It's no secret that tattoos have become a commonly accepted and popular form of self-expression; people young and old wear sleeves of ink, or intimate little designs that peek out from the top of a waistband or the collar of a shirt. Over the past few years, however, a sub-genre of tattoos has emerged, making for elegant designs of ink on skin nd compelling cross-cultural markers: Arabic tattoos.

Although Islam prohibits tattooing, there has been a surge in recent years of people getting Arabic tattoos. From names converted from Latin to Arabic script, to words such as 'love' and 'peace,' the popularity of Arabic tattoos shows the extent of the impact that Arabic-speaking cultures have made on the world at large.

Arabic tattoos documents this trend with colour photographs, stories behind the tattoos and essays that examine the cultural ramifications of these religiously and culturally rich scripts.