Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
I am writing a children’s book about Eid. It will be aimed at preschoolers ages 3-6. It has simple words and many brightly coloured illustrations. For this purpose, what is the opinion on drawing pictures of people and faces?
Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits.
According to reliable contemporary Hanafi scholars whom I have consulted–including Shaykh Hassaan al-Hindi of Damascus and Shaykh Qasim al-Ta’i of Baghdad–it is permitted to make cartoons and other drawings for children’s educational and recreational materials, basing it on the permission of making, buying, and giving dolls for children, which the Hanafi jurists have affirmed (e.g. in Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar).
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani