What is a drawing of Muhammad?

[Leonardo17]

In the 7th century Byzantine Empire there was also this situation in which believers were told by their leaders that worshiping the pictures of Jesus and the saints was idolatry. So many of the magnificent byzantine mosaics etc. were damaged, hidden or replaced by a simple cross.
 
In Islam the prophet had ordered his followers to not even put his sayings (hadiths) in written format. And they obeyed him for almost 200 years. So both the Hadiths and the pictures of the prophet started to appear toward the 10th century, mostly based on oral traditions and some verbal descriptions.
 
That’s what the prophet wanted. He knew that his teachings would start “evolving” over time so he made the decision of leaving us with a simple legacy which is the holy book itself.
 
So that’s the only element in this story that has some sort religious basis of some sort.
 
Otherwise, the religion of the masses is not just “The Opium of the masses”. Unfortunately in some churches or religious groups (many actually), it’s still being used as a tool to keep everyone in line and it is very fear based because fear is the most simple way of controlling other people. So they will take the simple reality I stated above and they will exaggerate things, they add new things, they will spice with anger toward dominant social classes or hatred toward the dominant economies of our time. Then they will create unreal enemies and direct all the frustration of their followers toward these targets etc.
 
Besides: There are images from the life of the prophet in Iranian and ottoman book illustration that show him as a flame, as a person whose face is covered or as a bearded person like any other person in the illustration.  



This is From Al-Biruni (Iran / 13th century, Currently inthe National Library in France) 

Here the prophet is seen preachin ghis earliest followers in Mecca. There is this one and many others if you search for it