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Ashura: A Time for
Witchcraft, Gift-Giving and Murder
February 23, 2007
A computer supply store might seem like an unlikely place for a morning
witchcraft ritual. But it’s Ashura, a day when Shiite Muslims commemorate
the death of Imam Hussein, a small group of radical Sunni Muslims in the
Middle East attempt to murder them, and the non-Shiite Moroccan populace
pretends it’s Christmas. Regardless of one’s chosen method of
“celebration,” witchcraft is foremost in the minds of much of the Moroccan
citizenry precisely because spells are purported to be especially
effective during the first 10 days of the Muslim month of Muharram.
But the owner of the store has no intention of placing a curse on anyone.
He simply requires protection from the spells of others. Business has been
slow lately and there are a number of possible explanations: 1) the
substandard salesmanship of his underpaid employees 2) a curse placed on
him by rival business owners jealous of his success 3) or, the one I
favor, an under-stocked store, the unfortunate consequence of not paying
distributors on time. But, allegedly, there’s been some physical evidence
to support reason two: written curses inside folded pieces of paper found
in unexpected places on the sales floor. Thus, on the appointed day, the
owner arrives earlier than normal and burns a specific mixture in the
store to reverse the curse(s) already in place, protect his business from
future spells, and increase sales. Like most educated Moroccans, he’s
embarrassed to admit that he’s controlled by the ostensible powers of
witchcraft. So his ceremony is conducted in private— or, like last year,
with the help of a fkiah who reads an appropriate surat from the Koran to
ward off evil spirits —believing accidental discovery of his deeds will
reflect poorly on him and the business he is trying to save. Nevertheless,
the owner later confessed to his employees that during the ceremony with
the fkiah, the furniture in the room began to vibrate and then lift off
the ground. But, even if I’m not supposed to know his story, I still can’t
help wondering, has business improved? And how would one measure the
improvement? Is a good sales day a sign of the ceremony’s success or is a
longer period of profit-making required?
“Most Moroccans believe in witchcraft,” Myriam explains to me later, our
conversation triggered by an unsightly splotch of congealed blood and wax
discarded near the entrance to her apartment, “even educated people who
tell you they don’t… And you don’t want to believe in it. But then you see
that everyone around you seems to believe in it and you realize that it
must have some power.”
For Myriam that power is primarily physical: when she arrives for her
usual shift at 3 pm, a subtle but distinct smell of sulfur lingers in the
showroom air from her boss’s morning ritual, an odor that triggers an
immediate headache, dizziness, and nausea. She returns to her apartment a
few hours later disoriented and depressed. “The power is also
psychological,” she corrects me when I remind her of this episode.
“Suddenly, you feel strange and you don’t know why.”
As Myriam provides more details of these rituals and sketches a more
precise picture of the Moroccan ghost world (where spirits reside in the
most unlikely of places—the drains of sinks, for example), I begin to draw
some conclusions: 1) most of these spells seem relatively mild, the work
of jealous individuals seeking to reverse the success of business rivals
or punish philandering husbands or wives. 2) Spell casting doubles as a
simpler, cheaper palliative for undiagnosed mental illness. Psychoanalysis
and psychological support services are still new in this society—an option
only for the wealthy—but are unlikely to be utilized by a majority of the
population which insists that problems are produced by external sources
(i.e. the actions of others) rather than from some inner disorder. 3)
Witchcraft will continue to be a popular method of problem solving as long
as this fatalistic attitude—that most of our ontological experience is
controlled by forces outside of our immediate control—persists in the
population. But there’s the darker side of witchcraft, too, stories where
fact and fiction overlap to become folklore and legend. There are, for
example, internet-sponsored rumors of men who hypnotize unsuspecting
adolescents and use them as slaves or an eyewitness account of a group of
men who wandered into the ocean with the recently severed hand of a small
child, believing that they’d find treasure hidden wherever the blood
dripped into the water. The practice of removing the hands of children is
rumored to date back to an earlier era, before banks, when people hired
someone to watch over their valuables. The “guardian” then capitalizes on
their deaths by revealing the location of the “treasure” to the highest
bidder. But don’t take my word for it. Similar stories persist all over
the internet and almost any Moroccan you meet has a hair-raising story to
tell. But what is Ashura really about? That depends on whom you ask and
what sect of Islam they represent. The Shia traditionally mark the 10th
day of the Muslim month of Muharram with a mournful, sometimes savagely
disturbing, commemoration of the death of Hussein, the prophet Mohammad’s
grandson killed in a dispute over who should lead the ummah—the Muslim
faithful—after the prophet’s death. As almost everyone knows, except the
neocons in Washington, Hussein’s death instigated a rift between the Sunni
and Shiite sects that persists to this day. As a New York Times article
explains: “The Shiites and the Sunnis part company over who has the right
to rule and interpret scripture. Shiites hold that only descendants of
Mohammad can be infallible and hence should rule. Sunnis allow a broader
group, as long as there is consensus among religious scholars.” And
there’s also the question of who was, in fact, responsible for the death
of Hussein.
The Shia often show their anguish over Hussein’s death by wailing,
chest-beating, self-flagellation with whips or chains, or by striking each
other with knives or swords. Parents sometimes cut the foreheads of their
children. No one knows precisely when this practice originated but it was
momentarily outlawed by the supreme leader of the Shia, Abu Al-Hassan, and
then revived after his death in the mid-14th century. Muslim
self-mutilation was also rumored to have been encouraged by the British
during their occupation of India in the early 20th century to justify
their “civilizing” presence in the region. If you’re interested in reading
more about Shiite Ashura rituals and viewing some disturbing photographs,
visit:
http://www.allaahuakbar.net/shiites/maatam.htm where the history in
this paragraph is drawn from.
But what are the reasons for this public display of self-inflicted
violence? Why not mourn for Hussein in private? My Moroccan friends are
all Sunni Muslims and thus can’t provide an answer. If they acknowledge
the day at all, they give gifts to their children (typically money and
clothing) and denounce the practices of their Shiite brethren as a
barbaric ritual that “has nothing to do with Islam.” But the same website
(in the previous paragraph) offers an explanation: a widespread belief
among the Shiite faithful that those who grieve for Hussein are granted a
place in paradise after their deaths. “Granted a place by whom?” is the
immediate follow-up question, “Allah?” The Koran is obviously silent on
the matter.
So where did this idea originate? Was it created to reward the wounds of
the faithful who “honor” Hussein each year? If so, is the underlying
motivation a place in the afterlife or nothing more than a genuine
outpouring of affection for Hussein? Perhaps both. But if you’ve ever seen
a videotape of the ritual or witnessed it firsthand, the anguish looks
real. But wouldn’t it have to be authentic to convince an omniscient deity
to hand out free passes to the next life?
An American co-worker told me about an Ashura processional she recently
witnessed in Rabat. What affected her most as she watched was “the flat
smell of blood” in the air as the group passed, leading me to believe that
no one, aside from the overtly masochistic, would participate in this
painful bloodletting if they weren’t serious about their faith and their
reverence for Hussein. After all, as Mark Santora explained in another New
York Times article on January 31, for the Shia this is “the most formative
event of their faith.” But are there other motivations for the ritual? Is
it possible that Ashura also serves as a kind of rallying cry against the
Sunnis who are blamed for Hussein’s death?
The more radical Sunni sects in Iraq have certainly capitalized on the
political opportunities of Ashura and the worsening chaos of that war-torn
country, attacking Shiite worshippers after they return from holy sites
like Karbala (where Hussein was killed in 680) or Najaf (where he is
buried) or as they’re marching in one of their bloody processionals. As
the bodies pile up in revenge-based reprisals and protracted political
power struggles, as the American army and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi
security forces demonstrate their habitual inability to restore order,
it’s not difficult to see why a fatalist perspective dominates the
thinking of much of the innocent populace caught in the confluence of
these deadly forces.
Here in Morocco, however, the war in Iraq seems as remote and
under-discussed as it is in the States. People are preoccupied with more
personal concerns, like basic survival. But why is witchcraft and
spell-casting such a commonplace practice? And, more importantly, why is
there so much ill-will, jealousy, and vengeance here among the local Sunni
populace even though they face none of the horrors of their Muslim
brethren in Iraq? Is it simply an attempt to minimize the effects of a
worsening economy, a strategic means of competing for limited jobs,
resources, and romantic partners? I’m certain that I would have to live
here for the rest of my life before I could begin to answer those
questions.
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