In this worldwide art community we all familiar with, deviantART, we are all united across many of our differences. From language, nationality, style of art, and of course: religion.

We have our own beliefs, and this is a diversity we must appreciate and respect. But no matter what our religion is, art could cross the boundaries between them. In brief, all deviants from all religions took a great part in the development my art forms. But in some religion itself, not all of the art forms are legal.

In this occasion, the specialty would be the prohibition of the creation of human and other living creature drawings in Islam—drawings here also refer to paintings, statues, dolls, photograph, action figures, plushies, and etcetera. This exclusion is taken from this Hadist as a basic reference:

From Muslim:
“The persons who will suffer the most on the End of the Day are the people who draw.”

But is the prohibition completely absolute?
Is there any excuse?
What about the development of the Moslem artists, which are great in numbers and talent?

The latest news that may came up in your minds is maybe =putrithewicked’s decision to stop drawing all living creatures after her mother said that it’s a great sin to do it, referring to the Hadist. Of course this is a direct hit on the face for herself and also for deviantART, because we maybe will lose a very talented artist due to this prohibition. But in Islamic Studies, Hadist –which is Prophet Mohammed’s words that the Moslems use as one of the main source of Islamic law—needs to be peeled off to its seed. Without peeling it off, we will never know the real law contained inside it. We cannot just refer to a Hadist we read somewhere words by words exactly as it is, because Hadist consists of many of detailed rules alongside the main rule (which is the Hadist itself).

For the example, Indonesia’s Undang-Undang Dasar (The Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia) consists of only 37 sections and those sections are only the main line of actions. The rest of the regulations are written on the Undang-Undang (The Regulations of the Republic of Indonesia) which is the detailed line of actions. This thing also occurs on the Hadist.

That is why I decided to search about this topic from many sources, including the Internet and some Islamic Studies teachers including a famous Islamic Science Studies professor back here on Indonesia for this article.

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For clearance: The law of drawing is essentially indescribable. It really depends on the artist’s purpose, where is it placed—it is worshiped or not, the purpose of the drawing itself, and what is the subject of the drawing.

Drawing living creatures, including making statues, photographing, or carving, is prohibited because it will maybe cause the Moslems to lose their faith to Allah and compare Him to other Gods. This is the greatest sin of all.

Realize it or not, sometimes we do worshiped a drawing, photo, or statue because its greatness, its awesomeness, its subject of drawing, or any positive quality of it. And also, some artists, because of his or her arrogance, draw living creatures to compare his or her creation to Allah’s creation. This is strictly not allowed, because all worship is only for Him, and he is the Everything, nothing could possibly weigh against Him.

In conjunction with the purpose of the creation, of course, the subject of the drawings itself took a great part of this prohibition. If the drawing is against the laws of Islam, for the instance it is prohibited.

Moslems are never allowed to draw anything that contains nudity, sexual contents, and any part of human body that will lead to misunderstanding and could easily raise the voluptuous feeling on somebody.

Also prohibited, drawing symbols, public figures, or anything related to the peoples and/or religion that is not Islam and against Islam. For case in point, public figures that is anti-God and/or anti-Islam, leaders that compare Allah with any other God, and peoples who spread out many social damages—especially porn actor and actresses or any famous stars with a bad behavior such as wearing sexy dresses, drinking alcohols, using drugs, etc.

This prohibition also holds for symbols of other religions other than Islam, such as the Cross, the David Star, the drawing of mythical Gods, and so on. Gods from any other religion such as Jesus Christ of the Christianity or The Buddha of Buddhism is prohibited too, because in Islamic beliefs, drawing those means spreading infidelity.

And for statues, ANY type of statues including dolls, action figures, and so on is prohibited. Owning it is acceptable, but MAKING is the problem especially if it is very realistic. It is a trust that in the Kiamat (The End of The Day) those statues will demand for life to us, and it is impossible to give them it. This also holds for the prohibited drawings.

From many Hadist I’ve read and discuss with with my Islamic Studies teacher, it has come to a final statement that any living creature-related art forms that has a form of body is haram—it is a sin and strictly prohibited.

Now it has come to confusion: Which one is haram, and which one is not?

Drawing nudity, symbols from other religion, drawing in aim to evaluate with Allah, is haram. It is a great sin to do it, because once again, doing these means spreading infidelity. And as mentioned earlier, making statues is a great sin too. Making statues is weighed against trying to do an effort to create something compared to His creature.
It is also prohibited to do draw ‘just for dabbling merely’. First of, it’s a waste of time, and it’s a waste of material too. So is drawing in the wall, because it’s such a waste while Islam teaches us to be efficient in anything.

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Conclusion :
1- Drawing nudity, symbols from other religion, drawing something to worship, drawing ‘just for dabbling merely’, and drawing in aim to evaluate with Allah is haram, when the artist did it on purpose. The level of the sin depends, and the highest level of sin holds for drawing Gods from other religion.

2- Creating statue in any form is haram, but the level of the sin itself depends on the purpose of the statue.

3- Except for those prohibited above, it is acceptable. But we still need to be very careful.

Remember always, Allah loves arts, and Islam never restricts the Moslems from developing their life and doing what are they capable of. Keep on going, Moslems!

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That is probably all I can write for this time. I am not writing this due to discrimination or anything like that. I wish all of you, from any religion, would understand more about Islam, and hopefully our bond will get stronger.
Please do not make fun of our differences in beliefs. If I found any form of discrimination involving this article, I won’t think twice to report abuse to the Help Desk. If you have any questions, note me via my account. I would definitely reply, and I would try my best to answer your questions.

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References :
The Holy Qur’an
Al-Hadist
Mrs. Nur’aini
Mr. Khoerudin
KH Fahmi Basya
Sources from the Internet, especially [link] and [link] (read more in those links)