Idris the Ingénu

Galen Strawson

  • The Golden Droplet by Michel Tournier, translated by Barbara Wright
    Collins, 198 pp, £12.95, November 1987, ISBN 0 00 022139 2

According to the traditions of the Prophet reported by Al Bukhari, Muhammad once declared that those who would be most severely punished on the Day of Judgement were the ‘portrayers’ (al musawwirun), the painters or sculptors. No doubt he was principally concerned to condemn the evil of idolatry, like Moses before him and many after him. But Islamic religious art has ever since avoided all representation of living creatures, and above all of people. Fashioning the human form is strictly God’s business, and popular belief in the power and maleficence of images has remained strong in many Islamic cultures.

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