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What is the ruling on selling an old painting by a famous artist that depicts a war between Muslims and Mongols?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The Sunnah indicates the prohibition of drawing and possessing images of living beings, and whatever is forbidden to make is forbidden to sell. Therefore, it is not permissible to sell a painting that shows an image of a human or an animal. Scholars differed regarding the ruling on selling images that are not degraded: the Hanafis and Malikis consider it disliked to sell them, while the Shafi'is and Hanbalis consider it forbidden to sell them, and this is the preferred view. Ibn Hazm believes that selling images is only permissible for girls' toys. It is forbidden to photograph any living being, and to sell, buy, or possess such images, due to the imitation of Allah's creation involved therein.

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

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