Sunday, October 23, 2011

That Old Black Magic

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

I find it very odd that in the 21st Century there are people and nations that actually believe that Magic exists and that there are people who practice Black Magic.  Yet the idea that Magic, especially Black Magic exists is prevalent in the Muslim world.  Especially in Saudi Arabia.
When Tara Umm Omar was a young bride in her first marriage, she and her Moroccan husband took the youngest sister of a family friend into their home. On the day the young Moroccan woman arrived, she gave Umm Omar a doll, which Umm Omar promptly placed in a dresser drawer.

When Umm Omar told a friend of the doll, the friend suspected it was an item for black magic and suggested the doll be destroyed. Instead, Umm Omar tossed it in the garbage. That’s when household items disappeared, the family dog barked incessantly, Umm Omar started fighting with her husband and she began seeing strange insects in the house. When the guest finally moved out, the couple found their bed sheets and an identical doll to Umm Omar’s among the woman’s discarded belongings.

The message to Umm Omar was clear: The woman she invited into her home sought to destroy her happiness through black magic.

Umm Omar is since remarried to a Saudi and now lives in Riyadh. She runs the popular blog, Future Husbands and Wives of Saudis, a help website for non-Saudis marrying Saudis. As a quasi-marriage counselor for brides and grooms nervously entering Saudi society, Umm Omar dispenses religious and practical advice to help ease the cultural shock. That includes providing insight to the real world concerns of black magic and the evil eye.

“The truth is that all magic is haram [prohibited] and only leads to bad ends,” Umm Omar told The Media Line.

Belief in black magic runs deep in Saudi society. The issue was raised last month when the quasi-legislative body Shoura Council granted permission for Moroccan women to work as maids in Saudi households. Hundreds of Saudi women complained to the Council that granting Moroccan maids permission to work was tantamount to allowing the use of black magic in their homes to steal their husbands. Saudi wives complained the issue was not lacking trust in their husbands, but their men were powerless to ward off spells.

While greeted with skepticism in western societies, Saudis would no more question the existence of black magic than they would Islam. Two surahs (chapters) in the Qur’an under Al Mi’wadhatyan address black magic and are often recited during or after prayer. Simply, part of being a Muslim is believing in the existence of magic.

In April of this year, members of the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice underwent special training in the Eastern Province to investigate black magic crimes.

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 “spells” 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.

In 2007, the religious police in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, removed 23 black magic tokens, including knives and written spells on paper, from two graves in a cemetery. Black magic artists placed the tokens at the heads and feet of the corpses.

The Saudi press reported recently that evil eye was suspected in causing the death of Mastoora Al-Ahmadi, the Saudi poet who garnered international attention for her performance on “The Million’s Poet” on Abu Dhabi TV. She was the first woman to reach the semifinals in the Arabic poetry contest. Al-Ahmadi died unexpectedly on Oct. 2 in Madinah after falling into a coma.

Howaizan Muhammad, 26, of Madinah, told The Media Line that she had difficulty finding a job and failed in many interviews. And she hated the jobs she did find. She broke up with her fiancĂ© and couldn’t find a husband. “My sister told me to read the surah Al-Baqarah to protect me against any spells,” she says. “After 14 days, my father found a spell written on paper and in blood with my name on it on the roof under our water tank.”

Muhammad says she had Indonesian maids at the time, but notes that anybody could have left the spell.

Sheikh Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, an Islamic scholar based in Qatar and the author of The Exorcist Tradition in Islam, told The Media Line that Muslims must not fight witchcraft with their own magic but refer to the Qur’an. “There are a number of Qur’anic texts that the Prophet said should be read with reflection as a means of removing or reducing the effects of black magic,” he says. “Eating adjuwah dates from Madinah is also a means of protection.”

He notes there is a tendency to fight magic with magic, but it’s prohibited. “People should avoid charms, amulets and other things that people have proffered, which has become something of a business in the Muslim world.”

Philips acknowledges that Moroccans have an “international reputation” among Muslims for practicing witchcraft, but cautions against overemphasizing Moroccans as master artists of voodoo. “Historically they [Moroccans] are most noted for it. But they are not much different than most in the Muslim world. Chechnya and Bosnia probably engage in it more.”

Although Saudis may claim that witchcraft is at the heart of their distrust of foreign maids, Umm Omar suggests that old-fashioned power struggles and jealously play vital roles in conflicts.

“There is a factor that Saudis are more well-to-do than Moroccans and magic can be used to remove those blessings [of wealth] if [maids] dislike them,” Umm Omar says. “Saudi women are used to feeling superior over maids, and in some cases look down on them. Moroccan women do not like to be pushed around and will defend themselves. My experience with Moroccan and Saudi women is they both like to be in charge of the household and are naturally bossy.”

Umm Omar adds that if a maid feels threatened, she could resort to black magic. “Of course that is not to say that a Saudi woman won’t seek out magic to harm a Moroccan maid.”
Left unsaid in this battle of wills between Saudi and Moroccan women is the consequences of practicing black magic in Saudi Arabia. Practicing witchcraft is an offense punishable by death.

Saudi religious police arrested popular Lebanese television personality and fortuneteller Ali Sabat in May 2008 on charges of witchcraft while he was on a pilgrimage. A Saudi court sentenced him to death. But an appellate court threw out the sentence in 2010, citing lack of evidence that Sabat harmed anybody. According to Amnesty International, the last documented execution for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia was in 2007. A Saudi court sentenced Egyptian pharmacist Mustafa Ibrahim to death for casting spells in order to separate a married couple.

“Fortune telling is not just sleight of hand tricks, but involves the spirit,” says Philips. “As evil, it’s the same thing as black magic. Sharia proscribes the same punishment for both.”

Umm Omar points to ignorance and the absence of a strong foundation in the teachings of Islam that lead some Muslims to practice magic and evil eye.

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.”

Source
This is one of the heights of Muslim intellectual prowess.  It ranks high along with this one.  And Obama wanted to include these bozos into our NASA program.

We do not have to worry about the religious police of Saudi Arabia.  After defeating the evil of Voldermort aka Moldy Shorts, the Ministry of Magic for Israel or the Department of Magic (US) can handle anything these crazy Muggles throw at them.

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My Favorite Speeches and Other Items of Interest

  • George Bush's March 28, 2007 Discusses Economy, War on Terror During Remarks to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association;http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070328-2.html
  • Mitch McConnell's March 15, 2007 Funding For Troops, Not Timelines for Retreat; http://mcconnell.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=270747&start=1
  • Ronald Reagan's June 12, 1987 Tear Down This Wall Speech; http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/wall.asp
  • Vice President Cheney's March 12, 2007 Remarks at the AIPAC 2007 Policy Conference; http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070312.html

Winston Churchill Quotes

  • A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
  • Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
  • Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
  • Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
  • Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.
  • Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
  • I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.
  • I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
  • I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
  • I like a man who grins when he fights.
  • I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside.
  • If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.
  • In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
  • It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
  • Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.
  • Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
  • Never, never, never give up.
  • No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
  • One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
  • Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
  • Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
  • The first quality that is needed is audacity.
  • The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.
  • The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.
  • There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
  • These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
  • They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.
  • True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
  • Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
  • War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
  • War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
  • We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
  • We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
  • When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.
  • When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
  • You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Ronald Reagan Quotes

  • "The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so."
  • Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
  • All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
  • Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources
  • Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
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  • Facts are stupid things.
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  • Let us ask ourselves; "What kind of people do we think we are?".
  • Man is not free unless government is limited.
  • My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.
  • No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.
  • Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.
  • Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act.
  • Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
  • Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem.
  • The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve: the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideals to which we are dedicated.
  • The United Sates has much to offer the third world war.
  • There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
  • To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.
  • Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.
  • We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
  • We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.
  • We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
  • We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free.
  • Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
  • You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.

Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

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