Mohammed Image Archive

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Miscellaneous Mohammed Images

There have been depictions of Mohammed in every era and in nearly every country in the world. This "Miscellaneous" section of the Archive encompasses Mohammed depictions from periods and locations not covered in other categories:

The North Frieze on the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC features a bas-relief sculpture of Mohammed, among several other historical law-givers. He is in the center of this image holding a curved scimitar; on the left is Charlemagne, and on the right is Byzantine Emperor Justinian. You can download a detailed pdf of the Supreme Court friezes here. The urban legend site Snopes.com has info about the frieze in this entry. A slightly less clear photo of Mohammed in the frieze can be found here, as part of this article which gives some background on the sculpture. (See below for a dierent courthouse Mohammed that met a less happy fate.)
(Hat tip: js, C. Reb, and Matt R.)

In 1928, Liebig's Extract of Meat Company (a German rm which had developed concentrated beef extract and bouillon cubes) issued a series of advertising trading cards to promote its canned beef extract products. The 1928 card set (one of hundreds of dierent designs issued by the company over the years, on various themes) illustrated six dierent pivotal points in Mohammed's life. The most beautiful of the cards was the second one, seen here, which showed the Archangel Gabriel escorting Mohammed up to the presence of Allah in Paradise -- the climax of his legendary "Night Journey." The full set of all six cards are visible near the bottom of this page.
(Hat tip: karmic inquisitor.)

A cigarette card showing an artist's impression of Mohammed, manufactured by the Ogden Cigarette company, printed sometime around the turn of the 20th century.
(Hat tip: Martin.)

On August 18, 1925, the British newspaper The Star published this cartoon by illustrator David Low showing cricket sports hero Jack Hobbs towering over other historical gures -- including Mohammed (spelled the old-fashioned way, "Mahomet," on his pedestal). A 2006 article in the London Times stated, "According to a Calcutta correspondent, when [this cartoon] appeared in the Indian version of the Morning Post, it 'convulsed many Muslims in speechless rage. Meetings were held and resolutions of protest were passed'." In contrast to the "cartoon controversies" of the 21st century, however, the fury in the Muslim world over this cartoon was almost completely ignored by the Europeans. The picture on the right is a close-up detail of the Mohammed gure in the original cartoon. From The British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent.
(Hat tip: Martin H.)

Mohammed at Mecca, by Andreas Muller, late 19th century; this is a photogravure reproduction printed in 1889; the original is in the Maximilianeum Gallery, Munich. Mohammed is the one on the camel, and is depicted casting the idols out of the Kaaba.
(Hat tip: little old lady and Andrew.)

Certain towns in southern Spain hold an annual festival called "Moros y Cristianos" ("Moors and Christians"), which celebrates the Reconquista -- the recapture of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian Spaniards from the Muslim colonizers who had invaded centuries earlier. In some locales, at the climax of the festival, townspeople burn Mohammed in egy. The Mohammed gure, called La Mahoma, is usually bigger than life-size and in full costume. The picture here shows La Mahoma from the 1920 Moros y Cristianos festival in the town of Biar, near Alicante. But according to this site, some of the villages are planning to tone down their celebrations this year by not having La Mahoma at all. And artists in the city of Valencia are now afraid to make sculptures that mock Mohammed in their annual satirical Fallas festival.
(Hat tip: foreign devil.)

A photo essay on this site shows La Mahoma of Biar being paraded through the town in the 2000 Moros y Cristianos.

A municipal fraternal organization maintains the tradition of La Mahoma from year to year.

On September 25, 2006, the Berlin opera house Deutsche Oper cancelled scheduled performances of Mozart's opera "Idomeneo" out of fear that Muslim extremists might commit acts of terror in response to the production. The original Mozart score made no mention of Mohammed or Islam, but the contemporary German version -- rst performed without incident in 2003 -- shows a character displaying the severed heads of four religious gures: Poseidon, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. The picture shown above comes from a 2003 rehearsal of the opera.

These two additional images of Mohammed's head in "Ideomeneo" come courtesy of the Drinking From Home blog; the photo on the left shows an actor playing Mohammed before his head is removed; and the other picture shows Mohammed's head sitting on a chair on the right.

This contemporary drawing of Mohammed is a thoughtful attempt to show what he might have actually looked like in real life, based on scholarly research into the earliest known descriptions of him, and into the type of clothing worn in Arabia during his lifetime.
(Hat tip: Rob.)

This unusual drawing of a dark-skinned Mohammed comes from a site about Factology, an obscure messianic Islamic-themed schismatic religious group which is based on the teachings of Dr. Malachi Z. York.
(Hat tip: Raafat.)

This advertisement for Taiwan's "Confutopia Church" (a combination of "Confucius" and "utopia") shows Mohammed holding hands with a pantheon of historical spiritual leaders. The gures, from left to right, are: A Taiwanese aborigine, Mohammed, Confucius, Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, and Lao-Tzu. (The rst gure might instead be Krishna -- it's not clear).
(Hat tip: David B.)

Zombietime reader David B. also sends these photos of Confutopia members

performing at Hsuan Chuang University in 2008. The group photo features students portraying (from left to right): Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Socrates (with question mark), a fan, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad. The large photo on the left is a close-up of the actor portraying Mohammed; notice the golden crescent and star (the symbol of Islam) on his chest, despite his odd headgear.

The second photo shows the same actors doing a hip-hop dance performance; the photo on the left is a close-up of Mohammed dancing.

This picture from a Scientology book for volunteer ministers is quite similar to the Confutopia image (seen above); both show Mohammed as one among several famous spiritual leaders throughout history. In this picture, a Scientologist (on the left) towers

over (in order, left to right) Mohammed, Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Zoroaster, Moses and Abraham. (The last gure is not named, but may be Adam.) Higher level Scientology materials explain how Scientology is superior to all other religions (including Islam), because they are nothing more than "engrams" falsely implanted in our minds.
(Hat tip: Anonymous Japan.)

On the left is a close-up of Mohammed (along with Jesus and a Scientologist) taken from the picture above; and on the right is another version of the same photo, this

time with a dierent Scientologist and dierent background colors. This second image was found at the Refund and Reparation site, and was originally taken from The Scientology Handbook.
(Hat tip: Anonymous Japan.)

This Chilean scholastic site features a modern veiled portait of Mohammed -- a rarity in a non-Islamic country.

New York artist Christina Varga created this neo-Byzantine portrait of Mohammed (with Arabic calligraphy instead of a face) in 2002 as part of a triptych showing Mohammed, Jesus and Buddha which was displayed at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City. The artist's caption for her Mohammed portrait says, "Mohammed the Prophet (peace be upon him) stands before the green domed mosque of Medina called the Prophet's Mosque. Because it is forbidden to represent his face calligraphy commanding all to maintain a pure body and spirit and declaring the greatness of Allah the one True God covers it. Mohammed's hands are in a position of Surrender - the denition of Islam. His halo represents the ames surrounding his body in Islamic iconography."
(Hat tip: Raafat.)

Contemporary Marxist artist Erin Currier created this portrait of Mohammed; it now resides in a private collection.
(Hat tip: Raafat.)

This 1930s-era glass painting from Senegal shows Mohammed's ight from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. It's currently for sale at this online African art gallery.
(Hat tip: Leigh F.)

The Mevlana Museum in the Turkish City of Konya houses an extremely rare relic from Mohammed's body itself: this antique box contains what is said to be Mohammed's beard. Tour guides at the museum say that such relics were taken from across the Middle East by Ottoman Sultans and brought back to Turkey to preserve them from fundamentalist Islamic sects (such as the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia) that sought to destroy idolotrous Mohammed relics even centuries ago. These photos were taken and submitted by Archive reader "HypnoToad." (More photos of the museum can be seen here.) The museum also has a reliquary which supposedly houses one of Mohammed's teeth.

The courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State Supreme Court used to feature a statue of Mohammed (seen here on the right) on its roof balustrade, among several other historical gures. The statue stood unchallenged between 1902 and 1955, when, as reported by Daniel Pipes, the Muslim community demanded its removal. Unlike with the United States Supreme Court Mohammed depicted at the top of this page, the New York Courthouse Mohammed was dutifully removed in 1955 as a result of Muslim complaints, and the remaining statues repositioned. The photo shown here is the only known surviving picture of it.
(Hat tip: Daniel Pipes.)

Allegorical depiction of the Rebirth of Greece above a representation of Constantinople; Mohammed (lower right), awestruck, drops a Turkish-style sword (known as a "yataghan"). Though the man is identied as "Mohammed," he is wearing 19th-century clothes, so either it's an unintentional anachronism on the artist's part, or it's meant to depict some other historical gure named Mohammed. A 19th century "pelmet" (a window decoration made of wood) from the island of Syros, Greece. Currently housed in the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece.

Detail of Mohammed from the picture above.

The Sermon of Mohammed. Oil painting on canvas by Italian artist Domenico Morelli, late 19th century. In the Museo Civico Revoltella, Trieste, Italy.

This political cartoon from 1919 shows Mohammed as an allegorical gure representing inationary price levels. (Click on the image to see a larger version of it.) It was drawn by artist Jay Darling, and can now be found at the University of Iowa Libraries, which has a page for the cartoon with full attribution.
(Hat tip: Martin H.)

This is a close-up of the rst Mohammed shown in the 1919 Jay Darling cartoon.

And this is a close-up of the second Mohammed shown in the 1919 Jay Darling cartoon.

Sooreh Hera, a Dutch-Iranian artist, had his piece "Adam & Ewald," which depicted "two gay men wearing masks of the Muslim prophet Mohammed and his son-in-law Ali" rejected by The city museum of The Hague, in December of 2007. In this picture, Mohammed is apparently the one on the left.

This modern drawing of Mohammed was used in public school instructional materials in Spain.

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo has this mohammed portrait on their Web site in a section about the history of Islam.

On one of the pages for its game Age of Empires II, Microsoft features a portrait of Mohammed as part of its description of "the Saracens."
(Hat tip: Martin.)

So far, pressure groups seem not to have noticed the portrait; the Archive has preserved this original .gif le in case Microsoft ever takes it down.

This 20th-century painting from a Shriners' Hall in Maine shows Mohammed receiving a vision.

Another Shriners' painting showing Mohammed (in the red robe on the right) being comforted by his uncle as he hides from Meccans during his ight to Medina.

The former Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada had a Middle-Eastern design theme; among its many Islamic decorations was this ceiling painting of a large gure that some employees claim represents Mohammed. The Aladdin was bought by Planet Hollywood in 2006 and at the time of this writing is being converted into the Planet Hollywood Casino. The original Middle-Eastern decorations, including this painting, are to be removed or destroyed. The second picture shows the painting's location, on the ceiling above the slot machines near the casino's main Las Vegas Boulevard entrance.

Recent issue of French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur with Mohammed on the cover. The magazine has extensive coverage of the Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons but make no mention of its own Mohammed cover.

This reproduction is a bit small, but it shows Mohammed destroying the idols at the Kaaba in Mecca. It is taken from Manly P. Hall's occult guide The Secret Teachings of All Ages, which incorporates ideas from many religions, Christianity and Islam among them.
(Hat tip: MikalM.)

This painting was originally done by Russian symbolist painter and Theosophist Nicholas Roerich in 1932, and is entitled "Mohammed the Prophet," showing Mohammed receiving a vision. It has appeared in the literature of various Christian groups.
(Hat tip: David B., Aquarius, and Nicholas.)

Roerich also made an almost identical painting called Mohammed on Mount Hira that

is much less well-known.

(Hat tip: Raafat.)

Painting of Mohammed preaching. By Russian artist Grigory Gagarin, painted sometime in the 1840s or 1850s. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

As mentioned near the top of this page, in 1928 Liebig's Extract of Meat Company issued a series of six advertising trading cards illustrating important moments in the life of Mohammed. The cards came in both German and French (and possibly other languages as well). A collector has uploaded these images of all six of the Frenchlanguage cards to the Internet Archive. All six are presented here.
(Hat tip: Martin H.)

The Humanist site "Freethunk" features this page of eight Mohammed clip-art images (as well as a few Mohammed cartoons that are included on the "Recent Responses" page of the Archive).

This online clip-art gallery also oers several copyright-free line drawings of Mohammed, including the one shown here.
(Hat tip: Raafat.)

Modern-era painting showing Mohammed. Artist unknown.

Contemporary stylized drawing of Mohammed.

This modern line drawing apparently of Mohammed can be found on this site.
(Hat tip: Raafat.)

Iranian woman artist Oranous (who is a Muslim and lives in Tehran) created this iconic painting of a young Mohammed and is selling it online. Though this would seem to violate Islamic and Iranian law, an expert in Iranian Shi'ite customs writes in to say that this particular painting is not forbidden because it depicts a young Mohammed before he was visited by the Angel Gabriel and started receiving his visions, which means that at this stage in his life he is not yet the Prophet. Oranous apparently based her painting on this old photograph of a young man portraying the young Mohammed.
(Hat tip: baldy and Raafat.)

Artist Irena Mandich recently painted this portrait of Mohammed crying (entitled "Mohammad, Salaam"). This attempt to show Mohammed as sad about the violent Muslim response to the controversy could itself be seen as being even more oensive to Islamic sensibilities.

Artist William Fahey painted this picture entitled Muhammad and the Angel, as part of a series depicting various holy gures. Mohammed is the one looking up into the sky, but the angels also look like Mohammed.
(Hat tip: Raafat.)

This apparent portrait of Mohammed was part of an artwork displayed for a short period in 2007 in the window of a framing store in Berkeley, California.

There is a traditional folk custom in Denmark of giving children small piggy banks with their names printed on them. Either because "Mohammed" was included on a list of popular names, or because someone at the piggy bank company was playing a prank, in 2006 there appeared piggy banks sporting the name "Mohammed," as originally reported by the Danish blog Polimiken and reposted at Gates of Vienna. Because pigs are considered unclean in Islam, and because it appears that the pig is supposed to be Mohammed, some people were concerned that the piggy banks would spark more anti-Denmark riots in the Muslim world.
(Hat tip: Martin and Tom P.)

[Note: What became of the other Iranian icons that used to be on this page? Several readers emailed to say that the few modern icons from Iran (formerly visible here) that supposedly depicted Mohammed in fact depicted his cousin Ali, who is considered the founder of the Shi'ite branch of Islam. The sites from which these pictures were obtained -- The University of Bergen and Jyllands-Posten -- misattributed the images by accident. Our research indicates that it was indeed most likely Ali in the icons, so we apologize for the mix-up. Click here to see the best-known of these icons (still misidentied as Mohammed) on the Jyllands-Posten site. In a similar vein, this medallion sold on eBay and identied by the seller as being Mohammed also appears to actually be Ali instead.]
(Hat tip: Takin, Darmin, Paul C, and father_of_10.)

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Islamic Depictions of Mohammed in Full Islamic Depictions of Mohammed with Face Hidden European Medieval and Renaissance Images Miscellaneous Mohammed Images Dante's Inferno Book Illustrations Book Covers Satirical Modern Cartoons The Jyllands-Posten Cartoons Recent Responses to the Controversy Extreme Mohammed Email Responses from Readers Links