Religious perspectives on tattooing
Tattoos hold rich historical and cultural significance as permanent markings on the body, conveying personal, social, and spiritual meanings.
However, religious interpretations of tattooing vary widely, from acceptance and endorsement to strict prohibitions associating it with the desecration of the sacred body.
Tattooing was performed during springtime or during special religious celebrations such as the Feast of St. Joseph, and consisted mostly of Christian crosses on hands, fingers, forearms, and below the neck and on the chest.
"[10] Tattoos and multiple body piercings are also considered to be part of a worldly fad of shallow individuality, and church members are cautioned to not "pay ovations to the god of style.
[18] Turkish professor of religious studies Remzi Kuscular states that tattoos are sinful but that they do not violate a Muslim's wuḍūʾ.
[25] In a 1965 article published in the journal Man: A Record of Anthropological Science, author John Carswell documented that Sunni and Shia Muslims in Lebanon would get tattoos of the swords of Abu Bakr and Ali, respectively, to distinguish themselves from one another.
[26] According to historians Shoshana-Rose Marzel and Guy Stiebel, face tattoos were common among Muslim women until the 1950s but have since fallen out of fashion.
[30][31] Margo DeMello, a cultural anthropologist and professor at Canisius College, notes that tattoos are still common in some parts of the Muslim world such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt.
[33][34][32] Muslims believe that tattooing is a sin, because it involves changing the natural creation of God, inflicting unnecessary pain in the process.
They also claim that those who are decorated with tattoos are contaminated with najis,[36] due to potential mixture of blood and coloured pigment that remains upon the surface of the skin.
[24] Scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi states that tattoos are sinful because they are an expression of vanity and they alter the physical creation of God.
[39] According to the online South African Deobandi fatwa service called Ask-the-Imam, Muslims should remove any tattoos they have if possible or cover them in some way.
However, it is not permissible to have Quranic verses, names of Ahlulbayt (a.s), drawings of Imams (a.s), Hadiths, unislamic and inappropriate images or the likes tattooed onto the body.
"[42] Tattoos can be prohibited in Judaism[46] based on the Torah (Leviticus 19:28): "You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord."
Huehnergard and Liebowitz therefore suggest that tattooing was forbidden in the Torah because it was a symbol of servitude and the primacy of escaping Egyptian bondage in ancient Jewish theological law.
One reading of Leviticus is to apply it only to the specific ancient practice of rubbing the ashes of the dead into wounds; but modern tattooing is included in other religious interpretations.
Orthodox Jews disagree, and read the text as referring to forced tattooing—as was done during the Holocaust—which is not considered a violation of Jewish Law on the part of the victim.
In another vein, cutting into the skin to perform surgery and temporary tattooing used for surgical purposes (e.g.: to mark the lines of an incision) are permitted in the Shulhan Arukh 180:3.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis has issued a responsa on tattooing that describes it as "an act of hubris and manipulation that most surely runs counter to the letter and spirit of our tradition" and which dishonors the body.
[54] Even if a Rabbi considered a tattoo to be a violation of a prohibition it is still not grounds for refusing the right to burial or synagogue rituals simply because it is no more egregious that any other sin, it is only more visible.
