Islam
See also: Islamic artMuslims view sanctified icons as idols, and strictly forbid their worship, nor do they pray in front of one. However, the various divisions of Islam take different positions on the role of visual depictions of living (or once-living) creatures, including people. At one end of the spectrum, sects such as the Wahhabis totally ban drawings and photography. Some branches of Islam forbid only the former but allow the latter. The majority of Sunni Muslims permit both. Some Shia allow even the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad and the twelve Imams, a position totally unacceptable to most Sunnis.
Read more about this topic: Religious Image
Famous quotes containing the word islam:
“The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)
“Awareness of the stars and their light pervades the Koran, which reflects the brightness of the heavenly bodies in many verses. The blossoming of mathematics and astronomy was a natural consequence of this awareness. Understanding the cosmos and the movements of the stars means understanding the marvels created by Allah. There would be no persecuted Galileo in Islam, because Islam, unlike Christianity, did not force people to believe in a “fixed” heaven.”
—Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist. Islam and Democracy, ch. 9, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Trans. 1992)