Why are people depicted when in Islam representation of the human form is forbidden by the Koran?
Mughal Emperor Akbar (1556–1605) is credited with promoting painting in his court of all kinds of subjects, including humans. He was curious about many religions and tried to synthesize them to show his multicultural interest. Though he was not always popular with Muslim scholars, he encouraged the Hindu artists to learn from the master artists he and his father brought from Persia. Akbar believed artwork could be a means to achieve greater understanding of the creator and therefore allowed human figures to be painted. He said It appears to me as if a painter has quite peculiar means of recognizing God; for a painter in sketching anything that has life, and in devising its limbs, one after the other, must come to feel that he cannot bestow individuality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God, the Giver of Life, and will thus increase in knowledge.
