Response to Tattoos and piercings

I think that, just like in any religion, there are people who follow the rules more closely and those that don’t. It seems like a pretty common theme among religions to keep your body pure in a variety of ways. First, what you put into your body, food, alcohol, drugs, and secondly what you do to the outside of your body, tatooes and piercings. It goes along with the whole body as a temple type of thing that’s fairly widespread.

Just a thought, do you feel that Muslims seem to stick more closely to the rules than Christians, Hindus, Jews or Buddhists?

I kind of feel that it is the case but then again I’m not Muslim nor do I have a ton of Muslim friends to compare.

Life of Muhammad

In class today, we talked about the life of the Prophet Muhammad.  His story was very interesting in many aspects.  I felt that the most interesting part, however, was when he went along with his uncle up to Syria.  A monk saw them coming and went to talk to them.  The monk told Muhammad’s uncle, Abu Talib, to protect Muhammad from people who would try to hurt him because he saw that Muhammad was indeed the final Prophet.  I was confused about this, however.  Did the monk tell Muhammad that he was the final Prophet?  And, if so, did Muhammad believe this guy?  The reason I’m confused is because the monk knew he was the final Prophet, but nobody else knew.  Therefore, if Muhammad had this knowledge, how come he thought he was going crazy when he had his first revelation?  If he didn’t know then I would understand that this would be a very scary thing to happen to somebody.

Tattoos and piercings

I know that certain religions do not allow tattoos and piercings, yet some people that are of that religion still go ahead and get tattoos and piercings. I was unsure of where Islam stood with this so I tried to look it up. From what I read, woman can pierce their ears. Nothing else is permitted for women or for men. So I was wondering…do Muslims often go against this that anyone knows of? I mean I’m sure there is always that one person that will go ahead and do what they want, but is it typical?