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Do photographic images of animate beings, taken for preservation, fall under the scope of hadiths that prohibit image-making, such as: "Indeed, Allah will punish the image-makers for what they have depicted"? Does this include the use of emojis in chat programs? And what is the ruling on photographing children?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Photographic depiction of animate beings is a matter of dispute among scholars. Some have prohibited it, considering it to fall under the general prohibition of depiction, while others have permitted it, arguing that it is merely a capture of a reflection and not an imitation of Allah's creation. The more scrupulous and cautious approach in religion is to avoid acquiring pictures of animate beings merely for remembrance. As for emojis, if they are complete images of animate beings, they share the same ruling. However, if one of the two descriptions is not met, then they do not fall under the prohibition of depiction.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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