Depictions Of Muhammad

The permissibility of depictions of Muhammad in Islam has been a contentious issue. Oral and written descriptions of Muhammad are readily accepted by all traditions of Islam, but there is disagreement about visual depictions. The Quran does not explicitly or implicitly forbid images of Muhammad. The ahadith (supplemental teachings) present an ambiguous picture, but there are a few that have explicitly prohibited Muslims from creating visual depictions of human figures. It is agreed on all sides that there is no authentic visual tradition (pictures created during Muhammad's lifetime) as to the appearance of Muhammad, although there are early legends of portraits of him, and written physical descriptions whose authenticity is often accepted.

The question of whether images in Islamic art, including those depicting Muhammad, can be considered as religious art remains a matter of contention among scholars. They appear in illustrated books that are normally works of history or poetry, including those with religious subjects; the Quran is never illustrated: "context and intent are essential to understanding Islamic pictorial art. The Muslim artists creating images of Muhammad, and the public who beheld them, understood that the images were not objects of worship. Nor were the objects so decorated used as part of religious worship".

However, scholars concede that such images have "a spiritual element", and were also sometimes used in informal religious devotions celebrating the day of the Mi'raj. Many visual depictions only show Muhammad with his face veiled, or symbolically represent him as a flame; other images, notably from before about 1500, show his face. With the notable exception of modern-day Iran, depictions of Muhammad were never numerous in any community or era throughout Islamic history, and appeared almost exclusively in the private medium of Persian and other miniature book illustration. The key medium of public religious art in Islam was and is calligraphy. In Ottoman Turkey the hilya developed as a decorated visual arrangement of texts about Muhammad that was displayed as a portrait might be.

Visual images of Muhammad in the non-Islamic West have always been infrequent. In the Middle Ages they were mostly hostile, and most often appear in illustrations of Dante's poetry. In the Renaissance and Early Modern period, Muhammad was sometimes depicted, typically in a more neutral or heroic light; the depictions began to encounter protests from Muslims. In the age of the Internet, a handful of caricature depictions printed in the European press have caused global protests and controversy and been associated with violence.

Background

In Islam, although nothing in the Quran explicitly bans images, some supplemental hadith explicitly ban the drawing of images of any living creature; other hadith tolerate images, but never encourage them. Hence, most Muslims avoid visual depictions of any prophet or messenger such as Muhammad, Moses, and Abraham.

Most Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of all the prophets and messengers should be prohibited and are particularly averse to visual representations of Muhammad.Devotion in pictures: Muslim popular iconography – The prophet Muhammad
University of Bergen The key concern is that the use of images can encourage ''shirk'' or "idolatry". In Shia Islam, however, images of Muhammad are quite common nowadays even though historically, Shia scholars opposed such depictions. Still, 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.

Many major religions have experienced times during their history when images of their religious figures were forbidden. In Judaism, one of the Ten Commandments states " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image", while in the Christian New Testament all covetousness (greed) is defined as idolatry. During the periods of Byzantine Iconoclasm in the eighth century, and again during the ninth century, visual representations of sacred figures were forbidden by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and only the Christian cross could be depicted in churches. The visual representation of Jesus and other religious figures remains a concern in parts of stricter Protestant Christianity.

Portraiture of Muhammad in Islamic literature

Several ahadith and other writings of the early Islamic period include stories in which portraits of Muhammad appear. Abu Hanifa Dinawari, ibn al-Faqih, Ibn Wahshiyya, and Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani tell versions of a story in which the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius is visited by two Meccans. He shows them a cabinet, handed down to him from Alexander the Great and created by God for Adam, each of whose drawers contains a portrait of a prophet. They are astonished to see a portrait of Muhammad in the final drawer. Sadid al-Din al-Kazaruni tells a similar story in which the Meccans are visiting the king of China. Al-Kisa'i tells that God did indeed give portraits of the prophets to Adam.

Ibn Wahshiyya and Abu Nuʿaym al-Isfahani tell a second story in which a Meccan merchant visiting Syria is invited to a Christian monastery where several sculptures and paintings depict prophets and saints. There he sees the images of Muhammad and Abu Bakr, as yet unidentified by the Christians. In an 11th-century story, Muhammad is said to have sat for a portrait by an artist retained by Sasanian emperor Kavad II. The emperor liked the portrait so much that he placed it on his pillow.

Later, al-Maqrizi tells a story in which al-Muqawqis, the ruler of Egypt, met with Muhammad's envoy. He asked the envoy to describe Muhammad and checked the description against a portrait of an unknown prophet which he had on a piece of cloth. The description matches the portrait.

In a 17th-century Chinese Muslim story, the emperor asked to see Muhammad, who instead sent a portrait. The king was so enamoured of the portrait that he converted to Islam, at which point the portrait, having fulfilled its mission, disappeared.

Depiction by Muslims

Verbal descriptions

In one of the earliest sources, ibn Sa'd's ''Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir'', there are numerous verbal descriptions of Muhammad. One description sourced to Ali is as follows:

From the Ottoman period on, such texts have been presented on calligraphic hilya panels (, pl. ''hilyeler'', from , plural ''ḥilān''), commonly surrounded by an elaborate frame of illuminated decoration and either included in books or, more often, muraqqas, or albums, or sometimes placed in wooden frames so that they can hang on a wall. The elaborated form of the calligraphic tradition was founded in the 17th century by the Ottoman calligrapher Hâfiz Osman. While containing a concrete and artistically appealing description of Muhammad's appearance, they complied with the strictures against figurative depictions of Muhammad, leaving his appearance to the viewer's imagination. Several parts of the complex design were named after parts of the body, from the head downwards, indicating the explicit intention of the hilye as a substitute for a figurative depiction.

The Ottoman hilye format customarily starts with the basmala shown on top and is separated in the middle by Quran 21:107: "And We have not sent you but as a mercy to the worlds". Four compartments set around the central one often contain the names of the Rashidun: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, each followed by ''radhi Allahu anhu'' "may God be pleased with him".

Image:Hilye-i serif 1.jpg, ''Hilye'' by Hâfiz Osman
Image:Hilye-i serif 3.png, ''Hilye'' by Hâfiz Osman
Image:Hilye-i serif 5.jpg, ''Hilye'' by Hâfiz Osman
Image:Hilye-i serif 7.jpg, ''Hilye'' by Mehmed Tahir Efendi (d. 1848)
Image:Hilye-i serif 4.jpg, ''Hilye'' by Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi (1801–1876)
Image:Hilye-i Serif 6.jpg, ''Hilye'' by Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi
Rose Hilye.jpg, ''Hilye'' inscribed on the petals of a pink rose symbolising Muhammad (18th century)

Calligraphic representations

The most common visual representation of the Muhammad in Islamic art, especially in Arabic-speaking areas, is by a calligraphic representation of his name, a sort of monogram in roughly circular form, often given a decorated frame. Such inscriptions are normally in Arabic, and may rearrange or repeat forms, or add a blessing or honorific, or for example the word "messenger" or a contraction of it. The range of ways of representing Muhammad's name is considerable, including ambigrams; he is also frequently symbolised by a rose.

The more elaborate versions relate to other Islamic traditions of special forms of calligraphy such as those writing the names of God, and the secular tughra or elaborate monogram of Ottoman rulers.

File:Muhammad Salat.PNG, Muhammad's name in Thuluth, an Arabic calligraphic script; the smaller writing in the top left means "Peace be upon him".
File:Edirne 7331 Nevit.JPG, Calligraphic representation of Muhammad's name, painted on the wall of a mosque in Edirne in Turkey
File:Tile with Calligraphy.JPG, Calligraphy tile from Turkey (18th century), containing the names of God, Muhammad, and his first four successors, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali
File:Mustafa Rakim, calligraphic panel.jpg, Late 18th- or early 19th-century calligraphic panel by Mustafa Rakim
File:Mirror Muhammad green.jpg, Mirror calligraphy of Muhammad's name
File:Muhammad decoupage calligraphy panel.jpg, Decoupage calligraphy (18th or 19th century) with Muhammad's name in mirror script, top centre; the area below represents a ''mihrab'', or prayer niche.
File:Pal Pottery Cal3.jpg, Palestinian pottery calligraphy featuring the names of God (الله) and Muhammad (محمد)
File:Ambigram - Muhammad and Ali2.svg, Ambigram – Muhammad (محمد) upside down is read as Ali (علي), and vice versa.
File:Kufic Muhammad.svg, Fourfold Muhammad in square (or geometric) Kufic script, often used as a tilework pattern in Islamic architecture
File:Meknes Medersa Bou Inania Calligraphy.jpg, Geometric Kufic from the Bou Inania Madrasa (Meknes); the text reads بركة محمد or ''baraka muḥammad'', i.e. be blessed Muhammad.
File:Muhammad calligraphy tile.jpg, Tile from a 14th-century mausoleum in Uzbekistan, inscribed with Muhammad's name (محمد) in square Kufic; one of a set used to frame a doorway
File:Kerman Friday Mosque main entrance cupola.JPG, Mosque cupola, with Quranic inscriptions and Kufic representations of Allah's and Muhammad's names worked into the tiling
File:Ханака Ахмеда Ясави 2010 017.jpg, ''Banna'i'' incorporating square Kufic representations of Muhammad's name on the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi, Kazakhstan
File:Isfahan Royal Mosque minaret.JPG, ''Banna'i'' on the Royal Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, with square Kufic repeats of Muhammad's and Ali's names
File:Wooden frame disk muhammad.jpg, Muhammad's name on a wooden disk in Hagia Sophia

Figurative visual depictions

Throughout Islamic history, depictions of Muhammad in Islamic art were rare. Even so, there exists a "notable corpus of images of Muhammad produced, mostly in the form of manuscript illustrations, in various regions of the Islamic world from the thirteenth century through modern times".Gruber (2005), p. 240-241 Depictions of Muhammad date back to the start of the tradition of Persian miniatures as illustrations in books. The illustrated book from the Persianate world (''Warka and Gulshah'', Topkapi Palace Library H. 841, attributed to Konya 1200–1250) contains the two earliest known Islamic depictions of Muhammad.

This book dates to before or just around the time of the Mongol invasion of Anatolia in the 1240s, and before the campaigns against Persia and Iraq of the 1250s, which destroyed great numbers of books in libraries. Recent scholarship has noted that, although surviving early examples are now uncommon, generally human figurative art was a continuous tradition in Islamic lands (such as in literature, science, and history); as early as the 8th century, such art flourished during the Abbasid Caliphate (c. 749 - 1258, across Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Mesopotamia, and Persia).

Christiane Gruber traces a development from "veristic" images showing the whole body and face, in the 13th to 15th centuries, to more "abstract" representations in the 16th to 19th centuries, the latter including the representation of Muhammad by a special type of calligraphic representation, with the older types also remaining in use. An intermediate type, first found from about 1400, is the "inscribed portrait" where the face of Muhammad is blank, with "Ya Muhammad" ("O Muhammad") or a similar phrase written in the space instead; these may be related to Sufi thought. In some cases the inscription appears to have been an underpainting that would later be covered by a face or veil, so a pious act by the painter, for his eyes alone, but in others it was intended to be seen. According to Gruber, a good number of these paintings later underwent iconoclastic mutilations, in which the facial features of Muhammad were scratched or smeared, as Muslim views on the acceptability of veristic images changed.

A number of extant Persian manuscripts representing Muhammad date from the Ilkhanid period under the new Mongol rulers, including a '' Marzubannama'' dating to 1299. The Ilkhanid MS Arab 161 of 1307/8 contains 25 illustrations found in an illustrated version of Al-Biruni's ''The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries'', of which five include depictions Muhammad, 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. According to Christiane Gruber, other works use images to promote Sunni Islam, such as a set of Mi'raj illustrations (MS H 2154) in the early 14th century, although other historians have dated the same illustrations to the Jalayrid period of Shia rulers.

Depictions of Muhammad are also found in Persian manuscripts in the following Timurid and Safavid dynasties, and Turkish Ottoman art in the 14th to 17th centuries, and beyond. Perhaps the most elaborate cycle of illustrations of Muhammad's life is the copy, completed in 1595, of the 14th-century biography '' Siyer-i Nebi'' commissioned by the Ottoman sultan Murat III for his son, the future Mehmed III, containing over 800 illustrations.

Probably the commonest narrative scene represented is the Mi'raj; according to Gruber, "There exist countless single-page paintings of the meʿrāj included in the beginnings of Persian and Turkish romances and epic stories produced from the beginning of the 15th century to the 20th century". These images were also used in celebrations of the anniversary of the Mi'raj on 27 Rajab, when the accounts were recited aloud to male groups: "Didactic and engaging, oral stories of the ascension seem to have had the religious goal of inducing attitudes of praise among their audiences". Such practices are most easily documented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but manuscripts from much earlier appear to have fulfilled the same function. Otherwise a large number of different scenes may be represented at times, from Muhammad's birth to the end of his life, and his existence in Paradise.

Halo

In the earliest depictions Muhammad may be shown with or without a halo, the earliest halos being round in the style of Christian art, but before long a flaming halo or aureole in the Buddhist or Chinese tradition becomes more common than the circular form found in the West, when a halo is used. A halo or flame may surround only his head, but often his whole body, and in some images the body itself cannot be seen for the halo. This "luminous" form of representation avoided the issues caused by "veristic" images, and could be taken to convey qualities of Muhammad's person described in texts. If the body is visible, the face may be covered with a veil (see gallery for examples of both types). This form of representation, which began at the start of the Safavid period in Persia, was done out of reverence and respect. Other prophets of Islam, and Muhammad's wives and relations, may be treated in similar ways if they also appear.

T. W. Arnold (1864–1930), an early historian of Islamic art, stated that "Islam has never welcomed painting as a handmaid of religion as both Buddhism and Christianity have done. Mosques have never been decorated with religious pictures, nor has a pictorial art been employed for the instruction of the heathen or for the edification of the faithful." Comparing Islam to Christianity, he also writes: "Accordingly, there has never been any historical tradition in the religious painting of Islam – no artistic development in the representation of accepted types – no schools of painters of religious subjects; least of all has there been any guidance on the part of leaders of religious thought corresponding to that of ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian Church."

Images of Muhammad remain controversial to the present day, and are not considered acceptable in many countries in the Middle East. For example, in 1963 an account by a Turkish author of a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca was banned in Pakistan because it contained reproductions of miniatures showing Muhammad unveiled.

File:Mohammed receiving revelation from the angel Gabriel.jpg, Mohammed receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. Illustration on vellum in ''Jami' al-tawarikh'' by Rashid al-Din Hamadani

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