Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) reports Allah’s Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) having said: “Those who paint pictures would be punished on the Day of Resurrection and it would be said to them: Breathe soul into what you have created.”
(Sahih Muslim)
This hadith pertains to the preparation of pictures. It declares in no ambiguous words this act to be forbidden and unlawful in the eyes of Islam. Ibn Daqiq al-Id observed: “Those who prepare pictures would be asked to breathe soul on the Day of Resurrection in these pictures made by them. And when they would not be able to do so, they would be punished because that was the vain ambition of the artist in competing with Allah in His act of creation.”
This vain pursuit of drawing pictures led people in the past to the cult of idolatry. In the present too some people indulge themselves in this foolish act with variant names as well as in the name of idolatry. In the past pictures were used as a means of propagating the worship of saints and apostles. But at present they are used as a means of propagating hero-worship, which is another form of idolatry. The pictures and statues of heroes are revered today with the same devotion and passion with which the demigods were worshipped in the past.
Besides, in the name of art for art’s sake, nude and semi-nude pictures are drawn in caves and temples, and on walls and screens – all this is done in the name of art.