Hadiths
The Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: (Whoever treads a path in search of knowledge, God will make easy for him a path to Paradise).
The Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: (Whoever God wants good for, He makes him understand the religion)
The Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: (Seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim).
The Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: (If a person dies, his work is cut off except for three: ongoing charity, beneficial knowledge, or a righteous child who
Faith Belief in the Day of Judgment 1816 2026-10-28

Is It Permissible to Draw a Scale Representing the Weighing of Deeds on the Day of Judgment?

Question
Is it permissible to draw a religious awareness poster depicting a scale with two pans, with symbols of acts of obedience, such as the Qur’an and a mosque, placed in one pan, and symbols of sins and worldly entertainment placed in the other, while citing the verse in which Allah, the Exalted, says: “And the weighing on that Day will be the truth” (Qur’an 7:8)? Or would this constitute depicting matters of the unseen whose exact nature we do not know?
Answer

 

All praise is due to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah.

It is not appropriate to draw such images to represent the conditions of the Hereafter. This is because we do not know the exact nature of matters belonging to the unseen, and portraying them in tangible, visual forms may diminish their significance or lead people to imagine them in ways that differ from what has been conveyed in the religious texts.

The proper approach is to adhere to what has been authentically established in the Qur’an and Sunnah: that the scales will be set up on the Day of Judgment, that deeds will be weighed, and that the people who performed those deeds will also be weighed. We should not attempt to determine how this will happen or depict it visually.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the religious texts indicating that the physical Qur’an or the mosque itself will be placed on the scale. It appears that the intention behind including them in the drawing is to symbolize reciting the Qur’an and maintaining and developing mosques. However, this does not justify depicting a matter of the unseen in this manner.

Scholars have also objected to depicting Paradise as a garden or Hellfire as an ordinary, tangible fire, because their true nature and exact form belong to the unseen, which we do not know. Matters of the Hereafter should not be transformed into pictures and geometric diagrams as though they were things that can be directly observed.

Therefore, those responsible for such religious awareness materials should be advised to restrict themselves to what is established in the religious texts and refrain from depicting details of the unseen whose nature has not been explained by Islamic teachings.

And Allah Almighty knows best.