[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by MattP

cover images are everywhere in bookstores and newsstands. in many of them, cover images of magazines are much more liberal than the ones in the United States.

representational art in Islam while traditionally discouraged still took place several hundred years ago in the form of miniatures.

an example for a miniature from Iran:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...tan_Palace.jpg

an example from the Ottoman Empire:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...ith_dishes.jpg

To be fair, these examples are not necessarily representative of: a.) the view of the average Muslim or b.) the stand point of the fuquhaa', or Muslim Jurisprudents who codify Islamic law. That being said, while representational covers may indeed be a factor for the Gulf countries, I don't see it being an issue in Turkey, North Africa, or South Asia. I know from personal experience that bookstores in Pakistan carry books with representational covers. As a matter of fact, there are sub-genres of Urdu pulps which can have rather racy, James Bond-esque covers. Jasusi Digest comes to mind as an example.

Luqman