Body Piercings

Ruling of body piercing
It is permissible for women to adorn themselves with jewellery and for this purpose, it will be permissible for women (not for men) to pierce their ears. Some Ulama have also given fundamental permissibility of piercing the nose because it had become a practice of Muslim women in many areas and the Ulema of those areas condoned it, after giving it a lot of thought.

Apart from the ears and nose, it will not be permissible for women to pierce any other body parts. It is not permissible for the males to pierce any of their body parts.

Piercing the tongue, lips and other body parts

As we have mentioned above, it will not be permissible for women to pierce their body parts except the ears even if it is to please their husbands. The wife is ordered to beautify herself for her husband in Sharee’ah, but this does not mean that she could go to any lengths for this.

The Share’ah has qualified this order with other conditions such as for instance, the wife being allowed to beautify herself for her husband with the proviso that no emulation should be found with the Kuffar or with people who are open transgressors and blatantly follow the dictates of their evil selves. Since it is a fact that the piercing of these parts of the body (tongue, lips, clitoris, belly, eyebrows etc) is an act that has been initiated by the Kuffaar and is a sign of the open transgressors and scum of today’s society, the piercing of these parts of the body will not be permissible.

Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam has said:
“He who emulates a nation is from amongst them’’ 

To anologize the piercing of the belly on the piercing of the ears will not make it permissible due to the fact that piercing of the ears has been practised from the time of the Sahabah Radiallahu Anhum, through all the past generations of Islam and was accepted and sanctioned by Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam and all the Ulama through the ages. 

Furthermore, it is a well known fact that piercing of these body parts (belly, tongue , etc), causes discomfort and pain and, fundamentally, one should not do any such unnecessary action that subjects the body to pain. One may argue that piercing the ears also causes some degree of pain, but because piercing of the ears has been condoned and sanctioned by Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam and it is not an act that enjoys the exclusivity of Kuffaar innovation and tradition (as is the case with belly, tongue and eyebrow, etc piercing), it would be permissible to pierce the ears. In other words, due to the pain and discomfort factor, analogy would have dictated the prohibition of even ear-piercing, but because ear-piercing has been sanctioned by Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam, we would give preference to the sanctioning of Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam against the dictate of analogy.  

As piercing of other body parts were never sanctioned by Rasolullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam or the SahabahRadiallahu Anhum and other pious predecessors, we have to apply the original analogy, which entails prohibition of piercing of the other body parts, due to the factor of pain and discomfort. Moreover, piercing of the belly, tongue, eyebrows etc is an innovation of the latter times initiated by the kuffaar and not sanctioned by our pious predecessors.