The Scourge of Photography

Working with UI design teaches you what most people never notice: Images are not objects, they're just colors arranged with intent. Nothing more, Nothing less. When you design interfaces, you spend a lot of time with color. You learn that a slight shift in hue changes what feels near and what feels distant. You learn that shadows are not captured — they are simulated, constructed from contrast. You learn that depth is a trick: two flat values of color, placed adjacently, make the eye perceive dimension that isn't there. Form emerges from color boundaries. Not the other way around. You learn this the way a carpenter learns wood. Through handling it. Through getting it wrong. Through seeing what actually happens when you change a value by ten units in one direction. Once you see that clearly, photography stops looking like "capturing reality"(1). It starts looking like what it actually is: constructing a color record of a moment(2). What comes out the other end of the c...

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5954 ) ʿAlī bnu ʿAbdillāh narrated to us; Sufyān narrated to us; he said: I heard ʿAbdurraḥmān bnu al-Qāsim—there was no one in Madīnah at that time better than him—say: I heard my father say: I heard ʿĀʾishah, may Allāh be pleased with her, say: The Messenger of Allāh, ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, returned from a journey, and I had covered a niche of mine with a thin curtain that had figures on it. When the Messenger of Allāh, ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, saw it, he tore it and said: "The most severely punished on the Day of Resurrection are those who imitate the [act of] creation of Allāh". She said: So we turned it into a cushion, or two. The point of evidence: her statement: "he tore it" So, my brothers in Īmān—those who take the Messenger of Allāh, ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, as their example—those who wipe only the face and leave the head; those who treat images gently, softly, leniently; those who do not feel the reprehensibility of thos...

Note: The following might be too technical to some, so if you don't understand it, that's okay, you don't have to. It's a way of making people realize how technology is just an advanced method of accomplishing the same tasks we've always known. The Digital Camera Is an Eye, a Brain, a Hand, Paint, and Canvas How so? • The eye : The camera lens is designed similar to the lens of the human eye, which regulates the amount and angle of incoming light. Just as a painter using a brush must open his eyes, a camera must as well allow light to enter through its lens. Then: The retina of the eye converts light into electrical neural signals, which are then transmitted to the brain. Likewise, the light sensors in a camera convert light into electrical signals that are transmitted to its internal computer—its “brain”. • The brain : The brain processes these data and enables us to perceive and comprehend what the eye has captured. There is no copied image; rather, we merely appr...

The Position of Ibn ʿUthaymīn on Image-Making By the shaykh: ʿAbdurraḥmān bnu Nāṣir al-Barrāk. 18/7/1428 AH   Source: (الدرر السنية) website. Translated and prepared by: ʿAbdurraḥmān bnu Mīhūb al-Qaddārī   Introduction Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī, رحمه الله, said: Muʿādh ibn Jabal, رضي الله عنه, said: “Ahead of you are trials in which wealth will become abundant, and the Qurʾān will be widely circulated, until it is taken up by the believer and the hypocrite, the man and the woman, the young and the old, the slave and the free. Then a person will soon say: ‘What is wrong with the people that they do not follow me, when I have recited the Qurʾān? They will not follow me until I introduce something new for them.’ So beware of newly invented matters, for whatever is invented is misguidance. And I warn you against the deviation (i.e slip) of the scholar, for indeed Shayṭān may utter a word of misguidance upon the tongue of a scholar, and a hypocrite may utter a word of truth.” He said: ...

If your screen and camera cooperate to display an animate object, you're committing photography of animate beings. Even if temporary (i.e a few seconds). The claim that "no saving occurs therefore it is not ḥarām" is invalid, because it is the same as someone drawing an animate object using a brush and paint then destroying the painting...temporary! The problem is with mere existence, no matter how short the period is.

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته Many have asked about my background and the approach I follow. I am a Salafī seeker of knowledge, mostly self-taught, who consults and trusts certain scholars, mainly from Ahl as-Sunnah in Yemen. I’m sharing the preface written by Shaykh Abū al-Yamān ʿAdnān al-Maṣqarī (ḥafiẓahu Allāh) for one of my works, but it also shows the methodology and manhaj I try to follow. You can also see which scholars I rely on from my posts and the things I share. May Allah guide us to benefit from knowledge sincerely for His sake. Preface by Shaykh Abū al-Yamān ʿAdnān ibn Ḥusayn al-Maṣqarī al-Yamānī May Allah preserve him الحمدُ للهِ ربِّ العالمين، أحمده سبحانه وأشكره، وأستعينه وأستغفره، وأعوذ به من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا، من يهدِه الله فلا مُضِلَّ له، ومن يُضلِل فلا هاديَ له. وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، وأشهد أن محمدًا عبدُه ورسولُه، صلّى الله وسلّم وبارك عليه وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين، ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين. To proceed: The issue of image-making...

I've observed that some use images of senior scholars, placing on them sentimental phrases, and justify this by obscuring the face. This is a corrupt practice; these images were originally produced in sin, so using them is an acknowledgment of the wrong, a habituation of the general public to it, and a step of the steps of Shayṭān. Had the photographer feared Allāh, the image would never have been taken in the first place. Is it fitting, then, that the fruit of his sin be made a medium for daʿwah? Would any of you stand before scholars and photograph them from the neck down, in their presence? The Prophet ﷺ commanded that images acquired in ignorance of the ruling be obliterated, in order to get rid of them. This, in no way, justifies seeking out images, then obscuring them, then using them in daʿwah. This is neither honoring the scholars, nor following the guidance of the Prophet ﷺ and the Salaf. Ask yourselves: would the scholar depicted consent to a post showing his body with hi...