On the off chance the budding artist who announced a recruiting cartoon for al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula is reading Threat Matrix, I have some unfortunate news.
Sir, among Salafist jihadists, Wahhabists, takfiri and all other brands of austere Islamic fundamentalists sympathetic to the beliefs of al Qaeda … drawing the human form is haram (forbidden). Some relevant hadith:
1678. Ibn `Umar (May Allah be pleased with them) said: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, “Those who draw pictures will be punished on the Day of Resurrection; and it will be said to them: `Breathe soul into what you have created.”’
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
1680. Ibn `Abbas (May Allah be pleased with them) said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) saying, “Every painter will go to Hell, and for every portrait he has made, there will be appointed one who will chastise him in the Hell.” Ibn `Abbas said: If you have to do it, draw pictures of trees and other inanimate things.
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
1682. Ibn Mas`ud (May Allah be pleased with him) said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) saying, “Those who will receive the most severe punishment from Allah on the Day of Resurrection will be painters (of living objects).”
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
Unfortunately, you’ve committed a grave sin, according to the strict tenets of the Islamic sect of you and your subjects.
In addition – and this may sting worse – your judgment is called into question for depicting the mujahideen (irhabin) as red-eyed, evil wraiths or djinn in a comic designed to recruit youth to your ostensibly romantic cause. Bill Roggio’s comparison of your AQAP fighters to the villainous Cobra Command is intriguing, but I’m firmly in the camp that believes they look more like Shredder and his evil Foot Clan. And the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always defeat them in the end.
