People and Animals in Islamic Art: What Museum Objects Show
Museum objects show people and animals in Islamic art. Explore literary bowls, modeled figures and changing uses, with context for religious settings.
People and animals do appear in historical Islamic art. Painted bowls, carved figures, illustrated literature and richly decorated metalwork provide surviving examples. Their presence is especially associated with courtly, literary and domestic settings, while religious spaces often use different visual conventions.
The apparent contradiction comes partly from the label. In a museum, “Islamic art” is a broad art-historical category, not a declaration that every object was made for worship or approved by every religious authority. Looking at what an object was for is more useful than assuming that one rule explains an entire collection.
What museums mean by Islamic art
LACMA's introduction to its Islamic art collection explicitly includes both objects made for religion and secular works produced in lands under Islamic rule or influence. It also cautions that the maker's or patron's own religious affiliation is not determined by that broad category.
That definition explains why a gallery can include a Qur'an manuscript, a drinking vessel, an architectural fragment and an illustrated story. These objects did not all perform the same task. Their grouping makes historical relationships available for study; it does not turn a bowl into a liturgical object.
It is useful to ask two different questions: “Why is this object included in this art-historical collection?” and “What did its users do with it?” The first concerns a modern classification. The second concerns the object's historical function, which may be known precisely, inferred or still uncertain.
The category also does not settle an artist's identity. An anonymous painter's religion cannot be reconstructed from the presence of a horse or a human face. A date, place, inscription, documented commission or identifiable workshop offers more concrete evidence than a guess based on imagery alone.
Religious settings and other settings are not interchangeable
The Metropolitan Museum's essay on figural representation describes both the importance of human and animal imagery outside religious settings and the religious objections that helped shape its use. It places those objections within a longer history of concerns about images and idolatry.
The V&A's introductory teaching activity offers a deliberately limited observation: artists making objects for mosques and other religious buildings do not usually include people and animals. Instead, the examples emphasize color, geometry, plants and writing. “Do not usually” is a more careful description than a claim that no figure ever appeared anywhere in Muslim history.
The difference is about context, not an opposition between art and religion. A patron could commission an architectural inscription for one setting and an illustrated literary work for another. The audiences, activities and expectations attached to those settings were different.
Nor do museum objects resolve every religious question about making, displaying or photographing images today. Historical evidence answers whether particular forms existed and how they were used. A contemporary religious ruling answers a different question within a specified interpretive tradition. One should not be smuggled into the place of the other.
A painted bowl can tell a literary story
The Met's Bahram Gur and Azada bowl, attributed to Iran and dated to the twelfth–thirteenth century, carries an episode associated with the Persian Shahnama tradition. The museum identifies the figures and explains that the painter combines two moments of the narrative in a single composition.
This matters because an image is not always a snapshot of one instant. A figure appearing twice may organize a story rather than record two different people. Familiarity with the narrative helps a viewer understand why the composition departs from what a camera could capture.
The object's material matters as well. Its stonepaste body and polychrome decoration belong to the category commonly called mina'i ware. Literature was therefore carried by a ceramic surface, not only by the pages of a book. Our Mina'i ware article examines that production context in greater detail.
The distinction between story and record should remain clear. A painted literary episode is evidence of the story's representation on an object. It is not independent evidence that every narrated event happened exactly as depicted. That applies just as much to a historical epic painted on a bowl as to an illustrated manuscript.
A modeled human figure belonged to architectural display
The Standing Figure with Feathered Headdress offers a different medium. The Met dates it to the twelfth–early thirteenth century and attributes it to Iran. It is made from modeled and carved gypsum plaster with paint and gilding.
The museum suggests that figures of this kind probably represented guards, viziers or amirs and decorated a ruler's reception setting. Those are qualified identifications: the figure is not securely named as one particular person merely because its clothing looks imposing.
Its condition also complicates a casual reading. The collection record notes early twentieth-century restoration, including additions and some modern pigments. The object therefore supplies evidence for historical figural decoration while also requiring attention to which parts of its present appearance reflect restoration.
That combination is an excellent reason to read beyond a photograph's caption. “Human sculpture existed” is a conclusion the object supports. “Every visible color is original,” “this is a portrait of a named ruler” and “all reception rooms had figures like it” would require evidence the brief identification does not provide.
The example also broadens the idea of an image. Figural art can occupy three-dimensional space and participate in an architectural environment. It need not be limited to a small painting that someone viewed privately in a book.
Objects can acquire new uses across cultures
The Louvre's introduction to Islamic art describes a brass basin decorated with people, horses and other animals, now known as the “Baptistery of Saint Louis.” Its later use for French royal baptisms is part of the object's history, while the museum makes clear that the name does not mean Saint Louis himself used it.
The distinction between an original setting and a later use is crucial. An object can travel, be collected, receive a new name and enter a different ceremonial setting. Its later identity does not erase its earlier manufacture, and its modern label may tell only one part of the story.
The Louvre also holds the Pyxis of al-Mughira, recorded under inventory number OA 4068 and dated 968. Its inscription and collection record anchor the discussion in a particular object and historical moment. The museum's presentation includes it among works that demonstrate the variety of the collection, rather than reducing that collection to mosque decoration.
When comparing such objects, avoid using the current museum department as proof of original ritual function. “Held in the Department of Islamic Art,” “made for a Muslim patron,” “used in worship” and “later used in a Christian ceremony” are different statements. Some may apply to one object at different times, but each requires its own evidence.
Figures and patterns often belong to the same visual language
Human or animal imagery does not have to replace ornament. A figure can appear within a patterned border, next to an inscription or against a field of stylized vegetation. The Met's figural essay describes the adaptation of human, animal and fantastic forms into decorative compositions across several media.
For a viewer, this means the question “Does it have figures?” is only a starting point. A useful next question is what the figures are doing within the design. Are they telling a story, filling a repeated unit, establishing rank through their placement or creating the shape of a vessel?
Those are possible analytical questions, not answers that should be assigned before examining the object. A horse on one surface may belong to a narrative; a horse-shaped handle may serve a different compositional purpose. Similar subject matter does not establish identical meaning.
Writing also deserves to be read as writing when possible. It may identify a maker, quote a text, convey a wish or form part of a decorative band. Our guide to Arabic calligraphy scripts helps distinguish script forms, while the geometric-pattern explanation addresses the organization of repeated shapes.
For a manuscript-focused example, the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp article follows one particular illustrated book. That narrower history complements the comparison here without implying that one manuscript represents every period or region.
Reading the evidence precisely
The examples establish that historical Islamic art includes recognizable figures in more than one medium. They also show why a museum visitor should avoid treating a broad cultural category as a single, unchanging set of instructions for artists.
| Evidence | A supported conclusion | A conclusion it does not establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| A literary scene on a ceramic bowl | The story was represented on that kind of object | Every scene is an eyewitness record |
| A modeled human figure with an attributed courtly setting | Figural architectural display formed part of this artistic history | Every visible detail is original or every court used the same scheme |
| A basin later used in another religious setting | Objects can gain new functions and names | Its later name identifies the original patron |
| A nonfigural design in a religious context | That setting used a particular visual convention | Every Muslim artwork everywhere excluded figures |
A final limitation concerns survival. A museum collection is not a census of everything a society made. Expensive commissions, objects preserved by later collectors and fragments recovered under particular circumstances can be easier to study than the full range of everyday possessions.
Use a small set of famous objects to test broad claims, not to calculate what every household owned. One securely identified human figure can disprove “there were no human figures.” It cannot tell us the percentage of people who displayed them or what every individual thought about them.
The most accurate short answer is therefore affirmative but specific: people and animals appear in historical Islamic art, and their purpose and reception depend on the object, period and setting. The next step is to identify those particulars.
Sources
- LACMA, Islamic Art Collection: the breadth of the art-historical category.
- Met, Figural Representation in Islamic Art: figural traditions, contexts and different media.
- Met, Bahram Gur and Azada, 57.36.13: a literary narrative on a mina'i ceramic bowl.
- Met, Standing Figure with Feathered Headdress, 57.51.18: attribution, likely setting and documented restoration.
- Louvre, An Introduction to Islamic Art: collection breadth and the basin's later history.
- Louvre, Pyxis of al-Mughira, OA 4068: a dated and inscribed collection object.
- V&A, Islamic tile and printed-pattern activity: a limited introductory explanation of imagery in religious settings.
Prepared by Muslim Post Editorial Desk. Research checked 7 September 2026. The article compares art-historical evidence; it does not issue a religious ruling. Dates, attributions and restoration qualifications follow the named collections.
