Keywords

Islam is a monotheistic religion in which, contrary to the Christian Orthodox and Catholic traditions, for example, images have no place. GodFootnote 1, the Greatest and only Creator of all things, is beyond human imagination and Muslims deem that they are not allowed to represent him. According to Shadghazvini (2014), this prohibition does not derive directly from the Qur’an: there is no Qur’anic verse that prohibits either drawing, or representing God. The prohibition against figurative representations arises mainly through the hadiths, which are collections of oral teachings from the prophet of Islam. The prohibition aims to prevent any worship of images or statues and to avoid any distraction from prayers. The prohibition is intended to guard believers during the time of worship and/or prayer so that they may focus (as required) on the worship of God. Shadghazvini (2014) also describes how Muslim art has developed as a result of this concept and how it has grown mainly through other artistic forms such as calligraphy. For centuries, Muslim artists have tried to rely on their imaginations—instead of emphasizing the real world—in order to represent the world beyond and to give spiritual meaning to all things. Persian miniature, which was introduced and developed in Iran, is an example of this reliance on imagination and reflection.

In this work, I analyse the strategies that Iranian children use to accomplish the task of drawing God while they strive to remain true to the teachings of their faith. Do they explicitly refer to the prohibition of figurative representations of God in Islam? Alternatively, do they find other ways to avoid making a pictorial representation without explicitly speaking of the prohibition? Before presenting and discussing the children’s drawings, I will explain how the representation of God in Islam is considered, both in the Qur’an and in the prophetic writings.

The Islamic Prohibition Against Representing Allah

Islam originated in the seventh century and carried its core message, namely pure monotheism and the existence of one God as the one and the great creator of all things, to the peoples of pagan Arabia. The most important Surah in the Qur’an that is entirely devoted to this message is Surah 112, Al-Ikhlâs (Sincerity in Faith):

1. Say [O Messenger!]: “Allah is the One and the Only Creator”; 2. Allah is the Absolute Independent, [Free from all attachments] 3. “Neither He has a kid, Nor He is born of any other being”, 4. “And there is no equal, no match and no Mate for Allâh, the Almighty” Saffarzadeh (2005) (Qur’an 112:1–4)Footnote 2

Mohammed defeated all forms of idolatry and any ritual practices that were directed at statuettes. In the Qur’an, there are verses that are related to the statuettes, such as verse 90/5 Al-Maidah (the feast). In this verse, there is the word “الانصاب” (which translates to “the innards”) on which they made animal sacrifices for idols, and which were considered sacred. According to Silvia Naef (2004), it is this verse from the Qur’an that could be interpreted as a ban on images in Islam. There are other verses in the Qur’an upon which several scholars of the Muslim religion base their interpretation that even the decorative use and creation of statutes is an act forbidden in Islam (Qur’an 49:3, Al-Imaran, the Family of Imrân; 7:152, Al-A’râf, The Lofty Barrier between the Inhabitants of the Paradise and the Hell, 34:13, Saba, The City of Saba). Other scholars, however, interpret these verses differently and say that building statutes for artistic purposes and their decorative uses are not forbidden. In the interpretation of these scholars, these actions are prohibited only if the resulting works of art are used for the purpose of worship. Thus, in this case, purpose and intent define the legality or illegality of an act. Nevertheless, in the Qur’an itself, I do not find any verse related to drawings, the prohibition of drawings, or the prohibition of the act of drawing. The word derived from the verb “صورة “ (Sawwara) which means “give it a shape, create” appears four times in Qur’an. In all instances, this word is about the creation of human beings (Qur’an 3:6, 7:11, 40:64, and 64:3).

Since the subject of this research is the act of drawing God, I should not only explore what the Qur’an says about drawing; I should also explore what the Qur’an says about the entity of God. One of the most important verses in the Muslim faith and for its scholars is found in Qur’an 42 Al-Shûra, the Consultation:

Allah is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He has made you mates of humankind; and for the cattle also mates; for Allâh there is no similar, no mate: He is the One and the Only and He is the Knowing Seer.

According to the collection of NemouneFootnote 3 which is one of the basic sources of the Shiite tradition, gathering all the interpretations of the Qur’an verses, this verse is the basis for the knowledge of the qualities of God. “Nothing looks like him”. In other words, He is an infinite Being, unlike all other things (which are limited and finite). He has existed forever and will continue to exist. Because nothing resembles him, one can have no imagination of him. All Muslim scholars agree with this verse, and on the inability of human beings to represent the image of God. Scholars further interpret this to mean that the drawing of God is prohibited in Islam because nothing looks like him.

On the other hand, Qur’an 24:35 An-Nûr, the Light, states, “Allah is the Light of heavens and the earth [...]”.Footnote 4 However, He is a Light that exists beyond our realm of understanding. Therefore, on one hand, the Qur’an says that nothing looks like God and on the other hand, it defines God as a particular type of light. In addition to these verses, the Qur’an enumerates various qualities of God through references to God as the Omniscient, the All-Merciful, the Almighty, the Infinitely Great, etc. Through these verses and similar verses, one may conclude that the Qur’an does not express a precise position with regard to drawings.Footnote 5

The Question of Images in the Hadiths (The Prophetic Words and the Words of the Imams)

In addition to the Qur’an, the Hadith is an important and fundamental source in Islam. The word Hadith means prophetic tradition (Naef, 2004). The Hadith plays a very important role in Islamic jurisprudence. The various words and gestures of Muhammad were collected in six canonical volumes and another four volumes were added supplying the teachings of the twelve Imams of the Shiites (the descendants in direct line of Mahomet by Fatima, his daughter, and Ali, his son-in-law and cousin.) The Sunnis, however, do not refer to these last four collections.

Muslims base their way of life and thinking on the Qur’an and the Hadiths. In none of the collections is there a chapter devoted entirely to the image of God. “There are various sections, related to prayer, clothing or other subjects” (Naef, 2004, p. 17). Among the collections of hadiths, there are two that are more important than the others: Sahih of Al-Bokhari and Sahih of Muslim. In these collections there are hadiths concerning Muhammad’s attitude towards images and drawings. Some of these hadiths are quoted below:

Narrated by Ibn Abbas:

I heard Muhammad saying, “Whoever makes a picture in this world will be asked to put life into it on the Day of Resurrection, but he will not be able to do so.” (USC-MSA web [English] reference: vol.7, book 72, Hadith 846) (Sahih al-Bukhari 5963, retrieved from: https://sunnah.com/urn/55960)

Narrated by Aisha:

Allah’s Messenger returned from a journey when I had a picture of a mine. When Allah’s Messenger saw it, he said, “The people who will receive the severest punishment on the Day of Resurrection will be those who try to make the love of Allah’s creations into one or two cushions”. (USC-MSA web [English] Reference: Volume 7, Book 72, Hadith 838, Sahih al-Bukhari 5954)

Hadiths

Narrated by Abu Zur’a:

I entered a house in Medina with Abu Huraira, and he saw a man making pictures at the top of the house. Abu Huraira said, “I heard Allah’s Messenger saying that Allah said,” who would be more unjust than the Creature? Let them create a grain: let them create a gnat. “[...]” (USC-MSA web [English] reference: vol 7, book 72, Hadith 837, Sahih al-Bukhari 5953)

Narrated by Sa’eed ibn Abu al-Hasan:

A man came to Ibn Abbas and said, “Indeed, I am a man who makes pictures so give me a judgment about them.” Ibn Abbas said, “Come closer!” The man came closer and he said again, “come closer!” The man came close enough to touch his head and Ibn Abbas said, “I will tell you what I heard from the Messenger of Allah [...] He said: Every picture maker will be in Hellfire, for image of every creature that has soul “Ibn Abbas added,” if you want to do so, make pictures of trees or whatever that does not have a soul.” (Sahih Muslim, 2110)

In the hadiths, the image is rejected, as well. Nevertheless, I can see two contradictory tendencies: “one condemns the creation of images in all circumstances and the other admits them under certain circumstances and under certain conditions” (Naef, 2004, p. 22).

Today, mainly among Sunni scholars, those who totally reject drawings and the act of drawing say that according to the hadiths, the act of painting is doomed because the one who creates by painting something that did not heretofore exist imitates, in a way, an activity that is reserved for Divinity, namely the act of creation. Some scholars reject this and say that drawing of soulless creatures like trees and nature in general is allowed and is not a sin. Most Islamic theologians do agree that it is a sin to draw human beings and animals because they are believed to possess a soul, but one, Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, a Sunni theologian, indicates that it is permissible to draw an image that is fuzzy or to draw organs of the body and face that do not appear clearly.

On the other side, there are other scholars, especially among Shiite adherents, who interpret these hadiths differently. They say that the act of drawing is not a sin if neither the act nor the resultant work is used as an object of worship. According to these scholars, the act of drawing is in accordance with Islamic values and the use of images is also legal.

Both Sunnis and Shiites agree that the presence of the image of living beings and/or statues in front of a person who is praying is forbidden because it is a source of distraction and it may be a sign of idolatry.

The Literature

Studies Done in Iran Concerning Children’s Understandings of Religious Concepts

Now, following this explanation concerning the question of the representation of God from the perspective of Islamic religious texts, I turn to various ways that this topic is understood and expressed by children and adults. In this part, I review some studies done in Iran on two main themes: the understanding of religious concepts, and the understanding of the concept of God.

Studies on the Comprehensions of Religious Concepts

Iranian scholar Ezzat Khademi’s (1991) article describes one of the first psychological studies that focuses on children’s cognitive development as it relates to religious concepts. He conducted research with children between the ages of 7 and 12 in order to illustrate the development of children’s understanding of religious concepts. He told them the story of Moses and his encounter with God on Mount Sinai. He then asked the children to answer several questions and requested that they elaborate the reasons for their answers. The results of his study correspond to what the literature tells us about the cognitive development of children. It shows that children’s imagination about God begins with a very anthropomorphic visualization. In a later stage, children add or remove characteristics from their mental picture of God, but their thinking is still materialistic. A child’s understanding of religious concepts develops until he/she attains the capacity for abstract reflections.

Tabatabaei’s (2016) study explores the religious education of children from birth. It is important that he, and other Iranian scholars, note that before age 10, the religious education of children focuses on God’s merciful characteristics, rather than his vengeful characteristics. Culturally and traditionally in Iran, I understand that the loving side of God is more appreciated and has a more positive influence on children than his inexorable or wrathful character. The religious training of children must be adapted their age, so abstract representations should be avoided during early childhood religious education. Highlighting the God’s blessings and “encouraging children to have hope for the mercies of God” (Tabatabaei, 2016, p. 16) help to create a stronger bond between the child and God.

Studies on Children’s Understandings of the Concept of God

Olyanasab, in his 2012 study, “The Mental Picture of God and Its Source,” recruited 382 students (young adults—not children) from the city of Qom.Footnote 6 Participants filled out a questionnaire, and provided researchers with information about their mental picture of God, and other things such as age, sex, level of education, relationships with parents and other family members, etc. Olyanasab found that many elements, including the quality of the participant’s relationship with their parents, impacted their image of God. However, the image was built indirectly through religious experiences. Other studies have shown that mental images of God are more positively related to maternal images. “The study shows that with regard to the image of God as the one who gives blessings, there is a link between good and bad relationship between parents and other family members” (Olyanasab, 2011, p. 12). Stronger relationships between parents and children result in stronger beliefs in God as the one who gives blessings.

Another study done in Iran concerns teachers’ knowledge when called upon to answer children’s questions about God (Nozari et al., 2013). The results of this study showed that female teachers demonstrated the highest level of knowledge when answering children’s questions about God and showed more skill in providing their responses. However, in the overall evaluation (when including other areas, such as the content of the teaching and the method of teaching the concept), male teachers received better results than female teachers did, but the differences were rather small.

Dawoudi et al. (2016), conducted another interesting study on the principles and ways of answering children’s questions about God. According to these psychologists, the way in which children imagine God is influenced by culture and it is changeable. In addition, they argue that the evolution of religious concepts in children parallels the cognitive evolution of the human being. According to this article, in order to be able to answer children’s questions it is necessary to respect certain principles such as: maintaining active social conditions, providing understanding and attention, creating and supporting basic concepts. The authors offer teachers four ways to answer children’s questions: (1) Give simple examples from life, (2) Question and respond step-by-step, (3) Tell a story, (4) Lead an interactive discussion with a group.

According to the writers in the Qur’an and the hadiths, there are several stories that are key to developing a clearer understanding of God, but one must adapt them to the children’s levels of thinking. One can begin to see links between these ways of presenting information about God to children and the drawings of God made by children. Dawoudi et al. state that children’s imaginations about God depend on their religious and cultural socialization and “the symbol that every society uses to represent God” (2016, p. 111). The authors suggest that Iranian children are more likely to draw a form of light to represent God. According to their study, children, in their imagination, replace the concept of God (or anything abstract) with concrete experiences from their own lives, such as interactions with parents. The authors suggest that one way to respond to children’s questions about God is to explain to them that we (as humans) are limited beings and our brains are also limited; by contrast, God is an infinite being. Taking this further, we can acknowledge the question this contrast raises, namely: How can we, with our limited brains understand God who is an infinite being? The children are not able to comprehend that a being can be both the All-Merciful and the Compelling One at the same time; their experience of human beings does not allow them to have this understanding. It is easier for a child to grasp some adjectives such as nice, beautiful, generous, etc., than other adjectives such as fair, just, etc. The understanding that God has all these qualities in an absolute way becomes more comprehensible throughout an individual’s life. Dawoudi et al. also provide an example of a discussion between a 9-year-old girl and an adult. When the child asks a question about how God sees everything, the adult answers, “God is omnipotent but we cannot know how he sees everything, and should not ask ourselves the question about the entity of God” (Dawoudi et al., 2016, p. 125). This shows, in my opinion, that at a certain moment one must close the discussion with the child by making him understand theological dogmas. These studies help us to better understand the strategies of Iranian children regarding visualizing and graphically representing God.

Lesli Smith’s (2006) book, Norms in Human Development, also helps with this understanding. In Smith’s view, the norms are rules. However, everything that is normal is not a rule. Therefore, the norms are not part of psychological developments. Norms are the behaviours deemed normal, the rules that must be followed, according to society. There are standards that are written, such as traffic rules (not passing the red light), but there are also standards that are not necessarily written but are ethical standards or customs. Refraining from drawing God is a custom among Muslims, as a part of our ethical code; we do not allow ourselves to draw God. Thus, the current study explores this particular norm of not making figurative representations of God. Standards can be learned through socialization and one must reach a certain age to be able to apply them (Hajidehabadi, 2004). The religious education of children, according to Shiite teachings, is an ongoing process and children must be taught to practice their religion starting at the age of 7–8. However, those providing instruction must take into consideration the physical and moral capacity of each individual child. According to various Iranian studies on the religious education of children, it is necessary to begin instruction in childhood, before the age of puberty. Providing religious teachings to children in the early years helps equip them to better fulfil their religious practices and obligations once they reach puberty; they will already be familiar with their tasks and they will not be suddenly overwhelmed by their responsibilities.

Studies on the Norm and Children’s Understandings of the Prohibition to Draw God

Mordecai Nisan (1987) presents a comparative study conducted in Israel involving two groups: one consisting of urban Jewish children and a Jewish secular kibbutz, and another consisting of Arab children from a traditional village. Researchers asked participants about the distinction between moral and conventional standards. The author reports that, in general for all groups, moral violations are regarded as more serious than conventional violations. However, for urban children and those from the kibbutz, non-prohibition by law is stronger for conventional standards than for moral standards.

Nisan’s study also reminds us that in some societies there are behaviours that are allowed by law or convention, but some social groups perceive these behaviours as bad and want them to be prohibited by law. Thus, we need to make a cultural distinction between morality and convention, and in order to be able to distinguish these two, we must see the importance and rigor of the norms that are imposed (Turiel & Smetana, 1984; cf. Nisan, 1987). The distinction between moral and conventional standards is based on the importance of standards and the rigor with which they are imposed. So, “according to this hypothesis, a young child will perceive behaviour that is strongly and consistently prohibited as intrinsically bad and behaviour that is not as conditionally bad” (Nisan, 1987, p. 719). In this context, age and social subgroup play a part. The gravity of conventions decreases with age among modern subjects. Furthermore, among children who are not traditional, as age increases, the percentage of those in favour of banning the behaviour perceived as bad also decreases. Nisan also found that for “the modern subjects the seriousness of conventions decreases with age but the seriousness of moral norms slightly increases, whereas among the traditional the seriousness of conventions increases with age, with no change in that of moral violations” (Nisan, 1987, p. 721).

Howard Gabennesch (1990) explains that according to Piaget, at the age of 4 and especially between 6 and 10 years, children see rules as absolute realities: sacred, immutable, and impossible to touch. By the end of childhood, children can grasp the relativity of the rules. Children are more likely to consider moral rules (as opposed to conventional rules) as absolute and universal. When one is young (4–6 years), the moral violations are very serious but when one becomes older (11–14) the conventional violations are taken as seriously as the moral violations are.

Gabennesch (1990, p. 2052) cites Turiel and Smetana saying, “with regard to conventions individuals are relativistic…With regard to morality individuals are universalistic” (1984, p. 272) and Nucci is quoted by Gabennesh saying, “individuals view conventional standards as culturally relative and alterable, while moral prescriptions are viewed as universal and unchangeable” (1986, p. 139). This holds implications for the current study; I can see that refraining from drawing God is perceived by Iranian children as either a cultural convention or a moral prescription. Analysis of the drawings by Iranian children reveals that many of these children feel unable to draw God, and they understand this to be a universal rule because “no one ever seen God”.

Muslims, as well as Iranian scholars, believe that humans have the innate ability to seek God from birth. For this reason, the existence of God, his uniqueness, and his greatness constitute a foundational consideration when doing such research.

Iranian Children’s Drawings of God: Context, Research Question, and Hypotheses

My study is part of the international and interdisciplinary Children’s Drawings of God project, conducted under the supervision of Pierre-Yves Brandt at the Institute of Social Sciences of Religions at the University of Lausanne. My research concentrates on the Iranian sub-collection. Mohammad Khodâyarifard from Department of Psychology of Tehran University supervised the collection (Chap. 12, this volume). The collection includes more than 3000 drawings from six cities (Tehran, Tabriz, Neyriz, Sanandaj, Sâvojbolâgh, Sâri) in Iran. Participants (girls and boys) ranged in age between 7 and 14 years old. I had the responsibility of digitizing the drawings. Following an agreement between the University of Tehran and the University of Lausanne, the Iranian collection was sent to University of Lausanne in order to be kept with the drawings collected in other countries. The entire collection presents a variety of drawings showing the influence of the society in which the child lived. I found this influence to be especially clear in the case of Iranian children who live in the context of a strong projection of religious (Islamic) values when compared to children in European countries where religion is much less present in daily life.

The drawings can serve as a methodological tool to understand how people acquire and develop their concepts of God. Yet few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the representation of God/gods. Through the research conducted to date, various factors have been identified by researchers concerning the religious development of children. Among these, I mention the social and contextual factors. Hanisch (2002), who studied children growing up in East and West Germany in 1996, showed the influence of social, religious, and cultural contexts. He proved that all children up to age nine have a private psychological development that draws strongly on their imaginations. However, from the age of 10, their cultural and societal contexts exert a strong influence. He found that children growing up in a religious environment had more highly developed and modified images of God, while children growing up in a non-religious environment retained their early and childhood imaginings of God. Slater worked with evangelical children (2016). He showed that many factors such as family, culture, movies, cartoons, etc. influence children’s understandings of God. In addition, he described the development of the concept of God in children. According to his findings, children up to the age of about three are not able to imagine non-physical beings. He also observed that as children’s age increases, their drawings become more abstract. Pitts (1977) collected drawings by children from several Christian denominations and was able to show how much the environment influences children’s ideas about the concept of God. According to Pitts, parents are the first and often the largest influence on children’s concepts of God.

In this work, I discuss the case of Iranian children. Children most often produce drawings that reflect their society. To understand this facet of the drawings by children in Iran, it is useful to contextualize Iranian society. Iran, formerly known as Persia, is in the Middle East. From the seventh century, after the invasion of the Arabs, the country adopted the tenets of Islam. Before that, Zoroastrianism was the religion of most Iranians. Since the fifteenth century, Shiism has served as the national faith. The last kingdom dynasty, Pahlavi, was secular. However, after the 1979 revolution, Iran became the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since then, there have been profound changes in the constitution and all policies unrelated to the Islamic faith have been ruled unacceptable. Thus, in today’s Iranian society, religion and politics are closely related and the laws ratified by the parliament must be compatible with the principles of the Islamic religion. Iranian children live in a country where religion is present in everyday life. Religion and particularly the values ​​of the Shia tradition surround them daily through newspapers, audio-visual media, and subjects taught at school. Indeed, schools are established under certain conditions to respect and promote Islamic values. Shiism gives considerable importance to the family of the Prophet Muhammad and the descendants of his daughter Fatima. There are various religious ceremonies organized during the year throughout the country. In this situation, children become quite familiar with religious concepts. Through my work, I seek to discover how a particular religious precept, the prohibition against drawing God, manifests itself in the drawings of Iranian children.

The drawings show that children can move beyond religious prohibitions, but this raises the question: How it is it that Islam forbids drawing of God, but the drawings of Iranian children do not indicate this? Possibly this occurs because in Iran they explain to children that God is beyond our human capacity to imagine, instead of explaining to them, theologically, that drawing God is forbidden. In addition, Iranian children grow up in a sociocultural environment where there is no image of God.

Drawing of Prophets and Imams

Both Sunni and Shiite theologians believe that it is forbidden to draw and represent the prophet Muhammad or the other prophets, because no one alive today has seen their faces and consequently, no one can say how they looked. According to theologians, figurative representations of these people are a contempt to them, a lack of respect that lowers them, trivializes them, and exposes them to criticism. It is not acceptable to treat the prophets in this manner, because they have been chosen by Allah. For this reason, the faces of the Imams and the prophet are not drawn but are replaced by light when they appear in textbooks (in order to illustrate and supplement the textual content of the volume).

Research question

My main question:

  • How do Iranian children deal with the prohibitions of Islamic pictorial representations when they are asked to draw God (“Khoda”)?

Sub-questions:

  • Is there an explicit reference to such prohibitions? If yes, how is it shown?

  • How do the children internalize religious teachings concerning God?

  • Do children keep the page blank?

  • Knowing the status of images in Islam, particularly the image of God, will the researchers encounter difficulties when conducting research in an Islamic context?

  • Can I interpret the children’s approach to the task as an implicit way of acknowledging such prohibitions (avoidance of a pictorial representation of the divine figure as such, etc.)?

Starting Points:

  • The children are socialized to their religious cultures, they follow the rules for representing God that are peculiar to their religion; their drawings reflect their religious cultures. So before collecting the drawings in Iran, I supposed:

    • This is difficult research to do in Iran because it is a sensitive subject.

    • In Islam, there is no representation or image of God.

    • Theologically speaking, drawing God is a sin in Islam.

    • Nearly half of the children would not draw anything and would return blank pages, explaining “we cannot draw God because it is a sin.”

    • Nearly half of the children would draw light.

    • Few children would draw anthropomorphic figures.

Although Muslim theologians discuss the issue academically, there is no psychological study that specifically addresses the issue of the prohibition against representing God. Hence, the current study is highly relevant. In addition, it gives insight into the way children deal with religious prohibitions and perceived religious standards.

Methods

Educational and Cultural References (Textbooks and Other Media)

Step One

To find the sources that influence the drawings by Iranian children, I look to the religious resources that are accessible to children in everyday life. In Iran, religious teachings are in the school curriculum for children from the age of 7–18 years. Religion manuals have been written and are used in the schools for the purpose of training children and adolescents in their knowledge of God. These textbooks are written at different levels and are designed to be age appropriate. I purchased the Iranian religion manuals for the academic year 2015–2016 (because the drawings were collected in Iran in that year) and I particularly scrutinized textbooks for children aged 7–14 years, the age range of the children who participated in the data collection in Iran.

The media provides another source of religious education in Iran. Therefore, audio and visual sources, such as television, became objects of study for me in order to better understand the drawings by Iranian children. According to the law, in Iran it is necessary that the programs broadcast on television reflect the Persian and Moslem culture. I watched different programs, intended for children, that were broadcast through national channels in order to learn what they offer about religious education.

The Media (Television)

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, laws require that audio-visual media and other institutions in Iran demonstrate compatibility with Islamic laws. Television, as one of the most influential forms of media, plays a very important role. In 2017, Karimi and Ghavimi published their article “The role of the media in the religious education of children.” They provide interesting results on the role of television in the religious education of children and adolescents. They studied 8- to 12-year old students of a region of Tehran city. According to this study, the Islamic Republic of Iran is founded on religious principles and “the content of audio-visual media must include religious content” (Karimi & Ghavimi, 2017, pp. 114–115). I read that “the spread of Islam” and the “Consolidation of the Islamic Revolution” is listed among the various responsibilities of the national media in Iran. It is also necessary to know that “the media is at the service of religion and it is a means to propagate the message of religion” (Azari (1337) [1998] “Research in mass communication”, as cited in Karimi & Ghavimi, 2017, pp. 114–115). The authors confirmed support for their three hypotheses at the end of the study: “(1) The direct education of television is influential in the learning of religious teachings. (2) The training and education of religious concepts are related to television. (3) Television as a means of informal education of religious teachings has an important place” (Karimi & Ghavimi, 2017, p. 121). Another article (Torkashavand, 2012) explains the different ways and means of educating children about religious concepts through the media. This article lists 13 ways of carrying out religious educational programs for children. Common to all 13 ways is the emphasis on the merciful characteristics of God, rather than on God’s binding characteristics. Another very important consideration, according to this article, is the psychological development of children and their ages, because this factor defines their ability to understand religious concepts.

Step Two

In a second step, I studied religious textbooks for children aged 7–14 years by focusing on the different topics addressed and taught in each age category. When I look at the content of these books, I notice the presence of many childish drawings or images that accompany the lessons and exercises. The lessons have different themes such as the stories of the lives of the Shia Imams and the prophet of Islam, the rules of religion, the rights and duties of each believer, the religious obligations (how to do the prayer, duties of the young during the month of Ramadan), how to behave in private and public life according to the Moslem religion, the feasts and religious ceremonies, their meanings, the existence of God, the unicity of God, submission to God, the blessings of God, gratitude and thanks to God, the different qualities of God as “the omniscient, the omnipresent, the omnipotent, etc.”, the Qur’an as the sacred book, heaven and hell, the consequences of our actions on earthly and heavenly life, the teaching and practice of hijab (for girls, especially), life after death, and the purpose of creation, etc.

I watched various Iranian TV programs on different national channels, and I saw that the programs broadcast for children are compatible with the teachings of the Islamic religion. They are often dynamic enough and joyful enough to attract the attention of children, and are constructed to foster connections with religious festivals and national events, etc. At the time of the calls to prayer, there is a recitation of the Qur’anic verses accompanied by different images and films of nature, Mecca, Kaaba, mosques, people who are preparing to pray, etc. which are broadcast on television. A child watching these images and hearing the calls to prayer and the Qur’anic recitations makes a connection between them.

After studying the different lessons of the religious textbooks and watching the different channels of Iranian national television, I decided to categorize the collected drawings and analyse them according to these educational and cultural sources. As I mentioned earlier, the religious manuals teach different themes. Through these themes and the themes found in the drawings themselves, I created categories and tables to show distributions across categories by county, and by sex of the participant.

Results

In this paper, I tried to better understand the strategies used by Iranian children in a socio-cultural and religious context.

From the 3032 drawings collected in Iran, I found that 7% of the Iranian children chose the figurative representations of the imams and the Prophet with a lighted face as their theme for their drawing, 13% of them chose the mosques and the KaabaFootnote 7 and other Muslim objects, 14.5% of theme chose the light for representing God, 7% of them chose to represent scenes of daily prayer or other type of prayer, and 25.5% of them chose the depict the blessings of God.Footnote 8

The different themes vary according to the ages of the children. Anthropomorphic representations decrease with age, while drawings of the landscape and depictions of the blessings of God exist in all age groups, and even increase with age. The theme of the blank page also varies with age; in the older age group, I see an increase in the number children who refuse to draw God, choosing instead to return a blank page to the researchers.

What strategies are the children using when they are asked to draw God? I find that I can trace a large majority of the children’s representations to sources of religious education in Iran such as textbooks and the media. The drawings for which no source could be found are very few. I must not neglect the powerful role of parents, who tell their children about the prophet and who teach their children about Islam and, through their manner of living, supplement their children’s religious education. Their influence is apparent and both their teaching and the sources on which they rely transmit images to their children. The children recall these transmitted images when building their mental picture of God. In addition to these sources, mosques and other religious places frequented by these children provide other examples of religious representation. These examples serve as sources for the children. In the mosques there is no figurative representation of God and most of the time, the mosques are decorated with Arabic calligraphy and mosaics depicting nature. Often the mosques also contain pictures of religious things (such as the Kaaba, or the tomb of the Prophet) or people (such as the Shiite Imams).

With this theological understanding about the representation of God, I evaluated more than 3000 drawings collected from Iranian children ranging in age from 7 to 14. Of all the drawings, I selected 2786 for analysis. Only 177 of these contain no drawing (the children returned blank pages). Therefore, despite the prohibition against drawing images of God, 2606 children chose to draw something to represent God rather than to return blank pages. However, without having a description of the drawing (or lack thereof) by the children on the back of drawing pages, it is difficult to interpret the drawings or analyse the children’s decisions.

Among the 177 children who returned blank pages, 90 children simply wrote, “I cannot”; 11 of these children were 8 years old. Other children provided more specific reasons for not drawing a representation, such as “God is invisible and we are not able to see him”, “He is everywhere but we cannot see Him”, “He has no physical form, so we cannot draw it”,“Nobody can draw God because no one has ever seen it”, etc. Most of the children who returned blank papers were between 11 and 14 years old. I see in their justifications that they are aware of the existence of a God who is invisible. When they were requested to “draw God” they avoided drawing God, and did not draw anything else, either. However, when I read the explanations provided by children who did make drawings, I found that they used same reasoning reported by children who returned blank pages, yet these children chose not to leave their page blank. They fulfilled the task, but often they did so by drawing something other than a figure of God. They provide explanations such as, “I could not draw God, so I drew his blessings”, “I do not know how to draw God because I’ve never seen him. But I see his creation and I drew his creation”, “I cannot draw God and I drew Imam Hussein”.

Here I can repeat the question I asked at the beginning of the work: Are there children who explicitly follow the prohibition against drawing God? If yes, how? To answer this question, I read the descriptions of the drawings of the Iranian children to see how many children indicate consciousness of the prohibition, how old they were, and if they used the words sin, not allowed, and/or blasphemy in their description.

Only nine children out of 2786 said that drawing God is a sin or that it is not allowed. Among these nine, four children returned blank pages and referred to the prohibition to draw God explicitly in their explanations. These children wrote that drawing God is a sin. The other five children wrote that they were not allowed to draw God. This wording refers to a restriction by religious authorities: a lack of permission, rather than an act of sin. Below I provide descriptions of the nine children who use the words sin and/or not allowed and did not draw God:

Boy, 10 years, and 10 months, Tehran, Iran (ir14_te_m_pot_10_10_mol)Footnote 9.

“I did not draw God, because he is very great and imagination of his greatness and drawing of God are sins.”

Boy, 11 years and 9 months, Tehran, Iran (ir14_te_m_pot_11_09_alh).

“I did not draw anything, because God could not be drawn and it's unacceptable religiosity. (I would never do that)”.

Boy, 12 years old, Tehran, Iran (ir14_te_m_pot_12_xx_moh).

“In the name of God. I did not draw. Why? Is it the right thing to draw when it is sinning to draw God and imagine God?”

Boy, 13 years and 7 months, Savojbolagh, Iran (ir14_sh_m_pai_13_07_has).

“I drew about nature and God's creatures: sea, tree, flower, cloud, sun, mountain, human being. I'm not allowed to draw God at all, because I cannot see him, but I can see his creatures.”

Boy, 13 years and 5 months, Savojbolagh, Iran (ir14_sh_m_pai_13_05_mox).

“I drew a jungle beside a street, and I drew beautiful trees that was one of the signs of God. I'm not allowed to draw God. I drew God's creatures which are as beautiful as him.”

Girl, 12 years and 9 months, Savojbolagh, Iran (ir14_sh_f_pet_12_09_mxz).

“I did not draw God, because I am not allowed to draw God.”

Girl, 11 years and 10 months, Neyriz, Iran (ir14_ny_f_pkh_11_10_far).

“But no one saw God, but I imagined that God is a light. Nobody has seen it and imagining about God is not a good act. End.”

Boy, 12 years and 1 months, Tabriz, Iran (ir14_ta_m_pki_12_01_amo).

“It is a sin to draw God or to say God resembles someone because we have not seen God.”

Boy, 14 years and 6 months, Sari, Iran (ir14_si_m_par_14_06_alb).

“I drew God imaginary. I do not know what God looks like. God, forgive me.”

Two girls and seven boys said that the drawing of God is not allowed. Three of these boys come from the same school. When I gathered more information about this particular institution, I learned that it is a school where religious teachings are taught in a harsher and more rigorous way.

With these results before us, I can recall and evaluate the suppositions I held as starting points. Below I present my initial suppositions (regular font) and my actual findings (italic font):

  • This is difficult research to do in Iran because it is a sensitive subject. Yes, but it was not as difficult as I thought it would be.

  • In Islam, there is no representation or image of God. It does not exist.

  • Theologically speaking, drawing God is a sin. Yes, according to Muslim theology, it is a sin.

  • Nearly half of the children would not draw anything and would return blank pages, explaining “we cannot draw God because it is a sin.” Six percent of the Iranian children did not draw anything. They returned blank pages and explained that they could not draw God because it is a sin. Most children (2915) made drawings and only 177 children returned blank pages. These findings do not confirm my initial point.

  • Nearly half of the children would draw light. 439 children drew light (Table 15.5). There were children who drew God as light, but they were not as numerous as I initially had supposed.

  • Few children would draw an anthropomorphic figure. 38% of the Iranian children drew anthropomorphic figures (Table 15.10). Compared with the other countries from which drawings of God were collected, there were fewer drawings of anthropomorphic figures, but the number of anthropomorphic figures in the Iranian collection was higher than I had anticipated.

Discussion

First, I would like to highlight what this is specific about this research compared to previous studies. In fact, the idea of drawing gods is not new to Muslim societies. In other Muslim countries and in Iran, different studies had already been conducted on different religious notions, taking the form of answering questionnaires or drawing. For example, there have been studies done with Turkish children as “Image of prophet German-Turk children” (Kahraman, 2015) or “A Semiotic perspective on the image of ‘Heaven’ in Turkish children in Germany between the ages of 7 and 15” (Türkmen, 2015). The present study is the first one to ask Muslim children in a Muslim country to draw God. Such research has not been conducted in any Muslim country except Iran. The present study is the first study on the theme of the prohibition of the representation of God in Islam.

Conducting this research was difficult in Iran because it was considered as a sensitive subject. However, it was not as difficult as I imagined. The Iranian researchers had to take several steps in order to obtain necessary authorizations from the Ministries of Education in Iran. The directors of the schools had to respect this authorization and allow the researchers to collect the drawings. However, I think that in other countries, researchers were required to go through similar steps. My Iranian collaborators and I have been able to do such research in Iran because the Iranian society and the academic world in Iran are open to science and they are willing to carry out research for scientific reasons.

The main question raised by the data is: Why did a huge number of Muslim children produce representations of God and only few children mention the prohibition of representation of God, even though they are all receive education of faith in one creative and improbable God?

To answer this question, I note that even though a negative opinion is disseminated by theologians towards the creation of images, it has not been resulted in an absolute prohibition. I see evidence of this in the forms of art, in the painting of humans, animals, and nature, in the royal palaces and objects produced in the Muslim world, and especially in Iran under the kingdom of multiple dynasties. Other artistic forms, mainly the art of calligraphy, have been widely used to decorate mosques and sacred spaces where all figurative representations are absent. In Iranian Shiite culture, if the image or statue is not hostile to Muslim religion and values, its use is not prohibited. A large majority of children drew the blessings of God in the form of nature. This means that the children had learned that they could not see God, or, perhaps in the sources at their disposal they had not been exposed to a figurative representation of God. It also indicates that these children see nature as a creation of God. But, on television, at the time of prayer or during the recitations of the Qur’an, images of nature, Kaaba, mosques and so forth are shown. In addition, images of prophets and Imams are shown with luminous faces.

Even after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite radical positions at the beginning of the revolution, art and figurative representations continued to exist by adapting to new ideologies that were especially designed to aid in the transmission of Islamic values. That explains how all kinds of illustrations are permitted in children’s books, cartoons, movies, newspapers, photo galleries and paintings, etc. Iranian children grow up in an environment where, on one hand, religion (which prohibits representations of God and discourages figurative representations) is a strong presence in everyday life, and on the other hand, art and painting are very much admired. In addition, Hanisch, through his study shows that all children up to the age of nine have a private psychological development that draws strongly on their own imaginations. However, from the age of 10, the cultural and societal context exerts a strong influence on their imaginations. In the drawings of Iranian children from six cities in Iran, I found that children up to the age of eight or nine do not have problems in carrying out the task they were asked to do. Most children who had a more reflective reaction to the request to draw God were older than 10 years. The nine children described above (those who explicitly referenced the prohibition) were all between 11 and 14 years old. The majority of children made drawings; however, we cannot conclude from this that the children are unaware of the Islamic rules prohibiting the representation of God. They may not have referenced the words sin and/or not allowed, but they used other wording phrases in their description such as: “I do not know what to draw”, “I cannot”, “It is not possible”, “God is invisible”, “God is undrawable”, “God is the light”, and so forth. Although most of the children aged 10–14 have not written explicitly that drawing God is a sin, yet in their drawings, by drawing other things than God himself, the children demonstrate that they may have considered this prohibition. This observation does not apply to the children aged 7–9.

In my research on the study of the concept of God in Iran, I have not been able to find a study on the prohibition of drawing God in Islam. Through the studies that I have mentioned, it becomes apparent that the prohibition against drawing God in Islam is not even a subject of research. This may be because not making figurative representations of God is part of social and cultural norms among Muslims; avoiding creation of figurative representations of God is the norm and it does not capture the attention of scholars as a topic that requires study. According to Islamic instruction, every person has the right to use his/her own imagination to regard to his/her mental image of the great creator; if one creates an actual representation of God, then one limits one’s future imaginings of that concept.

The studies I found concern God’s entity, his absolute qualities, and how to explain them to children. My study focuses on a theme that is more frequently discussed in Muslim theology. Through this work I sought, first, to know the perceptions of children growing up in social and cultural contexts where there is a strong presence of religion, and, second, to present the context of Iran as a country that wants to advance in science and is willing to cross the boundary of that which is “forbidden”, for the sake of scientific exploration. In Western countries, the distinction between moral norms and legal statues is clear-cut; however, in a country like Iran this distinction is not so clear. The studies on norms tell us that repeating to children, systematically, the prohibition of a moral norm teaches them to consider behaviour related to this norm as bad. When providing instructions during data collection, I did not repeatedly tell the children that the act of drawing God is a sin, so most of the children, when asked to do this act, did not think of sin. Nevertheless, because they had never seen an image of God, this work was unusual for them. Consequently, it follows that if there was a law in Iran about the prohibition of drawing of God, and if it was consistently presented to young Iranian children, then I could expect other behaviours when requesting that they draw God.

Conclusion

How do Iranian children consider the Islamic prohibition against pictorial representations when they are asked to draw God (“Khoda”)?

Through the education they receive via their family, schools, and media Iranian children learn from an early age about the existence of a single creative God who possesses high qualities and who is beyond our imagination. In addition, they are exposed to places of worship that are empty of figurative representations. When children do not see any image or statues connected with the name of God, I found that they do not refer to a particular image in their drawings. Instead, they draw landscapes, pictures of rituals and customs, figurative representations of the imams and the Prophet (with light in the place of faces), the mosques and the Kaaba, the light, etc.

As I saw in this study, few children provided explanations related to the prohibition. However, other children who did not necessarily use the word sin but made different types of drawings are also aware of the impossibility of drawing God. Their strategy, an avoidance of a pictorial representation of the divine figure as such, can be interpreted as an implicit means of dealing with such prohibitions.

The prohibition against drawing God is not one of the direct teachings given to children from a very young age, because, according to the studies I reviewed, religious teachings begin with what is more understandable and easier for children to comprehend. Recognition of the impossibility of drawing God comes to children through explanations that are given to them about the entity of God and occurs when children begin to grasp abstract concepts, around the age of 11–12 years old.

The participant’s descriptions show that as age increases, it is more probable that a child will say that the drawing of God is forbidden. Based on this, I could also assert that religious teachings are better understood from the age of 10 years. In the children’s descriptions, I sometimes found the same reasoning provided by different children from different age categories. For example, when an 8-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl write that they do not know how to draw God, they may not come to this statement by the same path of reasoning. The first girl does not know how to draw God because she has never seen God; the second cannot do it because God is bigger than her imagination and “He is undrawable”.

Here I can return to my first hypothesis, which was that children, being socialized to religious cultures, would follow the rules of representation of God specific to their religion; their drawings would reflect their respective religious cultures. The drawings of Iranian children show the strong presence of religion and religious practices in Iran. They suggest that the media and religious events have a strong influence on the imagination of children. The descriptions on the back of the drawings show us that the religious teachings given to children by their families and schools do not explicitly support the prohibition against drawing God, but instead, they explain to the children the great qualities of God. These qualities show God to be ultimately unimaginable and beyond the comprehension of our sensing capabilities.

In 2006, for the first time the International Children’s Drawing Festival of the Muslim World was held. Its theme was “Me and God”.Footnote 10 When I read the story of this event, I learned that many children drew the blessings of God, religious symbols, the Kaaba, mosques, etc. They saw the same themes that I found in the sample of drawings by Iranian children. The story about the festival provided no information on the prohibition against representations of God.

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