Islamic aniconism stems in part from the prohibition of idolatry and in part from the belief that creation of living forms is God's prerogative. Although the
Quran does not explicitly prohibit visual representation of any living being, it uses the word
musawwir (maker of forms, artist) as an epithet of God.
The corpus of hadith (sayings attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad) contains more explicit prohibitions of images of living beings, challenging painters to "breathe life" into their images and threatening them with punishment on the Day of Judgment.[1][2] Muslims have interpreted these prohibitions in different ways in different times and places. Religious
Islamic art has been typically characterized by the absence of figures and extensive use of
calligraphic,
geometric and
abstract floral patterns.