Muhammad Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Islamic tradition=== {{Main|Muhammad in Islam}} Following the attestation to the [[Tawhid|oneness of God]], the belief in Muhammad's prophethood is the main aspect of the [[Aqidah|Islamic faith]]. Every Muslim proclaims in the ''[[Shahadah]]'': "I testify that there is no god but God, and I testify that Muhammad is a Messenger of God". The Shahadah is the basic creed or tenet of [[Islam]]. Islamic belief is that ideally the Shahadah is the first words a newborn will hear; children are taught it immediately and it will be recited upon death. Muslims repeat the shahadah in the call to prayer (''[[adhan]]'') and the [[salat|prayer]] itself. Non-Muslims wishing to [[Conversion to Islam|convert to Islam]] are required to recite the creed.<ref>Farah (1994), p. 135.</ref> [[File:Mohamed peace be upon him.svg|thumb|right|179px|Calligraphic rendering of "may God honor him and grant him peace", customarily added after Muhammad's name, encoded as a [[Typographic ligature|ligature]] at [[Unicode]] code point [[Arabic script in Unicode|U+FDFA]]<ref name="unicode">{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/Unicode-3.1/U31-FB50.pdf |title=Arabic Presentation Forms-A |date=1 October 2009 |website=The Unicode Standard, Version 5.2 |publisher=Unicode, Inc. |location=Mountain View, Ca. |access-date=9 May 2010}}</ref> {{script|Arab|ﷺ}}]] In Islamic belief, Muhammad is regarded as the last prophet sent by God.<ref name="espos12">Esposito (1998), p. 12.</ref>{{sfn|Nigosian|2004|p=17}} The [[Quran]] affirms that the only miracle given to Muhammad was the Quran itself,<ref name="Sells, Michael p.176"/>{{sfn|Brockopp|2010|p=39}}<ref name="EoI-Miracle">A.J. Wensinck, ''Muʿd̲j̲iza'', [[Encyclopaedia of Islam]]. Vol. 7, p. 295</ref> and offers various reasons for why he was unable to perform any other miracles when his enemies requested them.{{Sfn|Phipps|2016|p=40}}{{Sfn|Brockopp|2010|p=45–6}} However, later writings such as ''[[hadith]]'' and ''[[Prophetic biography|sira]]'' attribute several miracles or supernatural events to Muhammad after his death.<ref name="EoI-Miracle" /> One of these is the [[Splitting of the Moon|splitting of the moon]], which according to a report from Muhammad's cousin [[Ibn Abbas]], was in fact a [[lunar eclipse]], but this event was transformed into a literal splitting of the moon in later interpretations.{{Sfn|Brockopp|2010|p=45–6}} The [[Sunnah]] represents the actions and sayings of Muhammad (preserved in reports known as [[Hadith]]) and covers a broad array of activities and beliefs ranging from religious rituals, personal hygiene, and burial of the dead to the mystical questions involving the love between humans and God. The Sunnah is considered a model of emulation for pious Muslims and has to a great degree influenced the Muslim culture. The greeting that Muhammad taught Muslims to offer each other, "may peace be upon you" (Arabic: ''[[As-Salamu Alaykum|as-salamu 'alaykum]]'') is used by Muslims throughout the world. Many details of major Islamic rituals such as daily prayers, the fasting and the annual pilgrimage are only found in the Sunnah and not the Quran.<ref>''Muhammad'', Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 9.</ref> [[File:Sahadah-Topkapi-Palace.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Muslim]] [[Profession (religious)|profession]] of faith, the [[Shahadah]], illustrates the Muslim conception of the role of Muhammad: "There is no god except [[Allah|the God]]; Muhammad is the [[Prophets in Islam|Messenger of God]]", in [[Topkapı Palace]], [[Istanbul]], Turkey.]] Muslims have traditionally expressed love and veneration for Muhammad. Stories of Muhammad's life, his intercession and of his miracles have permeated popular Muslim thought and [[Na`at|poetry]]. Among Arabic odes to Muhammad, [[Qaṣīda al-Burda|Qasidat al-Burda]] ("Poem of the Mantle") by the Egyptian [[Sufi]] [[al-Busiri]] (1211–1294) is particularly well-known, and widely held to possess a healing, spiritual power.<ref name="Stetkevych2010">{{cite book |author=Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych |title=The mantle odes: Arabic praise poems to the Prophet Muḥammad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F-nY3_DXo-gC&pg=PR12 |access-date=27 January 2012 |date=24 May 2010 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-22206-0 |page=xii |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615211359/http://books.google.com/books?id=F-nY3_DXo-gC&pg=PR12 |archive-date=15 June 2013 }}</ref> The Quran refers to Muhammad as "a mercy (''rahmat'') to the worlds".<ref>{{qref|21|107|b=y}}</ref>{{sfn|Buhl|Welch|1993}} The association of rain with mercy in Oriental countries has led to imagining Muhammad as a rain cloud dispensing blessings and stretching over lands, reviving the dead hearts, just as rain revives the seemingly dead earth.{{efn|See, for example, the Sindhi poem of Shah ʿAbd al-Latif}}{{sfn|Buhl|Welch|1993}} [[Mawlid|Muhammad's birthday]] is celebrated as a major feast throughout the [[Muslim world|Islamic world]], excluding [[Wahhabism|Wahhabi]]-dominated Saudi Arabia where these public celebrations are discouraged.<ref name="Nasr-Muhammad">[[Seyyed Hossein Nasr]], Encyclopædia Britannica, ''Muhammad'', p. 13.</ref> When Muslims say or write the name of Muhammad, they usually follow it with the Arabic phrase ''ṣallā llahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam'' (''may God honor him and grant him peace'') or the English phrase ''[[Peace be upon him (Islam)|peace be upon him]]''.<ref name="Ann Goldman 2006 p. 212">Ann Goldman, Richard Hain, Stephen Liben (2006), p. 212.</ref> In casual writing, the abbreviations SAW (for the Arabic phrase) or PBUH (for the English phrase) are sometimes used; in printed matter, a small calligraphic rendition is commonly used ({{lang|ar|ﷺ}}). ====<!--Please leave the following "anchor" here, as a number of pages link to this section using it (see WP:ANCHOR):-->{{anchor|Islamic depictions of Muhammad}} Appearance and depictions==== {{Main|Depictions of Muhammad}} Various sources present a probable description of Muhammad in the prime of his life. He was slightly above average in height, with a sturdy frame and wide chest. His neck was long, bearing a large head with a broad forehead. His eyes were described as dark and intense, accentuated by long, dark eyelashes. His hair, black and not entirely curly, hung over his ears. His long, dense beard stood out against his neatly trimmed mustache. His nose was long and aquiline, ending in a fine point. His teeth were well-spaced. His face was described as intelligent, and his clear skin had a line of hair from his neck to his navel. Despite a slight stoop, his stride was brisk and purposeful.{{Sfn|Bennett |1998|p=36}} Muhammad's lip and cheek were ripped by a slingstone during the [[battle of Uhud]].{{Sfn|Gabriel|2014|p=120}}{{Sfn|Rodinson|2021|p=181}} The wound was later [[Cauterization|cauterized]], leaving a scar on his face.{{Sfn|Gabriel|2014|p=121}} However, since the [[Aniconism in Islam|hadith prohibits the creation of images of sentient living beings]], Islamic religious art mainly focuses on the word.<ref name="Plas1987" />{{sfn|Esposito|2011|pp=14–15}} Muslims generally avoid [[depictions of Muhammad]], and instead decorate mosques with calligraphy, Quranic inscriptions, or geometrical designs.<ref name="Plas1987">{{cite book |editor=Dirk van der Plas |author=Kees Wagtendonk |title=Effigies dei: essays on the history of religions |chapter=Images in Islam |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ops3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA120 |access-date=1 December 2011 |date=1987 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-08655-5 |pages=119–24 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615040436/http://books.google.com/books?id=ops3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA120 |archive-date=15 June 2013 }}</ref>{{sfn|Peters|2010|pp=159-161}} Today, the interdiction against images of Muhammad—designed to prevent worship of Muhammad, rather than God—is much more strictly observed in Sunni Islam (85%–90% of Muslims) and [[Ahmadiyya]] Islam (1%) than among Shias (10%–15%).<ref name="Safi20102010">{{cite book |last=Safi|first=Omid|title=Memories of Muhammad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s63i21E9dr8C |access-date=29 December 2011 |date=2 November 2010 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-123135-3 |page=32 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130614191323/http://books.google.com/books?id=s63i21E9dr8C |archive-date=14 June 2013 }}</ref> While both Sunnis and Shias have created images of Muhammad in the past,<ref name="Omid" /> Islamic depictions of Muhammad are rare.<ref name="Plas1987" /> They have mostly been limited to the private and elite medium of the miniature, and since about 1500 most depictions show Muhammad with his face veiled, or symbolically represent him as a flame.{{sfn|Peters|2010|pp=159–161}}<ref name="Bakker2009" /> [[File:Muhammad destroying idols - L'Histoire Merveilleuse en Vers de Mahomet BNF.jpg|thumb|right|Muhammad's entry into Mecca and the destruction of idols. Muhammad is shown as a flame in this manuscript. Found in Bazil's ''Hamla-i Haydari'', [[Jammu and Kashmir (princely state)|Jammu and Kashmir]], India, 1808.]] The earliest extant depictions come from 13th century [[Anatolian Seljuks|Anatolian Seljuk]] and [[Ilkhanid]] [[Persian miniature]]s, typically in literary genres describing the life and deeds of Muhammad.<ref name="Bakker2009" /><ref name="Gruber2009">{{cite book |author=Christiane Gruber |chapter=Between Logos (Kalima) and Light (Nur): Representations of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Painting |editor=Gulru Necipoglu |title=Muqarnas |chapter-url=https://umich.academia.edu/ChristianeGruber/Papers/443477/_Between_Logos_Kalima_and_Light_Nur_Representations_of_the_Prophet_Muhammad_in_Islamic_Painting_ |volume=26 |date=2009 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-17589-1 |pages=234–35 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120711133658/http://umich.academia.edu/ChristianeGruber/Papers/443477/_Between_Logos_Kalima_and_Light_Nur_Representations_of_the_Prophet_Muhammad_in_Islamic_Painting_ |archive-date=11 July 2012 }}</ref> During the Ilkhanid period, when Persia's Mongol rulers converted to Islam, competing Sunni and Shi'a groups used visual imagery, including images of Muhammad, to promote their particular interpretation of Islam's key events.<ref name="Elverskog2010" /> Influenced by the [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] tradition of representational religious art predating the Mongol elite's conversion, this innovation was unprecedented in the Islamic world, and accompanied by a "broader shift in Islamic artistic culture away from abstraction toward representation" in "mosques, on tapestries, silks, ceramics, and in glass and metalwork" besides books.<ref>{{cite book |author=Johan Elverskog |title=Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road |url=https://archive.org/details/buddhismislamons0000elve |url-access=registration |date=2010 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-4237-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/buddhismislamons0000elve/page/164 164]–69 }}</ref> In the Persian lands, this tradition of realistic depictions lasted through the [[Timurid dynasty]] until the [[Safavids]] took power in the early 16th century.<ref name="Elverskog2010" /> The Safavaids, who made Shi'i Islam the state religion, initiated a departure from the traditional Ilkhanid and Timurid artistic style by covering Muhammad's face with a veil to obscure his features and at the same time represent his luminous essence.<ref name="Gruber2011">{{cite book |chapter=When Nubuvvat encounters Valayat: Safavid painting of the "Prophet" Mohammad's Mi'raj, c. 1500–50 |author=Christiane Gruber |editor=Pedram Khosronejad |title=The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi'ism: Iconography and Religious Devotion in Shi'i Islam |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/1176067 |date=2011 |publisher=I. B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-84885-168-9 |pages=46–47 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102103545/http://www.academia.edu/1176067/When_Nubuvvat_Encounters_Valayat_Safavid_Paintings_of_the_Prophet_Muhammads_Miraj_ca._1500-50 |archive-date=2 January 2017 }}</ref> Concomitantly, some of the unveiled images from earlier periods were defaced.<ref name="Elverskog2010">{{cite book |author=Johan Elverskog |title=Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road |url=https://archive.org/details/buddhismislamons0000elve |url-access=registration |date=2010 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-4237-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/buddhismislamons0000elve/page/167 167] }}</ref><ref name="EdwardsBhaumik2008">{{cite book |author1=Elizabeth Edwards |author2=Kaushik Bhaumik |title=Visual sense: a cultural reader |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bhxPW9B8s1oC&pg=PA344 |date=2008 |publisher=Berg |isbn=978-1-84520-741-0 |page=344 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923141751/https://books.google.com/books?id=bhxPW9B8s1oC&pg=PA344 |archive-date=23 September 2015 }}</ref><ref name="Ruggles2011">{{cite book |author=D. Fairchild Ruggles |author-link=D. Fairchild Ruggles |title=Islamic Art and Visual Culture: An Anthology of Sources |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Te5QRi35W5EC&pg=PA56 |date=2011 |publisher=John Wiley and Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-5401-7 |page=56 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924021048/https://books.google.com/books?id=Te5QRi35W5EC&pg=PA56 |archive-date=24 September 2015 }}</ref> Later images were produced in [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] Turkey and elsewhere, but mosques were never decorated with images of Muhammad.<ref name="Omid">{{cite news |last=Safi |first=Omid |author-link=Omid Safi |date=5 May 2011 |url=http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/05/why_islam_does_not_ban_images_of_the_prophet.html |title=Why Islam does (not) ban images of the Prophet |newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |access-date=27 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120202195337/http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/05/why_islam_does_not_ban_images_of_the_prophet.html |archive-date=2 February 2012 }}</ref> Illustrated accounts of the night journey (''mi'raj'') were particularly popular from the Ilkhanid period through the Safavid era.<ref name="GruberColby2010" /> During the 19th century, [[Iran]] saw a boom of printed and illustrated ''mi'raj'' books, with Muhammad's face veiled, aimed in particular at illiterates and children in the manner of [[graphic novels]]. Reproduced through [[lithography]], these were essentially "printed manuscripts".<ref name="GruberColby2010">{{cite book |editor1=Christiane J. Gruber |editor2=Frederick Stephen Colby |title=The Prophet's ascension: cross-cultural encounters with the Islamic mi'rāj tales |chapter=Persian illustrated lithographed books on the miʻrāj: improving children's Shi'i beliefs in the Qajar period |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sjLHirJmvPUC&pg=PA252 |date=2010 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-35361-0 |pages=252–54 |author=Ali Boozari |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016005841/https://books.google.com/books?id=sjLHirJmvPUC&pg=PA252 |archive-date=16 October 2015 }}</ref> Today, millions of historical reproductions and modern images are available in some Muslim-majority countries, especially Turkey and Iran, on posters, postcards, and even in coffee-table books, but are unknown in most other parts of the Islamic world, and when encountered by Muslims from other countries, they can cause considerable consternation and offense.<ref name="Omid" /><ref name="Bakker2009">{{cite book |author=Freek L. Bakker |title=The challenge of the silver screen: an analysis of the cinematic portraits of Jesus, Rama, Buddha and Muhammad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4KNSp-uEO18C&pg=PA207 |access-date=1 December 2011 |date=15 September 2009 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-16861-9 |pages=207–09 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615043959/http://books.google.com/books?id=4KNSp-uEO18C&pg=PA207 |archive-date=15 June 2013 }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page