Islam is a religion that places no images in its places of worship. A mosque has no statues, no devotional paintings and no altar. This page first explains why, using the religion's own sources, and then shows what Muslims have before them when they pray: a direction facing the Kaaba, an empty niche in the wall, words of the Qur'an, ornament, the light of lamps and a carpet. The library does not publish any image depicting God (Allah), the Prophet Muhammad, the other prophets or the Prophet's companions. The photos on this page show real buildings and objects. The only drawing is a text diagram.
IWhy Islam places no images in places of worship
On entering a mosque, one sees no statues, no portraits and no altar. Muslims worship only one God, Allah, and do not make images of Him. Vietnam's journal Religious Studies Review (Nghiên cứu Tôn giáo) records that Islamic law strictly forbids the worship of portraits or statues. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains the root of this attitude: the belief that the creation of living beings belongs to God alone.
Source: Nguyễn Thế Nam, Hoạt động tôn giáo của cộng đồng người Chăm theo Islam giáo ở Việt Nam hiện nay (Religious activities of the Chăm Muslim community in Vietnam today), Religious Studies Review (Nghiên cứu Tôn giáo) no. 8, 2023. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Figural Representation in Islamic Art. About Islam, Maen Khalifa answering the question whether Muslims worship the Kaaba.What the Qur'an and the hadith say
The Qur'an condemns the worship of idols. Verse 22:30 teaches believers to shun the impurity of idolatry. Verses 21:52 to 58 tell how the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) asked his father and his people why they were devoted to statues. The Qur'an has no verse that forbids the making of pictures outright. The clearer prohibitions are in the hadith, the reports of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) handed down by later generations.
Source: Quran.com, Qur'an 22:30, translation by Mustafa Khattab. Quran.com, Qur'an 21:52 to 58. Wikipedia, Aniconism in Islam. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Figural Representation in Islamic Art.The Sahih al-Bukhari collection records the Prophet saying that the makers of images will receive the severest punishment from Allah (no. 5950). The same collection tells how Aisha hung a curtain with pictures, the Prophet tore the curtain, and she then made the cloth into cushions (no. 5954). A hadith recorded by Muslim, explained on the Vietnamese-language hadith site HadeethEnc, draws the lesson that making images of living beings is forbidden because it is a path to polytheism.
Source: Sunnah.com, Sahih al-Bukhari no. 5950. Sunnah.com, Sahih al-Bukhari no. 5954. HadeethEnc.com, Vietnamese edition, hadith recorded by Muslim (no. 969).The sources consulted agree on one point: the prohibition is clearest in places of worship. Mosques and copies of the Qur'an almost never show human or animal figures. Outside that sphere, understandings have differed by period and by region. Britannica records that images were absolutely forbidden in the early period, under the Berber dynasties of Africa and under the Mamluks, while under the Abbasids and most Shia and Turkish dynasties they were excluded only from public buildings. From the 9th century onward, many Sunni scholars read the hadith as a prohibition of all images of living beings, and according to Wikipedia the avoidance of images is common among groups such as the Salafis, Wahhabis and Deobandis. Meanwhile book painting at the Persian, Mughal and Ottoman courts went on depicting people, outside the sphere of worship. The library records these understandings and does not take a side.
Source: Britannica, Aniconism. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Figural Representation in Islamic Art. Wikipedia, Aniconism in Islam.According to Wikipedia, Shia Muslims generally hold less strict views on images. In Iran and South Asia, devotional portraits circulate, above all images of Imam Ali, hung in homes or carried on one's person. Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Najaf has issued a fatwa stating that depicting holy figures is permissible if it is done with the utmost respect. Wikipedia also records that many Muslims regard such images as forbidden. The library describes them only in words and publishes none of them.
Source: Wikipedia, Aniconism in Islam.For these reasons, this page publishes no image depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the other prophets, the Prophet's companions or God, including old paintings with the face veiled. Nor does it publish photos that take the face of a person at prayer as their subject.
IIWhat is inside a mosque
Where other religions place a statue or an altar, a mosque leaves the space empty. What orients the whole hall is a wall: the qibla wall, facing the Kaaba in Mecca. Smarthistory calls it the holiest part of the mosque and often the most richly decorated. In that wall is a recessed niche called the mihrab, and beside it stands the pulpit, the minbar.
Source: Smarthistory, Introduction to mosque architecture. Britannica, Qiblah.The text diagram above only gathers the parts most often found. Not every mosque has all of them, and where each one stands varies from place to place.
Mihrab
prayer nicheHow to recognize: An arched niche set into the qibla wall, left empty insideThe mihrab shows worshippers the direction of Mecca. It is not an altar and nothing is placed inside it. According to Britannica, the mihrab first appeared under the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (705 to 715), when the great mosques of Medina, Jerusalem and Damascus were built. The mihrab is often the most elaborately decorated place in the mosque. The tile mihrab from the Madrasa Imami in Isfahan, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is 3.43 metres high. Its outer frame carries verses of the Qur'an and its inner frame sayings of the Prophet in Kufic script.
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Minbar
pulpitHow to recognize: A narrow staircase with handrails leading up to a small seat, set beside the mihrabThe minbar is where the imam gives the sermon (khutbah) at the congregational prayer on Friday. Britannica relates that at first the Prophet Muhammad (saw) preached leaning against the trunk of a date palm, and only later used a wooden seat with steps. The earliest minbar had three steps, and later ones grew taller, sometimes with a door and a canopy. The teak minbar at Kairouan, made around 862, is considered the oldest surviving one. The minbar of the Kutubiyya Mosque was made in Córdoba from 1137 onward. It is 3.46 metres long and 3.86 metres high, inlaid with bone and several kinds of wood.
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Dikka
called müezzin mahfili in TurkishHow to recognize: A high platform on a row of columns, standing on its own in the middle of the hall or built as a balconyThe dikka is a platform from which the Qur'an is recited and from which the muezzin repeats the imam's words, so that rows far from the mihrab can hear. Only large mosques have one. The photo below shows the dikka in the Mosque of Sultan Hasan in Cairo.
Qur'an stand
rahle, rehalHow to recognize: Two wooden boards slotted together crosswise in an X shape, which can be foldedThe Qur'an is not laid on the floor but placed on a stand. The folding X-shaped stand has been used for centuries to hold large copies of the Qur'an during recitation, and is often carved with inscriptions and floral designs. The stand in the photo is dated 1360.
Mosque lamp
How to recognize: A glass vessel with a round body and a flaring neck, hung on chainsOil lamps of enamelled and gilded glass were treasured furnishings of mosques in the 13th and 14th centuries, made above all in Cairo, Aleppo and Damascus. They often carry the opening of the Verse of Light from the Qur'an (24:35) together with the name or heraldic emblem of the donor. Donors usually gave a whole set of lamps.
IIIWords and patterns instead of images
The Metropolitan Museum of Art groups the non-figural decoration of Islamic art into three kinds: calligraphy, vegetal ornament and geometric patterns. All three appear on mosque walls, on the pages of the Qur'an, on lamps and on carpets.
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art.Calligraphy
How to recognize: Arabic script written in bands, in roundels or as a whole panelThe Metropolitan Museum of Art calls calligraphy the most highly regarded and most fundamental element of Islamic art, because the Qur'an was revealed in Arabic. On mosque walls the texts written are verses of the Qur'an, the name of Allah, the name of the Prophet Muhammad and the profession of faith. Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has eight large roundels written by the calligrapher Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi during the restoration of 1847 to 1849. They bear the names of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, the first four caliphs and the Prophet's two grandsons, Hasan and Husayn. Chinese Muslims have a style of their own called Sini, which writes Arabic with a brush, so that the strokes swell, thin and taper as in Chinese calligraphy.
Hilye
hilya, hilye-i şerifHow to recognize: A calligraphic panel with a roundel in the middle and the names of the four caliphs in the cornersA hilye is a calligraphic panel copying a description of the appearance and character of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), based on the hadith. The viewer reads a description instead of looking at a portrait. The layout as a wall panel is attributed to the Ottoman calligrapher Hafız Osman (1642 to 1698): a blessing at the top, the main description in the central roundel, the names of the four caliphs in the corners, and a verse of the Qur'an below. Hilyes were hung in homes and in mosques.
Geometric patterns
How to recognize: Stars and polygons repeating and interlacing without endThe complex patterns are all built from a few basic shapes: circles, squares, stars and many-sided polygons. These basic shapes already existed among the Greeks, Romans and Sasanians, and in the Islamic world they were carried to a high point. The Metropolitan Museum of Art observes that this kind of repetition suggests the possibility of infinite extension.
Scrolling vegetal ornament
arabesqueHow to recognize: Vines, leaves and stems winding into one another, with no birds, beasts or peopleBritannica records that scrolling vine ornament derives from Hellenistic craftsmen in Asia Minor and at first included birds. When Muslim craftsmen took it up around the year 1000, it became highly stylized, and for religious reasons birds, beasts and people were left out entirely.
Muqarnas
How to recognize: Many small niches stacked on one another, like a honeycomb or stalactitesMuqarnas are small projecting niches stacked tier upon tier, used in domes, doorways, wall niches and the balconies of minarets. According to Britannica, this ornament spread across the Islamic world from around the beginning of the 12th century and reached its height in the 14th and 15th centuries. The dome over the mihrab of the Tinmal Mosque in Morocco is also a muqarnas dome.
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IVThe Kaaba and the kiswah
The Kaaba is the cube-shaped shrine standing near the centre of the Great Mosque in Mecca. Muslims everywhere turn towards it in the five daily prayers and hope to make the pilgrimage there. This direction is called the qibla. Britannica records that after moving to Medina in 622, the Prophet Muhammad (saw) at first took Jerusalem as the qibla and then changed it to Mecca. Qur'an 2:144 teaches believers to turn their faces towards the Sacred Mosque wherever they are.
Source: Britannica, Kaaba. Britannica, Qiblah. Quran.com, Qur'an 2:144, translation by Mustafa Khattab.People outside the faith sometimes think that Muslims worship the Kaaba. Muslim writers say clearly that they do not. Maen Khalifa writes on the About Islam site that the Kaaba does not represent divinity but only unites all Muslims in one direction, and that pilgrims walk around the Kaaba not to worship it but to glorify Allah. Smarthistory adds that on returning to Mecca, the Prophet cleared away the idols that had stood in and around the shrine before.
Source: About Islam, Maen Khalifa answering the question whether Muslims worship the Kaaba. Smarthistory, The Kaaba.
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The cloth that covers the Kaaba is called the kiswah. It is black brocade embroidered in gold thread with the profession of faith and a band of Qur'anic text. The custom of covering the shrine predates Islam. According to the Saudi newspaper Arab News, the kiswah is now woven at the King Abdul Aziz Complex in Mecca and replaced every year. For many decades the change took place on the morning of the 9th of Dhul Hijjah, and since 2022 it has moved to the eve of the 1st of Muharram, the start of the Islamic new year. The 2018 kiswah used 670 kilograms of natural silk dyed black, 120 kilograms of gold thread and 100 kilograms of silver thread. It is 14 metres high and 658 square metres in total, made of four pieces covering the four sides and a door curtain 6.5 metres high.
Source: Britannica, Kiswah. Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Kaaba's replacement cloth fitted in record time. Arab News (Saudi Arabia), New Kaaba cover installed on eve of Islamic New Year 1444, 2022.The Britannica article also records that the kiswah was made in Egypt every year and carried to Mecca by pilgrims. That is true of the past, as with the door curtain made in Egypt in 1903 to 1904 shown in the photo. The Saudi source states that today the kiswah is woven in Mecca itself.
The photo of the Kaaba above was taken by Muhammad Sadiq Bey in 1880. He was an Egyptian army engineer, treasurer of the pilgrim caravan, and the first person to photograph Mecca, the Great Mosque and the Kaaba.
Source: Wikipedia, Muhammad Sadiq (photographer).Medina and the Rawdah
In the Prophet's Mosque in Medina there is an area called the Rawdah, between the minbar and the chamber of the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) under the Green Dome. Tradition regards it as one of the gardens of Paradise. It used to be laid with green carpet to set it apart from the red carpet in the rest of the mosque. The mihrab named after the Prophet was built in its present form by Sultan Qaitbay in 1484, and the present marble minbar was commissioned by Sultan Murad III in 1590. The library describes this area only in words and publishes no photo of it.
Source: Wikipedia, Prophet's Mosque.VThe Qur'an, the most sacred object in the mosque
If one object had to be named that Muslims cherish as other religions cherish a holy statue, it would be the copy of the Qur'an. The book is not worshipped, but every craft is lavished on it: script, gold, colour, binding and stand. The Metropolitan Museum of Art cites the Blue Qur'an as an example of pages exalted by their ground and decorative frames. A page of the Qur'an never carries human or animal figures.
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Calligraphy in Islamic Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Figural Representation in Islamic Art.The Blue Qur'an
How to recognize: Kufic script in gold on parchment dyed indigo blueThis Qur'an is written in gold on parchment dyed with indigo, a very rare combination. Its date and place of making are still debated. Scholars place it between the 8th and 10th centuries, with one theory pointing to Persia, another to North Africa and another to Spain. The manuscript was in the library of the Great Mosque of Kairouan around 1300. About 100 folios survive today, scattered among many museums.
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Mamluk Qur'ans
How to recognize: Large format, with opening pages filled with gilded geometric ornamentThe Qur'an of Sultan Baybars was copied in Cairo in 1304 to 1306, written by Muhammad ibn al-Wahid and illuminated by a team of artists. Another copy was commissioned in Cairo around 1369 to 1372 by the amir Arghun Shah, and still has an endowment certificate in his name. Its opening page is filled with stars and polygons.
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An everyday Qur'an page
How to recognize: Black script, coloured reading marks, gold roundels marking the versesThe Qur'an page in the Metropolitan Museum of Art shown in the photo was written on paper in the late 11th to 12th century. The vowel marks are red, and other signs are gold, blue and black. A large gold roundel bears the words "100 verses", marking the start of the 100th verse of chapter 6.
The details of the Qur'an page in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the two Mamluk Qur'ans come from the descriptions accompanying the image files on Wikimedia Commons, supplied by the museum and libraries that hold the objects.
VIPrayer rugs and the turbah
Outside the mosque, Muslims pray in any clean place, often on a small rug. In Arabic it is called sajjada, in Persian namazlik. The distinctive sign of a prayer rug is the mihrab design, a rounded or pointed arch at one end of the rug. When the rug is laid out, the end with the arch must face Mecca. In this way each rug is a mihrab one can carry along.
Source: Britannica, Prayer rug.Rugs from Anatolia have pointed, stepped arches, while Persian rugs have softly rounded ones. A lamp is sometimes woven inside the arch, recalling the mosque lamp. A comb and a water jug recall washing before prayer. Long rugs with many compartments for a whole row of worshippers are called saff.
Source: Britannica, Prayer rug. Britannica, Mihrab.
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Twelver Shia Islam recommends that in prostration the forehead rest on a small piece of earth or a small clay tablet called a turbah, in Persian mohr. Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq taught that prostration must be made on pure earth or on what grows from the earth. The most highly regarded earth is that of Karbala, where Imam Husayn was martyred. Many Sunnis do not accept this practice and regard it as a later addition. The tablet is not an object of worship but a place for the forehead. The library has not yet found an openly licensed photo showing a turbah clearly, so it describes it only in words.
Source: Wikipedia, Turbah.VIIMosques across the regions
With the same qibla wall and the same mihrab niche, each region builds its mosques with its own materials and skills. Below are some representative places, arranged from Arabia outward.
Arabia
Mecca has the Kaaba and the Great Mosque around it. Medina has the Prophet's Mosque. These are the two holiest sites of Islam. The first photographs of both were taken by Muhammad Sadiq Bey, of Medina in 1861 and of Mecca in 1880.
Tunisia
The Great Mosque of Kairouan was rebuilt in the 9th century and became a model for many mosques of the Maghreb. The mihrab in its present form dates from 862 to 863, clad in 28 carved marble panels and framed by lustre tiles. The teak minbar beside it is the oldest surviving one.
Egypt
The Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan in Cairo was built in 1356 to 1363, in the Mamluk period. The mihrab is clad in multicoloured marble, the minbar is of stone with bronze doors, and a great Kufic band copying a passage of the chapter Al-Fath runs the whole length of the qibla hall on a ground of foliage. At the four corners are four schools teaching the four Sunni schools of law.
Spain
The Great Mosque of Córdoba was begun around 785 and enlarged over three centuries. In 1236 King Ferdinand III took Córdoba and the mosque was turned into the cathedral. In the 16th century a church was built right in the middle of the forest of columns. The 1984 evaluation submitted to UNESCO calls it an outstanding example of the religious architecture of Islam, with a considerable influence on western Muslim art from the 8th century. The mihrab niche was built for Caliph Al-Hakam II during the enlargement begun in 961.
Morocco
The Tinmal Mosque in the Atlas mountains was built in the middle of the 12th century, in the Almohad period. Its mihrab has a muqarnas dome and carved stucco with interlacing patterns. The earthquake of September 2023 badly damaged the building, which is being restored. In Marrakesh, the Kutubiyya minbar is now on display in the El Badi Palace. The walls of the Bou Inania Madrasa in Fes show the craft of zellij tile mosaic.
Turkey
Ottoman mosques use great domes and Iznik tiles. The Rüstem Pasha Mosque, designed by Mimar Sinan, has about 2,300 tiles in some 80 patterns, covering almost all of its walls. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, built in 1609 to 1616, has more than 20,000 Iznik tiles painted with flowers, trees and abstract designs, and a carved marble minbar.
Iran
The Meidan Emam square in Isfahan was laid out by Shah Abbas I in the early 17th century. The Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque on its eastern side was a mosque private to the royal court, and so it has no minaret. The inside of its dome is made of floral panels that grow smaller towards the top. The mihrab is clad in tiles with flowers on a deep blue ground, and the inscriptions at the entrance and around the dome were written by the calligrapher Ali Reza Abbasi.
Mughal South Asia
The Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore was built in 1634 to 1641 under the emperor Shah Jahan. Outside it is clad in multicoloured tile mosaic, and inside it is painted with floral frescoes. Its walls also carry panels of Arabic and Persian inscriptions, among them verses of the Qur'an.
China
The Great Mosque of Xi'an was by tradition founded in 742, and most of the present buildings date from the Ming dynasty onward. The mosque consists of five courtyards along an east to west axis, with the gate on the east and the prayer hall on the west, the direction of Mecca. It has no round dome and no Arab-style minaret. Arabic in the Sini style and Chinese characters appear everywhere, and the Qur'an is carved on the walls of the prayer hall. The Niujie Mosque in Beijing likewise has a Chinese exterior with Arabic calligraphy inside.
Indonesia and Malaysia
The old mosques of Java have no round domes. The Demak Great Mosque, of the 15th century, is built of timber, with a tiered roof resting on four main teak pillars. The Menara Kudus Mosque, founded in 1549, has a brick tower in the Hindu Javanese style, in which a great drum hangs to call people to prayer. The Kampung Laut Mosque in Kelantan is one of the oldest mosques in Malaysia, also built of timber with a tiered roof.
West Africa
Djenné in Mali was a major centre for the spread of Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its Great Mosque is built entirely of earth and was rebuilt in 1906 to 1907, with the soaring form and buttresses typical of the earthen architecture of the region. The craft of earthen building has been handed down for generations by the local guild of masons.
VIIIMosques in Vietnam
In Vietnam, most followers of Islam are Chăm people, living from the south of central Vietnam to the southeast and the Mekong Delta. According to Religious Studies Review (Nghiên cứu Tôn giáo), each village (palei) usually has at least one mosque (masjid), and each hamlet (puk) of the village may also have a small mosque (surao). In the cities, Chăm people are organised in jamaah communities around a mosque or small mosque. The mosque is not only a place of prayer but also the centre of the community's cultural life.
Source: Nguyễn Thế Nam, Hoạt động tôn giáo của cộng đồng người Chăm theo Islam giáo ở Việt Nam hiện nay (Religious activities of the Chăm Muslim community in Vietnam today), Religious Studies Review (Nghiên cứu Tôn giáo) no. 8, 2023.Chăm Islam in An Giang
The mosques of the Chăm Islam community in An Giang are spread over 9 commune-level administrative units and have their own colours and styles of decoration. The Mubarak Mosque on the bank of the Hậu River was recognised as an architectural and artistic monument on 5 December 1989. VietnamPlus describes the mosque as predominantly blue and white, with a spacious interior and eight pillars, and walls decorated with patterns and lines of text taken from scripture. The Jamiul Azhar Mosque in Châu Phong was founded in 1959, and an Islamic cemetery lies in front of it.
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Hồ Chí Minh City
The Jamia Al Muslimin Mosque on Đông Du Street was begun on 21 December 1934 and completed in 1935. It was built under J. M. Mohamed Ismael, a Tamil Muslim merchant who came to Saigon from India in 1903. The mosque has four minarets.
Hanoi
The Al-Noor Mosque at 12 Hàng Lược Street was built with money raised by a group of Indians from Bombay. Work began in 1885 and it has been in use since 1890. The building faces west, the direction of Mecca. It is the only mosque in Hanoi and northern Vietnam.
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Chăm Bàni in Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận
The Chăm Bàni keep a form of Islam blended with the veneration of ancestors and village deities. The researcher Yasuko Yoshimoto records that each village usually has one thang magik. It is closed most of the time, opening only for rituals on Fridays of certain months and for the month of Ramuwan, when the acar stay inside it for the whole month. The thang magik has no minaret. Inside, the most striking feature is a wooden minbar painted red, placed to the west, the direction of Mecca. She also records dragon figures on the pulpit and a red rod wrapped in white cloth. Many Chăm Bàni do not regard themselves as Muslims. The library does not yet have an openly licensed photo of the inside of a thang magik.
On forms of naming: the Vietnamese-language Muslim site Chân lý Islam uses "Allah", "Đấng Thượng Đế" (God) and "Thiên sứ Muhammad (saw)" (the Prophet Muhammad). The abbreviation (saw) stands for the prayer asking Allah to grant him peace, placed after the Prophet's name. This page follows that usage where it speaks of the Prophet.
Source: Chân lý Islam, Vietnamese-language Muslim website.IXWhat the library is not sure of
Are you a Muslim, an imam, a hakim or a researcher, and have you found something inaccurate, or do you have a photo of your own from inside a mosque to contribute? Please send it with its source to thayungkhiem@gmail.com. The library will correct the page and credit the contributor.
XPhotos and licences
Every photo on this page comes from Wikimedia Commons, under Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA licences. Authors and licences are given exactly as on the original file pages, read on 07/10/2026. The photos have only been reduced in size, with no change to their content. Click the name of a photo to go to its original file page. If you are an author and see an incorrect credit, please let the library know so it can be corrected.
XISources
The pages above were read in October 2026. If a page has changed its address, please let the library know so it can be updated.
?Quick Questions
Why do mosques have no statues or devotional paintings
Muslims worship only one God, Allah, and do not make images of Him. The Qur'an condemns the worship of idols, and the hadith record warnings by the Prophet Muhammad (saw) against image makers. So a place of worship has only the direction of prayer, words of scripture and ornament.
Is the mihrab an altar
No. The mihrab is a recessed niche in the wall that faces Mecca, showing worshippers the direction of prayer. No statue, picture or offering is placed in it.
Do Muslims worship the Kaaba
No. The Kaaba is the direction all Muslims face together when they pray. Muslim writers state that the Kaaba does not represent divinity, and that pilgrims walk around it to glorify Allah, not to worship the shrine.
Does Islam forbid all pictures
The sources do not agree. The prohibition is clearest in places of worship and in copies of the Qur'an. Outside that sphere, some periods and regions forbade images very strictly, while in others people were still painted in court book painting. The library records the different understandings and does not take a side.
What is a hilye
A calligraphic panel copying a description of the appearance and character of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), dating from the Ottoman period. The viewer reads the description in words, and there is no picture of any kind.
Why does this page have no images of the Prophet Muhammad
Because Islam does not use images in worship, and the hadith warn against making images of living beings. The library respects this and publishes no image depicting the Prophet, including old paintings with the face veiled.