Jihadists in Bangladesh find that a picture is only worth six words: Stop that or we'll kill you. Sharia Alert. "Bangladesh: Photography students receive death threats," by Angilee Shah for AsiaMedia:
Students and staff at Pathshala, the Dhaka-based South Asian Institute of Photography, received death threats over the weekend from proponents of Islamic law in Bangladesh. The letters, sent to at least three students and 16 staff, faculty and board members, allege that the school's photographers are violating Islamic law in their work.
The letters were individually addressed and mailed to Pathshala and to students' home addresses. While it is unknown who made the threat, the author claims to be a leader of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), an organization banned by the government and known for its militant activities. The page-long form letter, one of which was seen by AsiaMedia, outlines alleged goals of JMB and warns students and staff to stop "all kinds of photography except natural photography," "all kinds of movie [sic] and movie posters," "cultural program" and "fine arts." The author writes that addressees and their families will be killed if these activities continue.
In Islam, idolatry is forbidden and in some of the strictest traditions, representing people in a form such as photography is considered a form of idolatry or a practice which can lead to idolatry.
Many Islamic jurists have considered photography exempt from prohibitions on graven images, seeing them not as humanly generated images, but as a record of things made by Allah. Nonetheless, photographers are often regarded with suspicion of immorality, and that suspicion is supported by the words of Muhammad himself:
Narrated Aisha: I stuffed for the Prophet a pillow decorated with pictures (of animals) which looked like a Namruqa (i.e. a small cushion). He came and stood among the people with excitement apparent on his face. I said, "O Allah's Apostle! What is wrong?" He said, "What is this pillow?" I said, "I have prepared this pillow for you, so that you may recline on it." He said, "Don't you know that angels do not enter a house wherein there are pictures; and whoever makes a picture will be punished on the Day of Resurrection and will be asked to give life to (what he has created)?" - Bukhari 004.054.447
Narrated Abu Talha: I heard Allah's Apostle saying; "Angels (of Mercy) do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or a picture of a living creature (a human being or an animal)." - Bukhari 004.054.448
Imagine if the Departments of Arab and Muslim Propaganda had been unable to enroll their own, and especially so many willing hireling, in the dual aims of depicting their enemies (with a heavy concentration, from 1967 on, on the Mighty Israeli Empire, and from 2003 on, the Crazed Colonialist All-For-Oil Americans In Iraq) as worse than wild beasts, and, secondarily, depicting the wise and just rulers of the Arab and Muslim societies.
In the first category, we have all the staged atrocities, including the re-use of a single children's corpse during the Hezbollah War last year, the attribution to Israel of deaths clearly caused -- possibly even deliberately -- by the PLO and its various versions and avatars (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and so on -- solemn parsing of the names, deep discussions of their differences, are absurd when that leads to overlooking the overwhelming agreement, the shared world-view, when it comes to Infidels). Then there are the endless pictures of the wounded in hospitals -- a particular feature of Al Jazeera, showing the effects of those monstrous Americans (the same ones who poured in tens of billions of dollars to build schoolhouses, power grids, re-outfit hospitals, and so on -- and would have continued to do it forever had the locals not blown them up, or attacked them, as they tried to do these things, or merely waited and destroyed whatever it was the Americans built).
And the other use of photography comes in such things as the deplorable features shown in National Geographic -- which has a lot to answer for, in the last forty years of its local-color gullible and vacuous treatment of such places as Saudi Arabia. What would the Saudis, what would ARAMCO Magazine (I have a dozen back issues in front of me) be without pictures of those wise Saudi rulers, at the majlis, or some folkloristic dining under the stars in the desert, or dancing, in dishdashas, with daggers, or those pictures of dhows, and the new "Musem of Arab or Islamic Art," and pictures of calligraphy, and don't forget the skyline of Dubai. Think of what Robert Azzi used to offer up, and the images impressed on Western brains about modern, bustling, Saudi Arabia, and now compare that to the real Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Arabia whom "The Religious Policeman" (a disaffected and humorful Saudi) used to blog about, the Saudi Arabia whom the expatriate workers, or the more piercing of them, recollect in tranquillity and horror, the Saudi Arabia of those Bin Baz sermons, those ranting textbooks that American reporters were so amazed (see McFarquhar of the Duranty Times) to discover, when such textbooks, and teachings, have been the stuff of Saudi life since the first school was opened, round about 1930.
...and the list of occupations that Muslims object to becomes longer....
Muslims should not watch television.
Muslims, give away your televisions, NOW!
I heard Muslims may object to chalk drawing in caves....
Gee, that Mohammed was a killjoy.
His child / teenaged wife was all happy, she wanted to please him, so she made him a special pillow all by herself. Not only did he ignore all this, he shot her down by issuing a fatwa against this type of thing, in essence saying that, not only did he hate the pillow, but god hated it, too, and not only had she made him a piece of crap but it was a sinful piece of crap to boot.
If I were Aisha, I would have despised him for that alone.
A picture is worth a thousand fatwas.
You read stories like this and you think this has to be from the National Enquirer. Surely it can't be true, but sadly it is true. Those Enquirer headlines of Bush being abducted by aliens (this seems plausible with the stances he has taken on immigration) and having his anus probed just don't stand up to the muslim reality.
Narrated Abu Talha: I heard Allah's Apostle saying; "Angels (of Mercy) do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or a picture of a living creature (a human being or an animal)."
Does this mean we can hold off extremist muslims with a picture of a person or animal, like a crucifix can hold off a vampire?
"The page-long form letter"
lol a form letter.
You will be put to death because of (fill in the blank).
Economically, Bangladesh is a basket case. The fact that a school exists to provide young people with a skill for which they can make a living and contribute to society should be supported. Will the government investigate these threats, with the intention of jailing the offenders, or are they too busy investigating Christians and Buddhists for possible violations of the blasphemy and apostate laws?
Considering what the average muslim male looks like, I think it is all right they don't allow themselves to be photographed. Photogenic muslims are not. "Nightmare creatures" about sums up their physical appearance. Beautifully, I might add.
"The page-long form letter"
lol a form letter.
You will be put to death because of (fill in the blank).
Posted by: Ruebacca
LMAO, these 7th century brain surgeons would be hilarious if they weren't sawing peoples heads off.
This is an subject that one hears rarely in the public discourse, but illustrates the heart of the debate over the problems with mohammedanism clearly and simply -- so simply that I doubt any mohammedan apologist could find a half-plausible way to dance around it.
Schools of portraiture in mohammedan countries???
None.
Internationally famous schools of painting originating from (not imported to) mohammedan countries???
None.
Internationally famous sculptors or schools of sculpture originating from mohammedan countries???
None.
Significant advances of any sort in fine art originating from mohammedan countries???
None.
Why ?
Moe-hah-mad said not to. Period.
Is there a relation between the prohibitions of the doctrine and the limitations of the culture?
Hmmmmmmmmmm.............??????????
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I for one would really like to hear how the apologists would react to this. Although, I suspect the reaction would mostly be of the deny-then-lie-then-threaten variety.
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Of course there's always the possiblity of being treated to a deep theological obfuscation about the true meaning of the word "picture".
How can Mohammed be against something that was invented long after his death? In fact, about 1000 years after his death. Does that exceed even the spiritual statue of limitations?
When I was in Bangladesh in 1999, the majority of the city houses looked as if they had definately not been visited by angels - nor painters, nor Home Decor and Interior Design consultants, nor professional builders. If those Muslim angels had passed by, they must have trashed entire neighbourhoods and suburbs. Oh well, they can't blame their capital city on dogs & pictures, so it must be the fault of the Jews, Hindus & the USA (despite being the biggest recipient of Western aid in the world).
Think about this one, if the "angels" of islam won't enter a house with pictures of dogs or the image of man...I'm putting lots more pictures and sculpture in my house. I don't need islamic "angels" slithering around.
Just get a real dog. That covers both corporeal and incorporeal Islam.
If Aisha had just laughed in Mohammad's face, this whole Islam thing might have ended right then and there.
(Aisha might have ended, too, but at least she would have gone down fighting, instead of kowtowing to this cosmic crank.)
Yet more proof ( as if more was needed ) that the musulmen are the most superstitious, backward imbeciles on the face of the Earth.
Islamist have a problem with pagan idoliatry. Then they should question the crescent moon and the star as their symbol for islam. The moon is a symbol of the ancient moon god artemis and the ancient babylonian god Sin. Why do muslims who profess their disdain for photography, art, etc accept pagan symbols like the crescent moon as a symbol representing islam??