Is cosmetic surgery permissible in Islam?

Islamic scholars generally distinguish between reconstructive surgery undertaken to correct a genuine defect, injury, or disability, and purely elective cosmetic surgery undertaken to alter a normal, healthy appearance for aesthetic preference. Reconstructive surgery, such as repairing a cleft lip, restoring skin after burns, or correcting a birth defect, is widely permitted, since removing harm and restoring normal function serves a recognized medical necessity. Purely cosmetic procedures are more contested. The Quran describes Satan's promise to mislead people into changing the creation of Allah (4:119), and the Prophet ﷺ cursed women who practice tattooing and eyebrow-plucking for artificial beauty, along with those who file their teeth for beauty, altering what Allah has created (Sahih al-Bukhari 5931) — texts many scholars apply by analogy to elective cosmetic surgery done merely to chase a beauty ideal. On this basis, many scholars discourage or prohibit purely vanity-driven procedures with no medical basis. However, some scholars permit cosmetic correction of something that causes genuine psychological distress or social harm, reasoning that removing real hardship is also an Islamic objective. Risk, cost, and intention matter throughout: procedures involving unnecessary risk to health or done from vanity rather than need are viewed most cautiously.

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