Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
1- There is nothing wrong with drawing as long as the images do not depict nudity or other indecent representations. Also, the picture or image should not be revered or glorified. The detested pictures and images are only those, which are worshiped and revered.
2- Within these restrictions drawing humans, animals, natural scenes, etc. is permitted. What is prohibited is making a statue or a sculpture of a living being that has shade (depth or three dimensional).
Answering your question about the ruling of drawing in Islam, we would like like to quote the following:
One may draw pictures of people, animals, etc. as long as they don’t depict anything against Islamic guidelines.
It is important to understand that Muslims don’t replicate ‘images‘ because they believe that on the Day of Judgment, they will be asked to put a soul in the ‘images’ they made, challenging Allah’s creation.
Also, they don’t replicate ‘images’ believing that the Angels will not enter their houses. This is based on several authentic Hadiths of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
However, in the Arabic Language, what we call Surah or commonly translated as ‘image’ can mean several things, and in the context of the prohibition, it means a statute or a sculpture of a living being that has shade (depth or three dimensional) and not a photographic picture.
Therefore, while statutes are prohibited, pictures in magazines, televisions, newspapers, books, computers, drawings, etc. are allowed.
Such pictures can however be prohibited if they depict nudity or other indecent representations. But even being allowed, they should be done when necessary and not to pass time.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.