Operating Quietly, Tattoo Artists Make Their Mark in Iraq; Sign of Western Influence Reemerges Despite Climate of Religious Intimidation

If you found the artist, someone must have told you about him, andthis was precisely what scared him, because it could have gotten himkilled.

He neither advertised his services nor hung a sign on his door.But he could be found: through a small art gallery on the first floorof an anonymous two-story building in downtown Baghdad, up a narrow,twisting flight of stairs, and into the cramped, dank studio withonly one low window obscured by a purple curtain.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said the other day, afterpulling back the curtain to reveal a machine gun propped on the sill."If they find me, they will cut off my head."

The artist drew tattoos.

In Iraq's current climate of intimidation by religious extremists -- accused of murdering those who immodestly wear shorts, or drinkalcohol, or happen to be born with a particular name -- body artcannot be practiced openly. Some Islamic scholars consider tattoosharam, or prohibited by the religion: a desecration of God's creationand the chosen emblem of thugs and convicts. Worse, some consider thepractice an imitation of the "occupiers" from America.

But in market stalls and private homes and small rooms tucked outof sight, tattoo artists are plying an increasingly popular trade,and their young Iraqi customers say they take inspiration fromforeign soldiers, American athletes and the traditional Islamic bodydecorations common among elder generations before Saddam Husseincracked down on the practice.

"Saddam did not allow it, and people who had tattoos would beimprisoned because it is an imitation of the West," said IbrahimSamat, 19, sitting with his shirt off inside the Baghdad tattoo shopas the artist inscribed the head of a tiger onto his left shoulder."I want one because it is a beautiful thing and because lots of youngpeople are doing it."

When U.S.-led troops knocked down Hussein's government, they alsotook out the Baath Party's influence over television stations and theInternet, opening the door to a burst of Western culture. ManyIraqis despise the United States and its military, but it does notprevent them from spending hours on the couch watching Oprah or Dr.Phil.

Such cultural exchanges are common in wartime. The British leftbehind cricket when they departed the Greek Island of Corfu in the19th century. After World War II, Italian singer Renato Carosonefamously crooned to his countrymen: "You want to play the American."

What invading militaries unwittingly bring with them "really has akind of secondary impact that is in some ways more lasting," saidBenjamin Barber, the author of "Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism andTribalism are Reshaping the World."

"We're much better at selling [our culture] unintentionally thanwe are at selling democracy," he said.

Khaman Aziz Qasab Oghlo, 18, a Turkmen student living in thenorthern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, paid $75 to have an eagle tattooed onhis back after admiring the body art of U.S. troops patrolling thecity.

"I didn't only have an eagle drawn on my back, I also went to afitness and weightlifting course, and also boxing, to build up mybody and be impressive," he said. "Because many of the Iraqi girls donot like skinny and poor guys, or weak ones, so for me I consider ita symbol of strength and my personality."

On the walls of the cramped tattoo parlor in downtown Baghdad,hundreds of slips of paper show possible designs: a flaming skull,the "Metallica" logo and the city's most pervasive architecturalflourish, the coil of razor wire. The designs are drawn by SadiqSalman, 29, whose more ambitious work includes an eight-foot-tallcoffin sculpture containing an infant constructed entirely ofcigarette butts.

Some days, there is a line in the hallway as Iraqis -- government bureaucrats, students, soldiers, policemen -- wait togo under the buzzing stylus.

"They don't want something beautiful like a rose or a girl," saidSalman, less concerned about anonymity than the artist who owned theshop. "Most of the people now have sadistic ideas. They don't loveroses or nature, because the atmosphere here encourages an angrymentality."

As for the artists in the war zone, "we are all surrealists now,"he said.

Growing up in Baghdad, Jafr Rahdi, 29, admired his mother's facialtattoos, a series of colored dots running along her chin andeyebrows, a decoration that has fallen from favor among younger Iraqiwomen. When he was imprisoned under Hussein for deserting the Iraqiarmy, Rahdi, a Shiite, tattooed a snake on his left shoulder with aneedle. Across his chest, he pricked out the letters: "When willtears smile?"

Fearing beatings or torture, fellow inmates tattooed Hussein'sface on their bodies, believing no one would touch the image of thedictator, he said, while others wrote on themselves: "We all payallegiance to you, Saddam."

After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Rahdi wanted to apply for ajob as a police officer with the Interior Ministry, but he learnedthat during the initial strip search, those with tattoos were weededout. So he injected painkillers into his arm, heated an iron andseared off his snake.

"You could smell the flesh burning," he said.

He got the job.

His friend, Mortada Ali, tattooed a forked sword on his rightforearm while living abroad in Lebanon. The image depicts the swordof Imam Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, and isa dead giveaway that Mortada Ali is a Shiite.

"Because of this tattoo, if I drive through a Sunni area I will bekilled," he said.

In the friends' neighborhood of Sadr City, a tattoo artist worksin a market stall powering his tools off a car battery. The owner ofthe shop learned his trade while living in Lebanon in the early1990s. When he returned to Iraq after the 2003 invasion, he found thewartime economy desolate and opened his shop because he could notfind other work. He worked clandestinely, hoping for a more tolerantfuture.

"I don't want to talk about politics. I just want to live a normallife," he said. "But they won't let me, because everyone tries toforce their ideology on me."

Back in the tattoo parlor above the art gallery, the owner turnedto Ibrahim Samat and hurriedly finished his tiger tattoo while therewas still electricity in the shop. When he finished, Samat walkedacross the room to the full-length mirror.

"Beautiful," he said. "Very beautiful."

This week, the owner's secret was revealed. Police officers fromthe Interior Ministry found Dawood Salaman Saleh in his shop, tookhim to headquarters and forced him to sign a letter promising hewould never draw another tattoo, he said. He suspects he tattooed oneof the policemen, who then informed his superiors.

Saleh plans to seek asylum in Egypt, someplace where a man couldlive a quieter life, where a man could draw a picture of a tiger.

Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Saad al-Izzi in Baghdadand staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis in Washington contributed tothis report.