The illusion of motion in television is produced by showing 30 still PICTURES, or frames, each second. Through persistence of vision the brain retains each PICTURE until the next comes along. We are not aware of the fact that our eyes are really seeing a rapidly changing sequence of a large number of slightly different still PICTURES. Each still PICTURE consists of about 250,000 picture dots of varying brightness which appear as if painted on the screen. This process is called scanning. (Encyclopedia International)
It should at this point be said that the undesirability and the Islamic prohibition of this institution of television is not based solely on the stand that PHOTOGRAHY (picture-making) of animate objects is employed. Without minimizing the importance of the decisiveness of the prohibitory factor of PICTURE-MAKING, it has to be said that a number of other evil and UN-Islamic factors accompany the institution of television. It is this combination of evil factors which make television ILLEGAL in Islam although, in most cases, EACH SINGLE ONE OF THESE FACTORS IS SUFFICIENT TO SECURE THE ILLEGALITY OF TV. Insha-Allah, we shall outline these prohibitory factors (Asbaabul Hurmat) of television in the following pages.