This message consists of two parts: Please read both before commenting. I've been following the discussion about images of Muhammad with some interest, and with your permission, I'd like to make a few comments on it. It is not an attempt to resolve the problem—and I believe that there is a problem—but rather to offer some thoughts as to how the problem is currently being tackled. To begin with, there seems to be some misunderstanding about the history of the ban on images of Muhammad. To clarify this, there seem to be several schools of thought here. Note that much of what I am writing summarizes Wijdan Ali's "From the Literal to the Spiritual: The Development of the Prophet Muhammad's Portrayal from 13th Century Ilkhanid Miniatures to 17th Century Ottoman Art (http://www2.let.uu.nl/Solis/anpt/ejos/pdf4/07Ali.pdf) 1. Pictures are permitted: This seems to have been the case in the thirteenth century, and the images may have even served a pedagogical purpose. It seems to me that this position is closest to the one Wikipedia is now suggesting. 2. No pictures of Muhammad are permitted: This seems to be a later interdiction, and is not universally accepted. According to my source above, some Shi'i artists continue to portray Muhammad even today. Nevertheless, it has become accepted among more mainstream fundamentalist groups, including Wahhabis (a Sunni group, especially prominent in Saudi Arabia) and Iranian Shi'a. 3. Veiled images of Muhammad are permitted: This seems to have come into vogue in the 16th-17th centuries and could, perhaps, serve as the basis for a compromise position. Complicated? Yup. The uninitiated already have to start figuring out who the Ilkhanids were, what the exact differences between Sunnis and Shi'is are, and how Wahhabism fits into all this. Wikipedia is a good place to start, but if you have some time, I'd suggest Hourani's "History of the Arab Peoples." Nor does the fact that something was accepted once mean that it is accepted now. For example, Abbasid poets wrote extensively of the joys of women and wine, and in the 11th century a Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, wrote: 'Wash me in wine when I go. For my burial service use a text concerning wine. Would you find me on the Day of Doom, look for me in the dust at the wine-shop's door." Yet no one would suggest that modern Persia should permit wine based on a ruba'i by Khayyam, and don't even get me started on Abu Nuwas. So, the question is: what is the accepted norm for today? see Part II

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