Religious Portraits: Answer to Comment

March 6, 2009, 12:21 pm

By Nazila Fathi AND Baghdad Bureau
Hussein A banner of Imam Hussein carried by pilgrims walking to Karbala. (Photo: Stephen Farrell / The New York Times.)


After Baghdad Bureau posted about Shiite pilgrims carrying portraits of early Islamic holy figures, one reader, Andrew, asked: “I thought depictions of Islamic saints and prophets was forbidden.” Baghdad Bureau and our NYT colleague Nazila Fathiin Tehran Bureau, gained differing opinions:

Nazila Fathi
TEHRAN– This year in January, the Shiite month that coincided with the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, the Iranian police launched a crackdown on posters or paintings that depicted his face.

“Could an editor explain the first photo? I thought depictions of Islamic saints and prophets was forbidden, but the top image appears to depict Hussein. Is he exempt? Or is the ban on depicting the images of the holy loosely enforced in this case?”

— Andrew

Policemen inspected mourning ceremonies around the country looking for pictures that showed Hussein, or other successors of the Prophet in Shiite Islam. Armed with sprays of white paint, they wiped out the faces, reports said.

This was the first time the police interfered in religious practices since the 1979 Islamic revolution when the government encouraged them and often provided financial aid.

It has been common for the police to arrest women on the streets for showing too much hair—even wearing long sexy boots this winter—or to crack down on young men who have long hair, saying they tarnish the Islamic image of the country. Those measures often come under criticism but ironically, the crackdown on the posters was received by silence.

There are no strict prohibitions in Shiite Iran on images of successors of the prophet in the same way that there is a ban on depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Pictures of Imam Ali, the prophet’s son-in-law and his first successor in Shiite Islam, are widely sold near Shiite shrines. He is shown handsomely, with large dark eyes, thick arched eyebrows and a nicely trimmed black beard.

But religious leaders here say they have been alarmed in recent years by what they call superstition in religion. They have warned that the images are imaginative and unrealistic. They have referred to the posters and the lyrics sung in praise of the leaders, and say they mislead believers. The state-run radio played part of one of the lyrics– which was in praise of Imam Ali’s facial features, his red lips, eyes defined by the traditional eyeliner called Sormeh according to the song– to show how absurd it was.

There is almost no doubt among the Shiite clerics here that there are no real portraits of any of the successors of the prophet. A senior cleric, Ayatollah Mohsen Moussavi Tabrizi, said in a recent interview. “None of these pictures has a historical or religious basis.”

“All we know is that all the prophets and their successors were born handsome so that they would not repel their followers.”

A mid-ranking cleric, Mohammad Khorsand, said the portraits were drawn based on religious accounts but none of them were real.

“Imam Hussein lived approximately over 1,300 years ago,” he said. “There were no cameras back then and no pictures are left of them.”

Stephen Farrell
BAGHDAD– In answer to Andrew’s question, I took the photograph of the Hussein banner, one of many thousands on the road to Karbala that day.

First, it is important to note that Hussein, his father Ali and half-brother Abbas are not prophets in Islam, Muhammad being the last to have that status.

What I can tell you is that in practice there is certainly no ban on pictures of Hussein, Abbas, Ali or any of the Shiite imams in Iraq. Quite the opposite. All across Shiite areas of the country are colorful banners, posters, flags, portraits, carpets, wall-hangings, drapes and car bumper stickers bearing their image.

Indeed for a foreigner in Iraq one of the quickest ways of discovering whether you are in a Shiite or Sunni area is to look around to see if banners and images of the Shiite imams are on display. Also huge posters or photographs of respected modern religious figures such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani; Moktada al-Sadr, his assassinated father Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr; Ayatollah Mohammed Baker al-Hakim, who was murdered in 2003, and so on.

This makes them often very different in appearance from Sunni areas.

In some neighborhoods - especially mixed ones - it is clear that the posting of such pictures is to some extent an assertion of Shiite identity and presence.

One of my Iraqi colleagues asked a Shiite cleric in Najaf for guidance on this. His opinion, no doubt one of many on this issue, was: “There are two opinions regarding prophets’ and imams’ pictures in Islam: The first permits making pictures similar to prophets and imams depending on descriptions mentioned in historical books.

“The second completely contradicts the first and says that it is forbidden to draw the picture of any creature that has soul, whether it is a prophet or otherwise, or any other creature such as an animal.”

I hope this is of help. My colleague Sam Dagher also has some thoughts.

Sam Dagher
BAGHDAD–The cleric from Najaf described the two extreme views in Islam on this topic with the latter one being the position of puritanical or hardline Sunni Muslims such as those who follow the so-called Salafi tradition.

Unlike most Shiites, Sunnis shun depictions of all companions and relatives of Prophet Mohammed but otherwise have no problem with portraits and photos.

In a related anecdote, I remember a very curious billboard in the Saudi city of Jidda three years ago. The Salafi tradition reigns supreme in Saudi Arabia and as such all photos of soul-possessing creatures are strictly forbidden. However, the country has for a while now been grappling with ways to reconcile the old views with a hunger for modernization and a more tolerant form of Islam among the young.

The billboard in Jidda advertising the services of a local bank showed the face of the Brazilian soccer legend Pele. But something strange had happened to his eyes, they were pixelated. The idea was that if you could not see someone’s eyes clearly, you would have no window into their souls.

In Najaf an Iraqi journalist working for The New York Times spoke to Iranian pilgrims to see if they noticed any difference between Iran and Iraq.

NAJAF–Ismail Qumi, 33, said: “Although I am not an expert in this matter, according to my information I think it is not considered a problem to have the pictures of imams, as long as those pictures do not offend their characters. You find this attitude in Iraq and Iran, and the evidence for that is that you can see them everywhere, or else they would prevent them from being circulated in markets.”

Sayyed Ridha, 37, said: “I think there is no difference between the views in Iraq and Iran about the imams’ pictures. Some people think it is permitted and others do not. It is not a point of conflict between the Iran’s and Iraq’s marjaiya [religious scholars]. In both countries there are some who think it is forbidden and others who do not.”