A Research on the Context and Reasons of Muslim Painter's Reluctance to the Islam's Prophet's (S.W.A.) Iconography in Painting before theIlkhanid Period

Although researchers disagree about the prophet’s first illustration,it should be accepted that following the emergence of the Ilkhanids in Iran, iconography made considerable progress, and the question here is why prior to this era, illustration of prophet hasn’t been paid much attention to by Muslim painters? In other words, why Muslims were not influenced by the Christian iconography when they were introduced to the Christian civilization and culture?The aim of this essay is to find out the context and reasons of reluctance of the artists to prophet’s iconography throughthe criticism of art historians, views and the scrutiny of the influence of jurisprudence of illustration. The findings of this research indicate that the scientific and legendary contents of the books chosen for illustration didn,t provide the painters with a context for iconography, and principles of the Muslims and prophets, high statuses on the other hand, didn,t create the tendency for the painters in order to be able to do iconography. The research is conducted based on library sources,usinganalytical- descriptivemethod.