It is only time that we touch a few thorny subjects, and possibly the thorniest of them all is the status of pictures or painting in Islam and Islamic art. The so called ban on pictures opens the door to a myriad of conflicting views and the end result is more than one billion confused people. Some Islamic scholars claim it is banned in any and every form, some claim the ban is on animate objects, some say it is only limited to picturing the prophet, i.e. Mohammad, and some of course believe there is no such restriction at all. The issue has not come to the attention of the West until Taliban's destruction of an ancient Buddha temple (because it has a picture of Buddha) in Afghanistan in March 2001. After the temple were blown to pieces, the idea that Islam is hostile to painting has emerged in the West, and exacerbated with the Mohammad caricatures or cartoons of last year. Before we proceed, let us also define what we mean by Islamic art. Sheila S. Brown and Jonathan M. Bloom giv...
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