 2001 episode "Super Best Friends", attempted to satirize the Danish newspaper incident. In the episode "Cartoon Wars Part II", they intended to show Muhammad handing a salmon helmet to Peter Griffin, a character in the Fox animated television show Family Guy. However, Comedy Central, the parent company of South Park, rejected the scene, citing concerns of violent protests in the Islamic world. The creators of South Park reacted by instead satirizing Comedy Central's double standard for censorship, instead including a segment in which American president George W. Bush and Jesus defecate on the flag of the United States.
The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks which depicted Muhammad as a roundabout dog. Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on August 18 to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion. While several other leading Swedish newspapers had published the drawings already, this particular publication led to protests from Muslims in Sweden as well as official condemnations from several foreign governments including Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Jordan, as well as by the inter-governmental Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The controversy occurred about one and a half year after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark in early 2006.
Another controversy emerged in September 2007 when Bangladeshi cartoonist Arifur Rahman was detained on suspicion of showing disrespect to Muhammad. The interim government confiscated copies of the Bengali-language Prothom Alo in which the drawings appeared. The cartoon consisted of a boy holding a cat conversing with an elderly man. The man asks the boy his name, and he replies "Babu". The older man chides him for not mentioning the name of the prophet Muhammad before his name. He then points to the cat and asks the boy what it's called, and the boy replies "Muhammad the cat". The cartoon caused a firestorm in Bangladesh, with militant Islamists demanding that Rahman be executed for blasphemy. A group of people torched copies of the paper and several Islamic groups protested, saying the drawings ridiculed Mohammad and his companions. They demanded "exemplary punishment" for the paper's editor and the cartoonist. Bangladesh, however, doesn't have a blasphemy law, although one had been demanded by the same extremist Islamic groups.
Sooreh Hera
In December 2007, controversy erupted in the Netherlands when Iranian artist Sooreh Hera exhibited photos of two Iranian gay men in a series of sexually provocative positions, wearing masks depicting Muhammad and his son-in-law Ali. The photo series was intended to highlight the hypocrisy the artist saw, of Muslim married men engaging in sexual relations with other men. The Hague Municipal Museum expressed interest in buying the series, but refused to display it, citing fear that it could "offend certain groups". Dutch politician Geert Wilders, leader of the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom), excoriated the museum’s decision, saying it was “based on fear”.
Wikipedia article
In 2008, several Muslims protested against the inclusion of Muhammad's depictions in English Wikipedia's Muhammad article.
An online petition claims to have collected over 300,000 signatures in three months (December 2007 to February 2008). The petition was started by Faraz Ahmad of Daska, Pakistan, resident in Glasgow, formerly editing Wikipedia as "".
The petition specifies opposition to a reproduction of a 17th century Ottoman copy of a 14th century (Ilkhanate) manuscript image (MS Arabe 1489) showing Muhammad as he prohibits intercalation.
Jeremy Henzell-Thomas of The American Muslim deplored the petition as one of "these mechanical knee-jerk reactions" which » are gifts to those who seek every opportunity to decry Islam and ridicule Muslims and can only exacerbate a situation in which Muslims and the Western media seem to be locked in an ever-descending spiral of ignorance and mutual loathing.
Wikipedia considered but rejected a compromise that would allow visitors to choose whether to view the page with images. The site's answers to frequently asked questions says Wikipedia doesn't censor itself for the benefit of any group.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Depictions Of Muhammad'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://depictions_of_muhammad.totallyexplained.com">Depictions of Muhammad Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
|
