Deobandi mullahs, products of colonial British India carved the face of the Bamiyan Buddha.
Author: Dr. Farid Yunus, retired professor of Middle Eastern cultural anthropology and Islamic philosophy, founder and innovator of Islamic Democracy (California, USA), member of the Sangar Advisory Council
Bunafshazhan Azizi from the Islamic Sociology class I teach asked if drawing, painting, and photography are haram or halal in Islam. Bunafshazhan herself is an extremely talented and capable artist.
The authority of reasoning and fatwas in Islam is the Holy Quran and the way of life of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) or his authentic hadiths. We say authentic because our religious texts include false hadiths. Or they have a misinterpretation of the art of the era of jahiliyyah (ignorance) that was propagated at the beginning of Islam.
There is no mention in the Quran of the prohibition of fine arts such as painting, drawing, and photography. At the time of the Prophet there was no art of photography, so every fatwa, if it was given, is ridiculous. We come to the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) regarding drawings and paintings before Islam.
One of the reasons for the revelation of the Quran was that idolatry and superstition had reached their limit in human society. The infidels created statues of idols for worship or painted images of wild animals on these pieces, and all this was shirk and impious blasphemy at that time. Just as idols were broken, painting images of animals and birds of prey was also condemned, for the intention of the infidels and polytheists was different.
With the spread of Islam beyond the Hijaz and the Arab Peninsula, Muslims developed a different outlook, including on the visual arts, especially in Khorasan, which covered the lands of Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, especially Samarkand and Bukhara and part of ancient India. When we see the works of art of these Muslims, we find that painting and drawing in various forms, including miniature works from the Timurid era, prove that fine art was not prohibited, even animal paintings and sculpture were very popular. Note the 16th-century miniatures, which depict both faces and animals.
Today in Iran we see the Ferdowsi statue in Ferdowsi Square Iran is a big Islamic country. Topkapi Museum is the most famous palace of Ottoman Turkey and has the best collection of miniature works, representing both drawings of human faces and drawings of animals. Or the works of Samarkand and Bukhara, where I visited, fine art can be seen at the peak of beauty.
Today, young artists and painters like Bunafshajan have become prisoners of blasphemous Wahhabi and Arab thoughts, and they want to force the idea that photography, painting, face painting, and sculpture are forbidden.
The Muslims who conquered Khorasan did not destroy the Buddha statue and did not call it polytheism because Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said that if you want your religion to be respected, respect other religions. Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with them) did not destroy churches that had images of Jesus (peace be upon him) while conquering Palestine. On the contrary, he called on Christians to strictly practice their religion. It was the Deobandi mullahs of colonial British India who carved the face of the Bamiyan Buddha, and the Taliban who blew up the largest and most exquisite standing Buddha in the world.
Dear young people! In Islam, every action you take directly connects with your intention. Your goal is not the painting of blasphemy and polytheism, but the fine arts that are the pride of our land.
