ARABIC AND ISLAMIC CALLIGRAPHY

Arabic Calligraphy for Tattoos
Custom Arabic calligraphy
for use as a Tattoo

I have been receiving many requests for designing or writing names or phrases in Arabic script to be used as tattoos.
I am sorry that I have to decline such requests because I understand that tattoos are not allowed in Islam. Thanks to one of Sakkal.com visitors, Br. Jameel, I was informed of this quote from the book "The Lawful and the prohibited in Islam" by Yousef Al-Qaradawi. I hope you will find this information useful as I did.

http://www.qaradawi.net/english/books/tree-view/library.htm

Chapter 2:
The Prohibition of Tattooing, Cutting the Teeth, and Undergoing Surgery for Beautification

Among such excesses are tattooing and shortening the teeth. (A beautification practice of the pre-Islam Arabs. (Trans.)) The Messenger of Allah (peace be on him) cursed the tattooer and the one who is tattooed, the shortener of teeth and the one whose teeth are shortened. (Reported by Muslim.)

As far as tattooing is concerned, it permanently disfigures the face and other parts of the body with blue pigment and repulsive designs. Some Arabs, especially women, were in the habit of tattooing large portions of their bodies, while people of certain religious sects tattooed pictures of their deities or religious rituals on their hands and chests. To all these abominations is added the pain and agony which the person being tattooed must undergo from the pricking of the needles. Because all of this, both the tattooer and the one who is tattooed have been cursed.

As for cutting or shortening the teeth, the Prophet (peace be on him) cursed both the men and the women who do it and the women who request it. If a man does it, he merits an even greater curse. Similarly, the Prophet (peace be on him) prohibited widening the spaces between the teeth, and he cursed ...Women who widen the gaps between their own or others' teeth for the sake of beauty, changing what Allah has created.

Now, Allah obviously created some women with gaps between their teeth and others without. Some women who have no such gaps desire to create them artificially, either by filing or by cutting away parts of the adjoining teeth. Islam considers this a form of deception and excessive involvement with personal beauty, both of which it discourages.

From these ahadith of the Prophet (peace be on him), we also know the ruling of the Islamic Shari'ah concerning plastic surgery. Surgeries for beautification are in vogue today as the result of the materialistic outlook of Western civilization, a civilization stressing the body and its desires. Men and women spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to reshape their noses or breasts, or whatever they consider misshapen. This behavior most certainly belongs in the category of excessive beautification, unnecessarily changing what Allah has created, and it merits the curse of Allah and His Prophet (peace be on him). It likewise involves torture, pain, and waste of money merely for the sake of one's appearance; it is, moreover, an expression of an individual's preoccupation with form rather than substance, with body rather than with spirit. It may happen that a person has an unusual physical defect, which attracts the attention of others to the point of inflicting physical and psychological pain every time he meets people. In this case, he may treat the defect and thus alleviate the embarrassment which made his life miserable. Allah the Most Merciful has imposed no hardship on us in religion.... (Al Bahee al-Khooly, Al Mar'ah Bain al-Bait wal-Mujtama', 2nd edition, p. 105.)

This statement is perhaps supported by the hadith concerning widening the gap between the teeth for the sake of beautification, for what is disapproved here is doing this merely for the sake of achieving good looks and artificial beauty. However, if it is needed to eliminate pain or distress, there is nothing wrong with it; but Allah knows best.

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