Body Piercing in the Arab World

Body piercing is growing in popularity in the Arab world. Fashion is gaining popularity among men and women. Piercing has created a real market for body piercers and jewelry shops that are going their best to beat the competition and engage customers with creative designs of their jewelry.

In different cultures around the world, people have pierced their ears and nose to wear jewelry. However, in the Arab world, there is a different approach to piercing. It is allowed for women to have their ears pierced. And what about nose piercing? It’s an India/Pakistan thing. Traditionally, wearing a nose piercing indicates that a woman is married, though many unmarried young women also wear nose piercing today.

There is a belief among Kashmiri women of higher descent that this nose piercing practice in India and Pakistan was initially a practice associated only with other aboriginal women. So it seems like this tradition of avoiding nose piercing is only preserved among many Kashmiri families. In contrast, the rest of Pakistan’s ethnicities have happily adopted this aboriginal Hindu women’s nose piercing practice.