Images of Mohammad are prohibited, so how does anyone know when an image is of him when it isnt labeled?
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Mohammad’s word is treated as a source of law second only to the Quran. He had a saying that goes “actions are judged by intentions”. If someone makes it clear that they “intended” to draw Mo, it’s Mo.
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They don’t. No one knows or gets mad at depictions of some random Muslim man unless the context or creator makes it clear it’s intended to be him.
IIRC, there was an episode of South Park where they drew Mohammad as a background character (a part of the Super Friends). No one cared or complained because they did not draw attention to it.
In short, if you draw an Arabic looking fellow who is supposed to Mohammad, but do not mention that that is Mohammad, you could get away with it.
that’s the best part.
he’s been drawn into almost every Where’s Waldo collage and nobody will ever know.
Is there something to be said for context. There are no photographs of Moses, but if you draw a picture of somebody holding the ten commandment tablets people would assume it’s Moses. If you draw a scene from the Koran, it could be Mohammed.
Images of Mohammad aren’t universally prohibited. I’m not an expert on Islamic theology, but there are major doctrinal differences between branches, which of course sometimes become violent. In this case, Sunni Islam is strictly against depicting Mohammed, but Shia Islam is not. Disrespectful depictions like caricature are forbidden, but showing him in a context of veneration or of education can be acceptable.
Historically, some Islamic schools of thought made any depiction of any living thing forbidden. Obviously that makes “no this guy is actually Ahmed!” a useless defense.
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The Quran doesn’t explicitly forbid his image and there is art, especially from before 1500, that show his face.
Unless I’m mistaken, in Islam it’s equally prohibited to depict ANY PROPHET, not just Mohammed. Similarly, Judaism to a lesser extent prohibits the depiction of any kind of visual recreation of biblical personages inside a synogogue. If you ever visited a conservative or orthodox temple, the inner sanctuary will have geometric shapes, or abstract architectures in the center because in essence the idea is that you use your imagination to imagine the scene and stories and that’s far better than any earthly painting or statue. Not to mention the whole idolatry thing being a sin.
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