Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have many things in common. They are all monotheistic religions that place heavy importance on religious texts such as the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran. These

three religions also believe in the presence of religious law and one of these beliefs they share in common is the disapproval of idolatry, or the worship of idols. In the Ten Commandments, which is shared under Judaism and Christianity, it is stated that "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God." This concept also appears in the Islamic religion as the concept known as Shirk and is stated in the Britannica Online Encyclopedia that "shirk became legally equivalent to kufr (unbelief)" which is a sin. In the 8th century CE, people commonly included religious icons in their worship which Byzantine Christians and subsequent Byzantine rulers saw as a form of idolatry. This caused the Iconoclastic Council in 754 CE where the Byzantine Emperors implemented a policy known as Iconoclasm. Their new policy became the legal support to begin destroying religious icons from places of worship and forbidding them in personal worship as well. This movement caused great division in the Byzantine empire where people who supported the new laws, commonly referred to as Iconoclasts, faced great conflicts with the people who defended the use of these icons, also known as iconophiles. This conflict lasted for several centuries where each side had their temporary victories and moments of power. However, the iconophiles eventually came out on top due to the Orthodox Christian traditions which became the dominant force and accepted the use of icons in peoples worship. Reply