Is the issue of drawing animate beings without embodiment (ink on paper only) considered among the issues of scholarly consensus regarding its prohibition, or is it a matter of disagreement?
It is unanimously forbidden to draw living beings if the drawing is a sculpture. If the drawing is by hand, it is forbidden according to the majority of scholars, due to the generality of the prophetic hadiths that came absolute and did not differentiate between a sculpture and a non-sculpture, such as the hadith: "Whoever makes a picture, Allah will punish him until he breathes life into it, and he will never be able to breathe life into it." It is not permissible to hang pictures of living beings, because angels do not enter a house in which there are pictures. It is not a condition for prohibition that the issue be one of consensus; rather, a clear text from the Qur'an and authentic Sunnah is sufficient.
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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