Images, script and a plain mosque

A tradition may forbid one form and make another. Read the records and note, for each, the reasons the record gives and who gives them. Where the record reports different views, keep them apart and attribute each one.

Read one episode from the history of the Prophet ﷺ's mosque as the Encyclopaedia of Islam tells it in the museum's record. The article says that Umar, when he enlarged the mosque, is reported to have told the builders to shelter people from rain but not to colour it red or yellow ². It says al-Walid rebuilt the Prophet's mosque, which was beautified by Christian architects with marble, mosaics, shells and gold, and that when he inspected the work in 93/712 an old man is reported to have remarked that people used to build in the manner of mosques and now built in the manner of churches ². The article connects such disputes with hadith: it adds that the conservative view predominates in hadith, which treats lavish adornment of mosques as a sign of the end of the world, and that al-Walid's works were tolerated only from fear of discord, and the record presents this as the article's reading of the reports ². Of the first building, the article says the material was sun-dried brick and the plan a courtyard enclosed by a brick wall on a stone foundation ³.

The record of images reports from the Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Fiqh that jurists differ on images of living beings ⁴. The first view holds that it is not forbidden unless one makes an idol worshipped besides God ^4 5. The Malikis, some early scholars and Ibn Hamdan forbid only images that have a shadow, that is three-dimensional, and are complete in their limbs; a flat image is disliked, not forbidden ⁵. The majority of the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis forbid making flat images as they forbid three-dimensional ones, relying on the general hadiths cursing image-makers ⁶. Among the reasons the encyclopaedia gives are that images lead to excess and worship, as the Arabs made idols, and rivalry with God's creation, which some find too narrow since it would allow images of the sun, mountains and trees ^7 8. The record gives no verdict.

The record of images rests on one source, the Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Fiqh, a work of jurists that reports the schools' views and their proofs. The record of the mosque rests on the Encyclopaedia of Islam, whose two sections, by different authors, disagree on the number of entrances and on the side where the wives' huts stood ^9 10. One says the courtyard served common worship from the first ³; the other finds no evidence that it was the regular place of worship in the earliest years ¹⁰. Al-Samhudi reports its area in different ways ¹¹. On calligraphy the Encyclopaedia of Islam calls Arabic palaeography a young discipline with no complete manual, and says the dating of ornamental kufic Qur'ans remains fragile ^12 13 14.

The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia reports that jurists differ on images of living beings, some forbidding only an idol worshipped besides God and others forbidding flat images too ^4 6. Which of the reasons it gives, rivalry with God's creation or that images lead to excess and worship, better explains how such different limits could be drawn from one prohibition, and what is the strongest objection to your choice?

• Images of living beings: the jurists' views by school and the reasons they give, as the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia reports them.
• Islamic calligraphy: what the Encyclopaedia of Islam says of kufic and the rounded scripts, and of the limits of what is known of its history.
• The Prophet's mosque: the accounts of its building in al-Samhudi and the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and where they differ.