I photograph and transcribe a lot of tombstones. I photographed a Muslim cemetery and am in the process of transcribing it now. I’ve noticed a lot of people have the name Mohammed/Mohamed/Mohammad. If there’s no prohibition on using the name Mohammed, then why is there a problem with any depiction of the Prophet Mohammad?
I’ve also noticed that people born in the 1920-1930s have far more people born on January 1 then I would have thought, 6 out of 70 are born on the 1st. If someone was born and they know the year but don’t know the date are they given a birth date of January 1?
Our guide in Egypt (Ahmed) had two young boys, Mohammed and Ahmed. he said that half the men in Egypt are named Mohammed, and half the rest are named Ahmed. He said he was off on a job when his first son was born. The doctor said to his wife, “your husband’s name is Ahmed? Then I guess this one’s name is Mohammed.”
The Muslim tradition is to prohibit “graven images”, just like the First Commandment and the whole Moses and the Golden Calf bit. This is taken to extremes in Islam, prohibiting any depiction of people or animals. (Mosque decorations tend to be geometrics and some plant or flower designs). This was to prevent the less sophisticated from confusing the depiction with the essence of God or his minions. Names are OK, as long as they are not taken in vain. I guess to some extent it was to distance the religion from the somewhat paganistic idolatry that came before it.
The same reason that cocaine is illegal, while fishing is not: they’re two totally unrelated things. Christians believe that taking the Lord’s name in vain is a sin, but that doesn’t mean naming your kid Jesus (or any of its variants) is a sin.
There are some hadith that say you can’t have pictures of the Prophet, so it’s prohibited (though it’s worth noting that he never said anything like that himself.) There are none that say his name can’t be reused.
And it should be pointed out that different traditions within Islam understand and practice the prohibition on images of the Prophet in different ways. I’ve been in museums of Islamic art which contain numerous depictions of Muhammed.
Well, in some Sunni sects at least (especially Wahhabi). Shi’a Iran has a pretty well known film tradition (Jafar Panahi is great, look him up). I think some museums in Iran even have pictures of Mohammed on display. My Iranian friend says that the Shi’a perspective is generally that Mohammed can be shown as long as it’s “respectful”.
Here’s a picture of Muhammad from sixteenth-century Persian manuscript. He is shown with no facial features, which was a common indication of respect, as is the symbolic fire around his head, but his figure is clearly portrayed. The figures to the left with no features and with smaller fires of their own are family members of his.
Another device which is often seen is composing the illustration so that Muhammed’s face is obscured - he has his back to the viewer, or his face is veiled. But, again, there is a very clear depiction of a figure that is very clearly Muhammad.
Here’s another image from a sixteenth century Persian manuscript. Muhammad’s face has no features, but originally it did; they were scratched out later by someone implementing (presumably) new ideas about what it was and was not respectful to include in a depiction of the prophet.
Here’s a fully-featured Muhammad from a fifteenth-century Afghan manuscript. Here’s another, from a fourteenth century Persian manuscript.
So fashions vary, and what’s considered appropriate at one time and place is not the same as at another time or place. But, even today, reactions to, say, depictions in Charlie Hebdo, is not a reaction to the mere depiction of Muhammad; it’s reaction to the his depiction with the perceived objective of vilifying him, the Islamic faith and/or Muslims in general.
Which just goes to show that the opinion of one cleric is not necessarily influential, authoritative or representative of mainstream Islamic thought or practice.
