Padlocks have also played a role in religious contexts. Locks have been used as amulets and talismans with inscribed prayers or religious expressions. Pregnant women used padlock amulets to protect them against miscarriage.
Padlocks have been given as gifts, greetings and blessings for pilgrims and other visitors to mosques and the shrines of prophets or religious figures of the past. The sick and needy also sacrificed locks to which a few threads of their clothing were tied. These sacrificial locks, which were sometimes made of precious metals, were attached to an iron grate, chains or similar.