An image on cloth for the sake of trade

Question

I work in a power-loom factory. On the border of saris one also has to make a pattern of flowers and leaves. For a long time people have wanted me to make a peacock on the border; I kept putting it off, but now that earning a livelihood is going badly and the customers’ insistence has grown, I made a peacock design. What needs to be clarified is: is preparing such a design, through which a thing with a form has come about, permissible or impermissible? If I do not make it, the owner is displeased.

Answer

The image of an animate being — whether it is made on a wall, on paper or on cloth and the like, whether with a pen, by a machine or with some other instrument, all at once or each limb separately, in the weaving of cloth or in the making of any other thing — is in every case impermissible and a sin.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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