The tattoo on Nidal Arabiyat's left arm revealed all the pain he came to know as a child when a car slammed into his mother and killed her as they crossed a street together, holding hands. "The world," it said in Arabic, "is not worth one teardrop."
But Mr. Arabiyat's bitter sorrow eventually gave way to a more powerful force in his life. He, like thousands of other young Arab men, found religion and signed on to fight a jihad in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where he became a follower of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
With his newfound calling, he had the tattoo removed, painfully, because Muslims believe that those who have tattoos are damned.
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