Baraka And Black Magic In Morocco

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It is interesting to mention, in this respect, that the official religion in Morocco is Islam and that Islam forbids such practices. With the intention of breaking this curse/bad eye, the witch took the eggs that the man brought, and she started breaking them one by one, by doing some of her recitations. On the other hand, PR manager Abdullah saw no harm in recruiting from Morocco provided that a minimum age for workers is set and that watchdogs control visa allocations closely to prevent any foul play. There is a teal lace-like fabric hanging over the entrance that you have to lift above your head to get past. Inside, the walls are white like alabaster, but almost everything else has a leafy hue. There are pine green candles and a repugnant henna concoction spread out across a table covered by a harlequin green cover, couches covered in a dim emerald cloth, green glass rose water bottles, a deep olive Islamic tapestry and other green Koranic posters. As an example, sometimes people refer to mental health problems as the consequence of being possessed by a demon or of result of an evil-eye spell.

There are also elements of this influence in two Moroccan stories that I chose for “Tajdeed,” a special issue of The Common ( Issue 11, Spring 2016) that was devoted entirely to Arabic short fiction in translation, “ Minouche” by Anis Arafai and “ An Owl in Roskilde” by Ismail Ghazali, though the events of the latter take place not in Morocco, but in Denmark. And of course, the stories chosen for the Issue 21 Morocco portfolio feature these magical elements as well. Acts like these, including the abandoned underwear, are common occurrences in shrines dealing with fertility issues in Morocco, despite the fact that explicitly leaving something behind as sexual as underwear is often looked down upon by Morocco’s conservative society. However, since shrines are already a controversial space, these women desperately engage in this act in hopes that it will make their problems go away.In Tiflet, a small town in northwestern Morocco, Fatima fiddles with the beads between her fingertips as she tells the customer her future in a secluded room located in the corner of her house. She wears bright pink pajamas concealed by a flimsy old cloth to connect with the Djinn that haunts her. Everything around her, from the tablecloth to the Islamic tapestry behind her, is green. Although also found in Christianity and Judaism, casting spells is particularly common in Oman, Sudan, Yemen, Morocco and Indonesia. Turkey is a secular Muslim country, but protection against evil eye is deeply rooted in virtually all aspects of daily life. Tools of witchcraft include using lizards, dead birds, photographs, hair, thread, dirt, blood and red ink. Hiding places to place the “spell” may be in bedrooms and under beds. Written spells generally contain the intended victim’s name and one or two words to state the intention to do harm. Although Philips says that ignorance is no excuse for breaking laws, forgiveness should be considered. “God does forgive ignorance,” he says. “We should be more tolerant in some cases because some people are not doing (harmful) things deliberately.” Until these days, since pre-Islamic times, pilgrims travel to Sidi Chamharouch to cure themselves or their loved ones from illnesses or exorcism, bringing animals to sacrifice. Unmodified photograph of the Sidi Chamharouch shrine taken by James Handlon in 2014, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

At the time, she was working for Moroccan Exchange, an organization that brings American students studying in Spain to Morocco. She was taking a group of students from the Syracuse University Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion to observe different health services, both traditional and medicinal, in Morocco. This is an undeniable concept here, and here comes the concept of powerful belief, followed by the law of attraction. This mystical spirit appears in many different forms within Morocco’s literary canon. First, it is embodied within many of the characters in these stories: those beloved by God, seers, wearers of the Sufi cloak known as the khirqa, “crazed” mystics, people granted divine miracles, and those whose bodily weaknesses are offset by spiritual abilities, anointing them with auras of grace and sanctity. This spirit is also present in the characters we read, who hold some of these mystical qualities though are not themselves mystics. Finally, we find it also in the characters who are influenced by people of mystical attributes.Obviously whoever visits any of these practitioners – especially those who claim to make magic -prefer to keep it private for several reasons, therefore I have to tell this story by keeping some details in the dark. The practise of witchcraft is taken seriously in Morocco where it also deemed anti-Islamic, however despite this, the practise is prevalent in the country and many people resort to it hoping to resolve a variety of issues ranging from love to infertility and other health issues. There are YouTube tutorials on the matter, magic spells and recipes are also widespread on Whatsapp according to Yabiladi. The majority of the Moroccans who believe in the superpowers of these so-called saints are people of varying ages, social classes, and educational levels yet bearing the same purposes and beliefs. These people are both males and females, full of despair and distress and visiting mausoleums is a therapy for them. Attending those vaults made them gleam with hope, and optimism persuaded that the blessings and superpowers of the saints will improve their current status. The mausoleums attract thousands of people who think they will be bestowed by the saints and will be granted their wishes. Currently, the mainstream visitors of these mausoleums are women who claim the assistance of these deceased individuals. Most of the mausoleums became famous for the sorcery that invaded the sepulchers’ outskirts and not for the claimed blessings nor the noble reputation of the individuals buried inside the graves [1].

The shortest and most condensed short story of this portfolio is Malika Moustadraf’s “Lousy,” in which we find the square transformed into a room of female detainees in a prison, the din of crumbling childhood memories, and extracts of a conversation with a lover whose fate we don’t fully understand, but whose impact on the narrator is not lost on us. There is no mistaking the magical elements with which Moustadraf concludes her story, leading us to contemplate the transformations impacting our world. It is a world we no longer understand, whose keys we no longer possess. Moustadraf’s story unfurls in a dream-like, or nightmarish, state from which the narrative tries to awaken, to no avail. Though Saaidi believes in shawafas and their abilities, she also admitted that the effects could be purely psychological. Yes, because we can all believe in our religion but also be scared enough to believe (or want to believe) that something will or will not happen because of magical reasons, unseen forces, out of human control.

Followers of the Saints

The queue is always there, we guess there must be some results, right? It is worth specifying that one session costs much less than a visit at a conventional doctors cabinet in Morocco. Chawafa/Chiwafa: Witches/sorceresses instead, are known as such. Aisha, the wife of Prophet (peace be upon him), was the first to open a ‘school for women.’ She was teaching women about even the most intimate details of their lives with their husbands.

Shrines (known as Qubba or Zaouia ) all over the country, small and big, are the destination of pilgrims that travel to have their wishes for healing and protection fulfilled. By confessing, praying, bringing offerings at the Saint’s tomb they try to get blessings and healing. The women in these stories do not need someone to speak for them, to justify their actions or explain either their own behavior or society’s behaviors towards them. Here we find active internal dynamics, women in action. They do not mourn or beg for sympathy or sell grievances of injustice to some European- or American-centric norm of existence that pays lip service to gender equality while usurping human equality. In these stories, some of them written by men, we find an intrinsic feminism as opposed to the superficial, Orientalist feminism that appears widely in literature translated from Arabic to English, precisely because the writers of such literature wrote with their eyes on the “West,” hoping for acceptance and eventual translation. I may not be able to make generalizations about this intrinsic feminism within Moroccan literature as a whole, alongside the roles of mysticism and the public square, but such a quality nevertheless makes itself seen within this portfolio. Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together. Chawafa’s generally operate in the darkest hours of the night, they deal with what we’re calling magic, and most of the times people visit them to solve their problems, mostly romantic, professional or family issues. Faith is something taught to children as early in their life as possible, since the religion of the country is Islam, based on the faith on the Quran, the words of Allah delivered to the prophet Mohammed.These figures are often caricatured and made fun of, and therefore, the secrecy of their work is essential. This is unfortunately also one of the reasons why is easy for many people with the wrong intentions to take advantage of others. Sorcerer – Faqih: Moroccan women, in his opinion, are feminine by default. “They feel and express their femininity and surrender to their husbands, which is in their nature, while other women might look at it as degrading,” said Al-Ghamdi, adding that marriages involving Moroccan women in the Kingdom are not a trend that could threaten Saudi women. Tolerance, according to Al-Ghamdi, means being able to overcome problems and disputes and show love and femininity. When we say ‘negative impacts’, it’s not necessarily in terms of somebody doing something negative to you. In so many ways, you could have just taken in some negativity. See, it’s not necessary that somebody should poison fruit and give it to you. The fruit might have some natural poison in it, which enters my body when I eat it. Similarly, the negative aspects of life can enter you in so many ways. It is not necessary that somebody is sitting there and plotting against you. So the entrance of the Dhyanalinga, the first fifteen-degree angle, is created for this purpose, and before people seek anything else, these things are just taken care of. They just have to walk in that space, about sixty or seventy feet, and that by itself takes care of these negativities.