Mom, why isn’t there a picture of our prophet?

In this study I problematize the silence of Turkish art education toward the historical ‘unease’ about figurative representation in Islamic cultures. I provide readers with textual and visual evidence that calls for art teachers’ attention to this issue. This evidence consists of examples from a variety of sources including survey results, interview transcripts, documentary photographs, and religious, official and popular texts. Taken together, they form a rationale for a comprehensive study that sets out to interpret the current situation with regard to the long-standing beliefs about figurative representation in Turkish/Islamic culture.