Stephen Alexander (à la Jamie Reid):
Taliban: Aniconism in the IEA (2024)
I.
I can't say I'm a fan of the Taliban, but you have to admire their determination to actually practice what they preach and govern Afghanistan in accordance with Islamic law, which, as they rightly argue, is often unambiguous and needs only to be implemented and enforced rather than interpreted.
Take, for example, the teaching that prohibits the production and circulation of images not just of the prophet Muhammad, but of all living things. Some may pretend that this teaching is complex and point out that it allows exceptions. Others, for whom iconography is not such a major moral concern, will draw attention to the fact the Quran doesn't explicitly prohibit the visual representation of
living beings (although it certainly condemns idolatry).
However, the hadith - a major source of guidance for Muslims, elaborating on the principles set out in the Quran - is perfectly clear: making images of living things is haram (i.e., strictly forbidden as a sinful action) and image makers are threatened with serious punishment on Judgement Day, no matter how pious they may have been in other regards; until, that is, they are able to invest their image with life (which, of course, they'll never be able to do, for Allah is the sole creator of life).
So, whilst it may appear crazy or extreme to many Westerners - and, indeed, to many Afghans (particularly those working within the media) - the Taliban are behaving with impeccable moral logic; images of living things are contrary to sharia and angels will not enter a house with pictures on the wall.
II.
Obviously, aniconism is not going to be an easy policy to sell (or enforce) in a world awash with images. Thus, the new ban announced on any images of living things will be introduced gradually over time.
And, apparently, even the Taliban seem to approve of photo ID cards, which, I have to admit, I find somewhat disappointing; as is the fact that members of the mujahideen have posed for portraits and Taliban officials have posted selfies and other snap shots on social media before now.
Well, I say disappointing but perhaps that's not the right word to use as it maybe suggests I'm sympathetic to what's going on in Afghanistan: just to be clear, I'm not. Having said that, I remain of the view that iconography is certainly not an innocent activity (albeit one which, in a digital age, is perhaps our most fundamental activity).
Like Baudrillard, I think image-making plays a complicit role in what he terms the perfect crime [1] and by which
he refers to the extermination of singular being via technological and
social processes bent on replacing real things and real people with a
series of images and empty signs.
When this happens, we move beyond a game of mere representation towards a world of obscenity; i.e., a state wherein all living things are made "uselessly, needlessly visible, without
desire and without effect" [2].
And that, philosophically, is a legitimate concern it seems to me ... [3]
Notes
[1] See Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, trans. Chris Turner (Verso, 1996).
[2] Jean Baudrillard, The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact, trans. Chris Turner, (Berg, 2005), p. 94.
[3] One that I have discussed at length in a two-part post entitled Film Kills (13-14 June 2013): click here for part one ('At the Pictures with D. H. Lawrence') and/or here for part two (On Images, Objects and Speculative Realism').
