Zwemer Center

Possession and Exorcism: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture

Possession and Exorcism

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on possession and exorcism in the context of Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents what facilitates and observations of demonic possession, discerning demonic oppression and possession, and how to do an Exorcism.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Possession and Exorcism

Alright. This is lecture 23, demonization and, also demonization, in other words, demonic possession and exorcism. We’re moving right along, aren’t we, at in in these, situations having looked at some case studies the last time. What is actually possession? This is the question here.

Some of the characteristics that we have noted are that in, and then we’re thinking particularly now of Muslim settings. The thing that facilitates possession, certain things are happening here. For instance, the rhythm bit. You know, we’re not against rhythm. Rhythm is great.

I’m I’m a toe tapper myself, and so I like rhythm. But, this is one of the things that, is characteristic. In the czar, there was this tambourine and the drums. I’m not against I don’t get the impression that I’m against either because, these are now played in well, they’re played in worship services, certainly in in, where I was in Pakistan, the tambourine and the drum. So, we’re not saying that that that’s, you know, devilish or anything like that.

But there is also the nearness to a an object or something, perhaps a fetish or to people involved in this practice. In other words, thinking back to the czar, there is this, sheikha or somebody or sheikha that is into this stuff, so, that’s also a characteristic. And, sometimes drugs are being used. I’m not saying that this is true all the time, but I do know that Sufi orders have been known to use drugs and, certainly as we we think of the scriptures, Revelation, some of the magical stuff that they’re into, the witchcraft drugs are there, according to my understanding, and then there is this zikr, reciting God’s name, or some oftentimes in the trance of sort of being slain, and then the blood sacrifices. When it’s the czar, there is a sacrifice of the sheep and the karena, there is the sacrifice of a chicken.

Now one question here, it might seem a little bit off the topic, but I don’t think the last part of it is, after participating in czar, how women might then relate to marriage, fertility, relationships. So, we don’t really know, but I think we can say that, Satan is out to destroy people. He’s out to destroy marriages. He’s out to destroy, anything he can. So let’s be aware of his tactics and not his, his evil, his wickedness.

But I I think here’s a better question for us. How might Jesus’ followers avoid the czar? And this is a good question because when, for instance, if you came into an area where czar or something like that, as Zweimer would put it, Samuel Zweimer, then what do you replace it with? I think that we should think of something else that would help women to, feel at home, to have, you know, social contact and good fellowship, maybe something like a sewing club. I’m not into sewing myself, but something like that that would give women a a sense of of fulfillment.

I think this is really the intent of the question so that you don’t just leave them high and dry, and they themselves, of course, would have to see the importance of pulling away from it. People who follow Christ cannot be told what to do by some high handed missionary, but missionaries are often involved in these kinds of discussions if they’re on hand so we can participate in that, not to push, get pushy, but prayerfully work with people, understand them, and speak when called upon. Here’s another question. What are some of the observable phenomena of spirit possession? Well, one thing we can look for is personality changes.

In other words, if we suspect possession, has there been any change in the personality? In other words, we’re talking intelligence, morals, demeanor, and appearance. Sometimes these things are noticeable in people who are having trouble with demonic stuff. What about physical changes? Does this person have supernatural strength?

This is a good question. In other words, and and, sometimes it looks like epileptic, or I should say epileptic convulsions look like a demon possession. Foaming at the mouth, catatonic symptoms, sort of a schizophrenia, alternating excitement and voice changes and falling and feeling no pain. These are some of the physical changes that we can be aware of, and continuing on with observable phenomena of spirit possession. What about mental changes?

There is sometimes greater knowledge than is normal. In other words, pre pre pre return actual knowledge that could be demonic. Satan is doesn’t know everything, but he is smart. And, also, in spirit possession outside of Christianity, glossolalia is known to to exist. Psychic or occultic powers and even predictions.

We should not have anything to do with, those kind of, of predictions, in other words, future predictions, whatever they are. You can see the signs even on our own country in this very, very religious city that we live in here in the south of Columbia, South Carolina. Even here, where there are so many churches, you do some signs, psychic readers. What about spiritual changes? One medical doctor who works overseas among Muslims and has had a lot of experience here and some there in the Middle East says that his in his eye in his, his understanding is this terrifying fear in the eyes of the afflicted, either reaction to or fear of Christ, and then, having blasphemed or said something against Christ, says that there is this, regret.

In other words, regret of blasphemy, sort of this instability. He says that there is not he, doesn’t say, but also there is this affected by prayer. In other words, when prayer is offered in these situations, there is bound to be an effect, but let’s keep in mind that deliverance is possible through the power of Christ and through his blood. That we, we never want to to forget, that his power will also change. But I think the important thing is, discernment.

We need discernment and I think that, you know, we’ve been talking about some of these things, about demons that Muslims were specifically thinking now, of course, of demons in in Muslim context. Are they for real? You always wonder about this. You know, the Afrit, the czar, the karena, etcetera. There might be, but it’s also true that there is a lot of superstition and and, fear and people, what they don’t know, they imagine.

So that we have to we have to be aware of. In other words, we can’t be either, you know, total skeptics or, in other words, gullible, but I think it’s possible to be to be fair minded about it, to consider the fact that demonic activity does occur and, and demons do exist. But I I think there’s also one question here and that is does the lack of demonic activity, in other words, as observed among most Muslims, is it proof that they’re not involved? And I think the answer is no. It’s no because of the unseen part of it.

In other words, Muslims themselves try to cover it up and so you don’t always often you don’t see and people don’t talk about it. They don’t either they’re embarrassed, and often they will laugh about the very when the topic comes up about the jinn, I’ve seen this, I’ve seen it among Christians too, as if it was a joke, but it’s not really a joke. People sometimes laugh about the things that they’re embarrassed to talk about or afraid of. One other question is can demons inhabit stones or trees? And I think I think no, I think not.

I think that scripturally, biblically, I think all of the possession cases that we know of have to do with either animals and sometimes demons in the case of Jesus driving the demons into the swine, but I think that we have to be aware of the fact that, you know, we can’t be afraid of every little object, for instance, you know, maybe stone or something like that, that was picked up in, in a Muslim country and said, well, this, you know, is dangerous stuff. I’ve had people react like that in my in my class as if, they’re almost Christian animists. I don’t think that we need to be terrified of things like this. One question that is always asked, and I’m sure you’ve wondered yourself, can believers be possessed? My own personal view here is no because of the Holy Spirit, but you know, it’s not really worth arguing about because, possession and oppression oftentimes look very much the same.

In other words, Satan is like this Russian girl that we were talking about. He is, very active in the oppression of this, poor young lady, but but I think whatever it is, we have to deal with it and deal with the the the what we see, and not get tied up or tied down over the theological end of it. You know? Is this possession? Is it oppression?

I don’t think that matters so much as, the the facts. In other words, that that that, Satan is is working hard here. Demonic activity could be going on, so that’s my own sense. Does possession mean ownership and control? In some cases, I think it does.

A book that we’ve referred to before is Arnold, crucial questions about spiritual warfare. Satan certainly wants to control. This is what he is very anxious to do. So he and and, of course, the Holy Spirit is, is the one that we’re supposed to be yielding to. Again again and again, we talk about discernment.

I’m not gonna say much about these sources here because they’re pretty old. You know, Wagner, Wimmer, Kraft, and Otis, or Otis, I guess it is. This is, to me, sort of out of date, so we’ll skip over that and we’ll go quickly on to, start with, just the diagnosis here. And I think that we should think, first of all, of simple solutions. By that, nothing is that simple, but I think what the intent here is that we should, first of all, look for physical stuff.

Is there anything physically wrong with this person? In other words, a good doctor’s checkup to make sure that there’s nothing physically wrong, because physical stuff is is important. In other words, it’s quite easy, I think, compared to the other stuff. But then we can go on to deal with other issues, mental and spiritual. It’s not so easy sometimes to divide these things either, is it?

But but, those are some of the things that we need to think about, but here are some questions, possible questions for a diagnosis. Is what is happening, does it glorify God? Is it scriptural? Does it further the gospel? Maybe these questions seem sort of simple and elementary to you and you can maybe think of other questions yourself to ask people about, but the stuff that that they’re involved in, in other words, because we will look at case stories case stories later on.

I think I have case stories case studies where the action is questionable in reference to the first one, glorify, does it glorify God? In other words, and then also is it scriptural? Does this really how can we look at scripture and figure out whether this should be done or not? There is some discussion in the past. I don’t know that it’s still going on, but, you know, being Craft Charles Craft, for example, one of my old professors at Fuller Seminary was quite into this, and he talks about having dealt with 100 and 100 of hundreds of quest cases, and he says that his opponents, those who are against it, are not familiar with the spirit world.

They’re rationalists. But, Patrick Johnstone, is more cautious and, wants to make sure that we don’t think that everything is demonic. But I sometimes have thought about Paul in Acts 16 and how he acted or or reacted rather slowly, I think, with that girl who was pestering him and who was obviously demon possessed. I’ve wondered sometimes why he didn’t, just as quick as a flash, cast out that demon. The woman the the girl followed him and and his associate for days, it says.

Finally, Paul had had enough, and he cast her out and, of course, then all hell broke loose. I think the reason why he didn’t jump into it was that he knew that it would stop him and his associate from preaching the gospel. Of course the gospel is unstoppable because he got thrown in jail and then they had the earthquake and the jailer gets saved and his family and they baptized him in the middle of the night. I mean, it’s an amazing story, and then Paul lays claim to Roman citizenship who before he leaves town, but it’s interesting that he doesn’t, you know, he just doesn’t jump at this exorcism too quickly. He thoughtfully approaches it and he does cast, the demon out after all, but definitely some things we should think about here, in in the exorcism is that the team methods are to be used.

Don’t try this single handedly like the lone ranger with your cowboy boots on. I wear cowboy boots so, I would be most guilty of all. But, don’t go in there like a cowboy and try to handle this on your own with your guns blazing. No. Team method so that you can talk about it and pray about it and spend time in prayer and that, any sin is confessed, that is known.

Not that you jump to conclusions and say, well, obviously, this person, has been into sin and and and this, wicked stuff, but, it’s it needs to be found out. And, again, discretion, men with men, women with women, so that, you take all precautions. And possibly fasting. Remember that Jesus said in Mark 929, this kind, he said, doesn’t go out but by prayer and fasting. So there are, there are resist there is resistance sometimes more than others, and we should not give up.

We should stick with this to the end, not the bitter end, the the glorious end so that, there is deliverance. We should command the spirit in the name of the Lord Jesus and the power of the Bible, power of the word. For example, Colossians 2:15 and some of these great verses that we know about, and that we should use the armor of God. I was just thinking yesterday, about the armor of God and Ephesians 6 12-13, one particular armor, part of that armor was impressed I was impressed on, and it had to do with the, what do you call, the shield of faith to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. The fact that we need faith in the view of these terrible things at the moment that are going on in the Muslim world, as a result of an anti Islam, anti Muhammad film that was made.

And you know, this can be very discouraging and we need faith to believe, I was thinking, that God is at work. This we need the shield of faith to believe that God is going to bring good out of this for the furtherance of the gospel. And then we need, we need to seek balance, don’t we? Balance in spiritual warfare, meaning that we are open to it, but we don’t, you know, go into a gung ho as if as if this was the only thing that goes on in ministry. So these are kind of some of the things that we need to think about.

Demonization in Folk Islam: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on case studies of demonization in Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents multiple case studies on demonization in Islamic contexts.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Case Studies of Demonization.

Well, we’ve been talking, a lot in the past about, specific kinds of demons, We’ve named them, some of them, as many as we could, and so now, today, we’re gonna it makes sense in this lecture 22 that we move on to demonization and we’re going to be looking at some, cases, in other words, where, actually people have been demonized or or oppressed, and we could look at a lot more. Some of these are from overseas, but even here in the West, some that I’ve seen here, not many, granted, but here at the university where there’s some oppression and also some of my students writing about it from Europe. But we’ll look at some specific cases today in this demonization and these are mostly case studies we’ll be looking at. So here we go. And and also thinking of, the exorcism.

You know, I think you, as well as I am are aware of the our own culture and and the, and the themes in the, some of the youth culture of demonization and young girls who have this superhuman strength, it’s really a popular subject, isn’t it? For instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and stuff like that, which I think is is something new in our culture. And there are websites, too available on types of jinn, getting back to Muslim context and how to exercise them or how to do, spiritual warfare, but here are some of the websites we’re talking about. What are the, you know, what are we supposed to think of the phenomena? In other words, what are the sources of of of phenomena?

Is this stuff spurious? In other words, it’s just just nonsense? Is it psycho pathological? Is it satanic? And I think I think the more I think about it that it probably can be all 3.

So we don’t wanna, sort of rule out anything, but we have to be discerning, and I think that’s really the the topic, to keep in mind, discerning and, and also biblical so that we don’t jump to conclusions, but we have good sense in our, in our diagnosis of demonization. I don’t wanna give the impression that this is this is a major gonna be a major part of your ministry, certainly hasn’t been of mine. But I think we should be aware of it, so that’s why we’re talking about it. Now here’s a case study. Just be prepared now because we’re gonna gonna ask you what what you think about this.

What’s going on? And this is actually something that happened. A girl, this is a Muslim girl, is, writhing on the floor, dripping saliva. Her limbs are flailing wildly, and demonization, Muslim exorcist is called in. He does some things as they usually do.

He comes, he draws a circle on the floor, presumably with a chalk or something like that. He chants the Quran, and this is also a very common thing for them to do, he lights incense sticks and then he blows smoke in her ears and breathes into her face. The writhing ceases. She falls down in an exhausted heap, and she’s now normal. Well, what would you think?

In other words, what is your diagnosis? The diagnosis of this case given by Phil Parshall in the book, page 110, is that this is, an epileptic fit. When I gave this story this summer in class, asked the students what they thought of it immediately, a medical person held up her hand and said this is epilepsy. So, this is a good a good sign that, that, medical help is often needed. I also wanted to just, refer to, I guess, a story that comes out of the New York Times about Gambia and, their attempt to root out witches.

This is, May 20th o o nine, but we don’t have the story in front of us. Just to be aware of the of the fact that, it is in our media and we can read about these things, and I’m sure that you have been. Another another case is rather disturbing, one that a friend of mine told me about, when I was teaching a class some years ago in Toronto. And this, he told about himself and he said that we were young missionaries, a family working in Mombasa, Kenya, and he said we became friends with a family, a Muslim family. In the family, the father was Arab and the mother was Somali, and she had 4 daughters before this marriage, and then she and this new husband, Arab, they have, they have, well, I’m sorry.

That that he he when he he marries her, he takes care of the the 4 daughters as if as if they were his own. And then this couple has 2 or 3 sons, 2 daughters and 3 sons of their own. Sorry that I’m, not reading this quickly. 1 Sunday, the missionaries visit and the parents are on Hajj. They’re they’ve gone on the pilgrimage.

But the 3rd daughter, presumably from the first marriage, Aisha seems to be demonization. She’s acting pretty strange. So these young missionaries, happen to be Canadians, they went to the church. There was a little church there. They shared concern with the older missionary family, but they received no help.

I suppose the older missionary family, didn’t wanna get involved. I don’t know. It’s possible. We shouldn’t judge, missionaries by this story, but this is what happened in this case. So the young missionary couple went back to the house.

A man who had been left in charge welcomed them, and they see that this daughter, this girl, Aisha, is being held down by 6 men and seems to have superhuman strength. So the young missionary tried to pray, but there was no effect. And finally, Aisha is taken by car to the hospital, and next day the parents who have been on the Hajj, on the pilgrimage, they come back. But the father doesn’t take this seriously. He, he makes light of what the missionary shared, and he says it well, she’s just sick.

Later, this young missionary couple went to visit Ayesha in the hospital And while there, one man was present, but the stepfather angrily chased him off. And when he asked Aisha what she’d seen, she said, I saw them coming to choke me. So, what would you have done? Now this missionary, even though now he’s older, he’s still sort of, confused about what was really going on, but he has some ideas and in the class we discussed this, quite a bit. Some of the things we discussed was, possibly incest as that is more common than you think, particularly given the context.

Another thing is that there could have been, which is probably more likely, is, immorality and that’s why the young man was chased off by the father, stepfather, but you can’t talk about it. You can never talk about those kind of things. So I think the consensus that we came to in the in the class this past summer was this was probably not a case of demonization, but a case of where, you know, if there’s immorality or something like that or incest, you don’t talk about it. But, the young girl was either pretending that she was possessed because that’s really probably the only, you know, honorable thing that she can do. Certainly can’t talk about any type of immorality because it would disgrace the family, it would ruin her chances of ever getting married, and it would be a total disaster.

So I think that would be, probably the thing that you should look at first of all. The young missionary was, I think, not prepared for the situation. Now here’s another case study and these are actual case studies. There has been a Russian girl of 18, she’s 18 years old, coming to church for the past year. She works at the police office.

She speaks Russian, but she’s good enough in Uzbek to join in the worship and she has been and has been growing. So this story comes out of Central Asia. Now that she’s a believer, she dresses more modestly and she has joy in her face more. She’s learning the guitar. Recently, she said that while sleeping, an evil spirit comes, shakes her iron bed that is really heavy, takes 2 men, it’s not hard to lift that bed, and this is her story.

So what’s going on here? In other words, the strange thing about it is that she says, and and apparently this is this is what happened, is that ever since she put her faith in Jesus, this is really, what it’s it’s really what’s happened. What would you do in this case? And I think, one thing that I would do is that and you can think about your this yourself, but I think, that, having listened to this story, it is it is very possible that because of her faith, maybe even because of her past, Satan is making a strong bid for her. He’s pestering her more than he did before, and I would I would, think, seriously about doing an exorcism here, not necessarily of the girl herself but of the place where she’s staying and, with her present, singing hymns and praying in the room or the rooms and cleansing the place from all possible demonization, and then and then, praying steadily and regularly with her, you also would wanna know that she’s living a holy life, and she’s not dabbling in some of the things that she used to do because that would be one of the things to that would be very, very important to check on.

Well, here’s another one that’s, I think, interesting, and we we want to keep in mind here how we could set this up, in other words, how we can deal with these cases so that, the glory is always through Christ and it’s obvious, it’s clear that Christ is the one who’s done the delivery. Now here is another one. After Sunday church at Harvest Church, 5 of us went to pray for a Tajik man. Here we are in Central Asia again. Believe it or not, Central Asia is pretty, you know, this is common stuff in Central Asia.

He had believed a few months back. In other words, he made a profession of of trusting Christ, But he has been having trouble with demons, and he said several nights ago he was thrown around, punch, kicked mostly at night. We prayed for him several times, but they still torment him. One reason may be that he can’t seem to get seem to throw off some evil habits. What habits?

Drinking, very common in Central Asia, and he is into adultery as well. Last Tuesday, a TV, he was watching TV, a white light appeared according to him, floated around the TV, shot through his body, he threw up according to his account, his head swelled up, then he felt better. So what would you do? This is no laughing matter, but I think, you know, one of the things that you would have to deal with here are these habits. In other words, God is not going to listen to prayer, in his regard and if he is messing around and things like that.

So I think that the sin issue would have to be dealt with and make sure that he is telling the truth about what he’s doing. It might, you know, require some careful counseling with discretion. If there has been immorality, then that should be confessed, before some other man. I don’t think, it should be in mixed company, that’s the way to deal with these kind of things, particularly in Muslim culture. And so, those are some of the things that you might we we might suggest to so that it’s handled properly, biblically, and, with the intent that this man would grow in grace and holiness and that he would have the victory over these kind of of this kind of oppression.

Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 2): Dr. Warren Larson Lecture

Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 2) 

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the influence of Jinn among certain regions around the world of Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Philippines, Iran, Afghanistan, and India’s regional Jinn influences, fairies, and how Muslims defend against the Jinn daily.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 2) 

This lecture 21 also has to do with regional areas and the variation, you know, whether it’s the the Philippines. We start with the Philippines, but then we move on to other areas as well. In the Philippines, and this is, the notes need to be changed here a little bit because the, the one that helps with these PowerPoints has switched things around a little bit. But, we start with the Philippines. The Maranao, they’re in the southern part of the Philippines, very animistic, folks they are and, they have incorporated animism into Islam.

They have, you know, many spirits, Tanang, Hmong, Satan, and many others. This this is, you know, it’s just like Satan, really, but it’s they say Satan. The general term for the unseen spirit is manga dekhele, probably murdering the translation the, interp the, pronunciation there, but they have spirits for various and sundry things, for good crops, for fish, and, also to capture folks with the enchanted hooks. So they have all kinds of things. They have spirits come with thunder and lightning and, they have spirits living around trees, etcetera.

And you humans can be turned into Bulbul where the upper body is disconnected from the from the upper, from the, I guess it means from the lower, flies at night, and eats the human blood. Scary stuff. The Philippines, they also believe that each person has a personal spirit. Word here, and you have to appease this spirit to avoid misfortune and bad luck? So you’ve got it.

You gotta live with it. You might as well get used to it. You know? You might as well accept it. You can’t get rid of it.

This is, this is life. So you have to do the best you can to to live with it. And in the Philippines, this is true, but I’ve seen it in, where we were too in Pakistan living there for 23 years, is that when a person gets sick, what do the people do? They go to the quack doctors or the medicine men. And in the Philippines, it’s they call them pomongolong, and if that fails, then people go to the, to a medical doctor.

I suppose they do it for various reasons. They think that, well, maybe, this medicine man or or woman or whatever it is can help, and and, you know, it’s cheaper than going to the to the science doctor, to the medical doctor, but that’s what they do. When all else fails, then you go to the doctor. They have different kinds of rituals to protect from evil spirits, various and sundry things. And, whether the spirit is evil or not, they must be manipulated or fooled through rituals.

You can understand really why Muslims do some, some some of this stuff. I mean, you see, give the baby another name, give put put a little boy in in the clothes of a of a little girl and stuff like that to fool the jinn. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? Whether the spirit is bad or good, because they can be both. They could be either good spirits or bad spirits.

Remember that, some spirits listen to the Quran when Mohammed was reciting it before he went to Medina, and, so that’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? Under the word hierarchy hierarchy, there’s nothing, that was helpful, wasn’t it? But, fairies or do’s and else, are some of the things we’re gonna be talking about right now. In, the dictionary, fairies are, they’re tiny, graceful, imaginary human forms, but they may have magical powers. Now Muslims also hold to this idea.

We, you know, we talk about this. We don’t really think much about it, I suppose, in our culture, but fairies are there. In Islam, it’s the same thing. Fairies are not always distinct from jinn. They don’t hurt you.

You see, here are jinn who are are not that bad, really. They’re they’re symbols of beauty. They live under the rose bushes. They’re like doves. They become Pari.

Pari is the name. They’re helpful and not troubling, not bothersome. In other words, see? So, in Iran, here is an illustration of an Iranian woman who prepared a tray of food, and she prayed to the, fairy princess to remove her daughter’s fits. This comes out of a book called the, I think it’s the wild rue, not The Will rue, The Wild Rue.

And it’s Donaldson. Beth Donaldson, I guess the name of the book is. It’s in our in our bibliography. I, I have a a video that I show in class. It’s called Mystic Iran.

Mystic Iran, the unseen world, and it is, it is something else. I wish you could see it. You can’t get as far as I know, you can’t find it online, but when I’m in class face to face, I show this video of an American woman, she was Iranian, by birth, but she goes into Iran. She takes these pictures. She goes into the, right into the, you know, the middle of the country and all over the place.

She even goes into areas where Zoroastrian is practiced, but goes there and and and, films various things, including women going to the shrine and, Sufis with their long hair and shaking their heads back and forth, people going into a trance. It is a very, very, sobering film because it shows the and and even a woman who is possessed and, trying to eat wood, coals, you know, a piece of wood. It’s extremely disturbing, and it stays with you. In other words, it it shows you that we’re not talking about, you know, just, something that doesn’t exist. This this really does.

And the fact that she’s able to get in there and, go right in and take pictures of it, Mystic Iran, is the name of the video. Now, back to the to to the topic here. I mean, we’re on the topic, but back to this particular thing about fairies, doos, and owls. There are they are similar to winged women. They’re like dogs and snakes.

They can change their form. They can fall in love with humans, get under the skin, and you know the expression get under your skin. Well, this really is true. Cause fruit and flower out of season. Continuing on with, with, fairies, dues, and ahus, in Afghanistan see, we’re shifting locales here.

In Afghanistan, the Dus, there is a little bit of confusion as to whether they’re jinn or not. They stay away from humans. They die if they see death, and they’re from the Qaf Mountains. Surah 50 is what we’re talking about here, and some say that the Qaf Mountains encircle the earth and King Malik’s throne is in the midst of, of who rules some jinn. There is a shrine called the Myr Hashem, the Dewbinder.

I would like to find, someone of our students perhaps who would actually visit that shrine. I haven’t seen it myself, but I did live live right next to to Afghanistan for many, many years and went into Afghanistan several times in the early years. But I’d like to we have a lot of students over in that part of the world, and I’d like some time if one of our students actually went to that shrine, saw that Mir Hashim, the do binder. In other words, the shrine where these this type of jinn is bound. Let’s move on to the Indian subcontinent.

In the Indian subcontinent, if you, if you eat beef, then you have reason to get a stomachache. For a Hindu jinn, this would be a big mistake. So what do you do here as precaution? You avoid the cemetery, especially on Thursday. You put, cooking pot on the roof, black marks on the babies.

You know, for years, I, I wasn’t sure about this myself, but but I do did notice that, babies in the Pakistan, they would put black marks under their eyes, kohl. And if you ask them why it’s done, they say, oh, it’s for beauty. But, I don’t think that’s true. They’re doing it to, you know, as to make sort of a blemish so that the jinn will not be attracted to them. Now this is very, very common.

Now it is true that maybe some don’t know why it’s done. Maybe mother did it, or aunt did it, or somebody or grandma insists on it, but it’s done. And, this putting coal under the black under the baby’s eyes so that they are they’re really, it’s really noticeable. In Afghanistan, spirits are under the ashes, trees and caves, gardens, and they can enter the room through a small hole. Shrines are haunted except the imams and Mecca.

Now I’m not sure why that’s true, why the shrines would be haunted, but, that’s what they say. And then Al’s Afghan in Afghanistan and Iran, are they jinn or are they something else? Owl is a witch who preys on the weak, loves the dark, snatches tiny babies, takes the mother’s liver, and when she delivers, when she takes the mother’s liver when she delivers, and the baby dies when bathed. Now I’m sure that this is, you know, old not all, Afghan women do this, but, definitely, as education comes in and, people teach them how to take care of their babies, then this hopefully would would pass away. But, nevertheless, it is it has been practiced and I’m sure still is practiced in many places.

This owl is 4 feet tall and with a tail. It’s it’s it has a long neck like a camel, a mouth and chin like a donkey, and has a massive frizzy long hair. Just imagine this frizzy hair, If a missionary would have the misfortune of having frizzy hair, I’m just not sure what the what the the Muslims would think about it, but this is what they have an idea they have of the of having long, frizzy hair. And this, this, jinn, if it is a jinn, can climb and stays in places like the storeroom. So it is also afraid of of, a a loud noise, afraid of guns and steel.

And if a baby is attacked during its first 6 days, it’s the al. So you can imagine during the 6 6 days first 6 days of its life, there is a lot of fear by mother and all her relatives. So that’s the time, really, when a charm is needed, but this owl is afraid of loud noise and around a pregnant women woman. You never wanna say the word al. This would be a bad omen.

This would be a big mistake. In still talking about, Als in Afghanistan and Iran, the the idea is to keep a light on at night. I mentioned before that where I was, many people don’t like to sleep in the dark. They keep a light on, cotton balls on the wall, egg, charcoal, or a knife or scissors under the pillow, prayer under the baby mattress, a chalk line for a fortress, you see, so that the the jinn don’t come into an area. I’m not sure the reference here to an egg, how that works, but I do know about the knife or scissors under a pillow.

I have bought a special little knife in, in the Philippines that they put under the pillow. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that. That looks like a knife, some of the knife you’d kill somebody with, but, or a butcher knife or something like that. But, the person who worked on these slides doesn’t really know anything about Islam. Al doesn’t enter if, the husband is there or brother, and so you see you need a man around.

Woman suffering infection after birth, that’s because of the of the owl. You know, it’s not peritonitis. It’s because of the owl. A baby is not bathed at birth. Onion under the pillow.

Black ointment under the eyes. The mother may pierce the child’s ear, talismans, sacrificed sheep eye. You see on the Eid al Adha during the the the the Hajj sacrifice, pilgrimage, or all over the Muslim world, the sheep’s eye is a special talisman or a shell or blue bead and then also the 7 seals of Solomon. Another one is the Al Khatus. Al Khatus.

And that is a a a type of gin. It’s sort of like and it can kill a mother or child. So you never want to leave the child alone, You know, a little tiny child. If no one is present as at birth, the jinn is expected to eat the mother’s liver. And we had a a word for that, in Pakistan.

It was jigahor, which is, who’s called a a liver eater. What’s the treatment? The treatment is, in some areas, It’s, treatment for this al Sabyan, the mother of youth in Egypt, Sudan, Al Kharisi in in Turkey. There’s this fear, this lean, loathsome woman who destroys Bahir birk presence, causes miscarriage, impotency, and closes the womb. In other words, you can’t have a baby.

And for the hardest case, it’s the 7 covenants of Solomon, which is, something too that, you probably won’t see with your, when you’re unless you’re looking for it. But because, you know, Muslims keep these kind of things often secret. They don’t, they wouldn’t they’re probably embarrassed to talk about it, because but it’s it’s it’s in their hearts and so, it’s what’s it’s what they do. Now, we talk about the affrit, which is a female div or demon, and, you notice here that she’s put up a picture of a of a of a white woman, but but, that’s not my you know, because I’ve seen some older women, and, obviously, she couldn’t find, one. But, you know, obviously, we’d be very, very poor and, they are feared sometimes because they are needy and poor, and so they rely on, spiritual power to get things done.

So they’re afraid of this afflict. And, what’s the treatment here? It’s pewter that’s the Jonah, that’s pewter number 11 10, I guess it is, on a deerskin with musk and saffron, and it’s worn by the person, and then there is, the reading of the Quran. As we’ve talked about before, this is, always a treatment for for jinn spirits.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 1) 

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 1) 

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the influence of Jinn among certain regions around the world of Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Asia Minor regional Jinn influences, how Muslims defend against the Jinn daily, and the missiological implication of it.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 1) 

Going great guns here on lecture 20, and it has to do with, regional jinn. In other words, jinn influences in various parts of the Muslim world. You know, the Muslim world is so broad, isn’t it? All the way from Morocco to Malaysia. Some years ago when I was doing my PhD dissertation called Islamic Ideology and Fundamentalism in Pakistan, colon, climate for conversion to Christianity, question mark, I remember, thinking, wow.

You know, over 50 every con over 50 countries in the world, in the Muslim world, not not Muslim world, in the world are have a majority of Muslim, not to mention those who have, you know, a minority, Muslims. So, there is a lot of variety, and there’s variety in this, variety in folk practices. By that, we mean different names and some, you know, different spirits and stuff. But by and large, it’s the same. You know, whether it’s a Sufi cult or it’s a, some kind of practice, It’s very sounding very, very familiar.

In fact, my friend Dudley Woodbury used to say that, that, he were having worked in Pakistan when he was giving lectures on folk Islam, that his friend, Paul Hiebert, who had been working with Hindus in India, could step in and give a lecture about, folk religion among the Hindus, and it was very much the same as folk religion among Muslims. So we’re talking about, the, you know, regional gin influence and, the varieties, we talk first of all about Turkey. And, you know, you’d think that, because Turkey is, well, it’s a modern Muslim country. It’s making progress. It’s, secular.

In other words, in in so many ways, it it seems different. Nevertheless, folk practices is are very, very common there. And in Turkey, the the djinn, are very active, and the locations, unsurprisingly, are in, the baths. Now I don’t see unless this is supposed to be represent a bath, it’s possible, but, you know, the Turkish bath is is famous, and, anyone who’s been there, I guess, it’s it’s quite the experience. But, it’s understood that jinn are also present, and, they’re, of course, there in at the cemetery, at the foot of big trees, and, also in toilets or garbage dumps.

I don’t see any toilets here, but there you have it. Often, again, understood that a black cat or a black dog represent a jinn. So, when you’re in the Muslim world, keeping a an animal, especially in the house is not the thing to do. Where we were in Pakistan, we had a dog for some of these quite a few of our years, but the dog was always outside, and he was a what they called a chokidar, a guard or she, and, you know, roamed around the roof or something like that. That was okay because a lot of Muslims see the need, for for that, but not certainly to keep them inside.

Also notice that, dwarves or giants are suspect, you know, as far as the djinn are concerned. Maybe that’s a djinn. So you can see how difficult it would be if you were a dwarf or or a giant in, in Muslim culture that is heavy into this, popular stuff. What about harm and pre precaution? In other words, well, the harm is, from a jinn could be, you know, many, many things, but often paralysis is considered to be caused by a jinn.

If you read Musk, you get this, from the stories he tells of of, paralysis, and it’s believed to be caused by an evil spirit. So what do you do? Well, you have to take precaution. You have to, to do something to prevent it and from being attacked or being harmed by a jinn. And one of the things as we’ve talked about before, several times, probably you’re sick of my me saying it, this bismillah stuff.

In the name of god, you do this and that and everything else, bismillah this and bismillah that. But it’s also understood to the the felt needs. In other words, what are the felt needs? What do people feel? Obviously, there’s a lot of fear.

How could you not be afraid? Well, you know, if I go here or do this, without doing the right thing, take the precaution, or if my baby comes in contact with this person or that place, maybe harm will become, or perhaps, that’s what’s happened already. Just imagine the fear. Just try to walk in their shoes if you can. There’s also a lot of suspicion, about one another.

Well, maybe that person has put a curse on me or wants to put a curse on me. If she doesn’t like me, maybe she’s jealous of me, jealous of my beautiful daughter who, who who’s gonna get married very easily when her own daughter, if I might say not so attractive, won’t find a husband so easily. And then there’s this fear of being unclean, isn’t there? An, you know, unclean. And women in particular, I think, sense this and feel this, particularly, because of the, during the, you know, certain type of the time of the month, unclean, and and Islam too.

We can understand this, I think, from the old testament and, and and references there to, that that for women. And and and so there is this this in Islam that seems to be, dare I say it, condemns women for being women, how troubling this is. So what do you do? In other words, what are the amulets? What are what are done?

Well, amulets are understandably, they’re Koranic, that are used against the evil eye. And here’s a famous one. Here, right in the center of this amulet, in other words, right here is, a famous verse or all famous, but more famous than others. Some 68, surah 68 in verse, 51 and 52. This sounds very foolish, and the unbelievers would almost trip thee up, see, with their eyes when they hear the message, and they say, surely, he’s possessed.

Now this is, this is quite a verse. The eyes of evil men look at a good man as if they would eat him up or trip him, says the commentator 5633. But, really, this suggests to me some, spirit stuff. In other words, that the unbelievers would trip you up with their eyes. You see, the eye is the eye of envy.

And, well, that’s in the center. But on the margins, that’s out here and here and here and here is the 2 and 256, which is the famous old verse. Actually, it’s 2 I think 255. Although there is no God but he, the living, the self sustaining one, eternal. But then in the middle of that verse, 2 and 50 255, chapter 2, his throne doth extend over the heavens.

So that’s the throne verse. You know? This is the verse really that’s often used in the amulet, right out of the Quran. Around the corners here, by the way, when I said, thrown on the margins, I I hope I didn’t point. I might have pointed at the at the corners, but on the, in the corners itself, in other words, up here, you can see that, the chapters there are 112, 113, 114, and I’ve referred before.

This, you can see, by the way, was, done by one of my, you you don’t know, but it was done by one of my students who was very artistic because you can’t just take a picture, because of copyright laws, so she reproduced it. And there, believe it or not, is Ali right at the top. Ali. Who’s Ali? Ali is the he’s a hero of the Shiites, the son-in-law of Mohammed, who married Mohammed’s daughter, of course, Fatima Fatima.

And, then, Ali’s sons, Hassan and Hassan, took over, but Hussein is the one who suffered a great deal, and Shiites remember him. But Ali is the one, really. Ali is the one that, Muslims love, a great deal. I think in some way, you can say that they love Ali more than they love Mohammed. If you go to certain areas like Mazar e Sharif, where there are lots of Shiites in Afghanistan, that’s what you would understand.

So amulets, all over the Muslim world to to help you, and the silver necklace with plaques and tubes to hold small amulet squares with Quranic verses, maybe sometime in your travels. If you travel here and there in the Muslim world or wherever you might go, keep your eye open for these kind of of, of necklaces. And it would be great if you could have one if I, keep my eyes open, too for these kind of things as I like to take them to and then to class or whenever and show them, show and tell to students. Quran amulets. Always Quran.

You know, Quran amulets. Here is one that’s sold in the mosque of Shanghai. Where Shanghai? In China. You see, you have Muslims in China as well.

And it’s used to defend against the jinn or other evils and produce health. You know, you this is really what you want. You want health. You want good fortune. And so, that’s what Muslims are, you know, hoping for and depending on to get them through.

I could have mentioned there, under the last point, felt needs. The in your notes, you’ll notice gospel for shame cultures in the evangelical missionary quarterly, July 1994. I don’t know if you read the AMQ or not, but that’s an interesting article because it talks about how important, you know, shame is and, how you get rid of it and free of it. So, let me just mention that in passing, that the the desire for cleanness is is very, very important. And and, let’s think a little bit about missiological implications and this clean or unclean thing.

You know, we we we did mention the, the fact that often, women feel unclean, and we, we don’t like that. In other words, we want, women to feel accepted. We want them to feel part of the group. We don’t want them to feel left out or excluded for any reason. So what do we do?

Well, I think that we should remind ourselves that there’s no harm in being unclean. In other words, you remember the book of Leviticus and how that talks over and over again of of, you know, how to get clean from this. It’s just not women. It’s it’s everyone, really. If you do this and you’re unclean, you do this, you’re unclean, and you have to do you know?

And so and then it gives you the you know, you get the idea that it’s there’s no harm in being unclean, but just don’t think that it it doesn’t matter. And, of course, then, the idea is to, you know, to the understanding is that God is holy, and, we need to be holy too, and we are holy through Christ. We are cleansed through the blood of Christ. And, this is, this was this introduction, perfect introduction in Leviticus to the gospel and in testament references of how Christ comes, and he cleanses the leper. He does this and that, and his blood cleanses from from all sin.

If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteous. Isn’t isn’t it a a blessing, really, to to experience that, that we are clean through the blood of Christ? Remember, that Psalm in, 24, Psalm 24, who may ascend the hill of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place, he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift to be sold to an idol, or swear by what is false, he will receive blessing from the lord. This is a, a psalm that is the favorite psalm sung by the Punjabi Christians in Pakistan. They love to sing the songs psalms.

And this is the favorite my favorite one. And they sing it over and over and over again. It’s a great song. They sing the Zebulos, the Psalms, of David. Who is this king of glory?

The lord, strong and mighty. The lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, oh you gates, and lift them up, you ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in. You know, Jesus is king, and, this is our this is our witness. This is our belief that, that through his, through him, we, can, be ready, to meet God.

He helps us. I wanted to, end with this question. Why might the handicap be more receptive? One of my former students from Germany, whose name is Sabine, works in North Africa. She is, in a wheelchair herself, and she went out there and she helps work with, Muslims.

She, imports wheelchairs through, Joni Eareckson TADA. And, I personally think that she has a great ministry. It it’s difficult for her, though. But I I sometimes think of the fact that the handicapped in Muslim countries are more receptive to the gospel. Why?

Because they’ve been rejected, for various and sundry reasons, and I think that’s probably true here as well. So we need to remember those, remember even, you know, the the deaf and people like that, people who are challenged, how how we need to be sensitive to them and the fact that, god loves them and god cares for them. And there are many of these people in the Muslim world, just roaming around, oftentimes totally neglected, and so they need to be reached with the gospel as well.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Zar in North Africa

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Zar in North Africa

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the Folk Islamic Zar Cult in North Africa during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Zar Cult in North Africa, the demographics, what needs are perceived to be met, and the rites and rituals involved among the Zar.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Zar in North Africa 

Now we’re on to, Zar which is lecture 19 and this is a a spirit, of course. It’s one of the one of the spirits so called, in the Muslim world. It’s a type of possession cult, and, it’s often induced. Usually, female clientele, with a sheikha officiating And, Zweimer says all in Mecca practice it. That may not everyone may not agree to that.

But I’m, when I’m in Germany, teaching at our our sister’s school in Korntow, which is just out of outside of Stuttgart, where I go every year or have for the past 10 years, When I’m talking about Zar, I call on a friend of mine who is a former Muslim from the Sudan, And, since Zar is prominent in, the Sudan, I call on him and he talks about Zar, also gives his testimony, and, so that is much appreciated. But I wanted to refer to also to just alert you to Janice Bode’s book, Wounds and Alien Spirits, Women, Men, and the Zara Cult in Northern Sudan. So you can see that, she’s specifically zeroing in there on, that part of the world, the Sudan. Zweimer thinks it’s a little bit broader than that, as we will see in a minute, but, there are some interesting things about the czar and one of them is it seems to meet some social needs. Social needs of of women and, there is some ecstasy, some erotic dance that’s involved that you would never, think of women doing, that is, Muslim women, but they get sort of liberated and worked up into this and there is some erotic dance that’s involved.

There is a give and take. In other words, there is the the the idea that that, you gain something but you also give something. In other words, there is some danger and some, I guess, some risk or some sacrifice, but also some, something you take home with you, some benefit obviously, and note that there is no exorcism. In other words, there’s no attempt here to get rid of this spirit. You know, we gotta exercise this thing.

We gotta get rid of it. There’s nothing of that. They’re just sort of making use of it. It it doesn’t not, you know, tell you a lot about folk practices, you know, this manipulate manipulation thing, we can gain some benefit out of this. So I think that it it must meet some felt needs.

There’s always a question, isn’t there? You know, in other words, is this, does this really meet felt needs? And, because Satan is such a hard taskmaster, isn’t he? In other words, he, is a taker and he’s not a giver. So, what exactly happens?

In other words, he does deceive and he does, trick people and lie to them and and so on, but there is some treatment here of, sick people, sick persons, primarily we’re talking about women here, and it it this, this process may be done for a czar bride. Now not a real bride as when a woman gets married, but she’s like a bride in in some of the things they do, the dress she wears and some of the of the preparation. Charms are given. And, I have here a a note that says they’re regional found in Egypt, Sudan, and as already alluded to this, etcetera. I have a note here that says according to Samuel Zwaymer, who is no dummy, worked in parts of the worked in the Middle East, where he actually went to Bahrain over a 100 years ago, but then he worked in Egypt.

He says on page, I guess it is 228 of his book, the influence of animism on Islam. He says the particular form of this belief called zar is unique in other ways than those pointed out by, doctor McDonald. Evidence continues to accumulate that we deal here with a form of animistic worship, which alongs, although so long and so often concealed from Western eye that is, infidel observation is found in Mecca I’m sorry, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Tripoli, Egypt, and the Sudan. East and West Arabia. Listen to this.

Persia, Malaysia, and India. No direct witness, to the existence of this superstition among Chinese Muslims has come from travelers and missionaries, but it would not surprise me to find it also in Yunnan and Kansu provinces. So, Zweimer may be wrong on the the, extent of this. In other words, but he does think that it’s broader than the Nile. Some of our anthropologists today think that the czar is just along the Nile there, Egypt, Sudan, and places like that.

But Zweymer had the idea that if even if it wasn’t called czar, there is a wider a wider use. And, you know, Zweymer would be right. Zweimer was, was pretty sharp and I had a lot of experience, a lot of research. One thing we note is that the anthropologists, they do live with people. They know a lot about, what people do.

They don’t seem to know often much about Islam itself, but but they do, you know, try to figure out what people practice. So, there you have it, Zara. And, there is a ceremony. Now let’s think a little bit about this ceremony. Interestingly enough and this shows you, you know, how Islam is, you know, they they use use the Quran and it’s often, the Fatihah is used.

That’s the first Surah, the the opening Surah, that’s what it means, al Fatiha, the opening. This is used in the ceremony itself for Zarr. Praise be to Allah, the cherisher and sustainer of the worlds. Most gracious, most most merciful master of the day of judgment, thee do we worship, and thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way, the way of those in whom thou hast bestowed thy grace, those whose portion is not wrath, and who go not astray.

So the fatiha used in this, and as we know, fatiha is used in the daily prayers that Muslims, do, you know, some of them do 5 times a day or more in some cases, but the fatiha is used there. There is some curious antiques of the possessed, you know, some erotic dancing, sacrifice, drinking of hot blood, if you can imagine, and I’m sure you can. Zweymer talks about that too on page 233 and 234 of his book, that I just quoted, just referred to. Here you have, a picture of the musicians. They’re men, by the way.

Everything else, the, those doing the dancing are women, but, men are there playing the music. You know, often music is isn’t a it’s part of, of the possession, part of the, of the spiritism. And, here is, by the way, you can, we’ll look at this in a minute, but you can Google tsar and find all kinds of, you know, pictures and information on it. Illustrations of Baladi, which I understand Baladi is, dance in Cairo. The names czar, you know, the the the names that are given to this this spirits are such like, El Sudani, stands for Sudan, El Saidi in in upper Egypt, or El Dayir, the Copts.

Notice that the Copts, seem to participate in this, And, sometimes the name of particular qualities are given to the spirit like Red Sultan, and that might reflect, the kind of illness suffered by the victim. In other words, if if she’s, suffering from hemorrhages, that’s the name that we’d be given. Again, Cynthia Nelson has written about this, an anthropologist who has, taught in the American University in Cairo. Now when a woman suffers various things, and, you know, when women suffer all kinds of things, I, sometimes grieve and think about the suffering of Muslim women around the world and I blog quite often about them. I’m concerned about them.

Some when, you know, they gained some freedom in Saudi Arabia and, one thing or another, I blog about them, but also blog about their suffering and their, the things that they have to endure. A woman might suffer be accident prone. In other words, always getting hurt. She might have seizures, and seizures, of course, are common to everyone, epileptic seizures or whatever. She might be sterile, in other words very very common, for women is in the Muslim world is, at least, it’s it’s more common than than you think, not having not being able to have a baby, not being able to conceive.

Okay. What does a woman do? Or there might be marital strife, trouble with a husband, or she might not have a husband, you know, wants to get married, and, so she goes to the sheikh. He says, you’ve got this trouble. What you need to do is you need to, do this ritual, do the zar.

And so he, he likes to take a hanky or something like that, a colored hanky, and he, takes her hanky or whatever it is and puts it ties it in a knot, puts it under his pillow and then, says come back the next day. So he has that pillow that under his mattress or his, his pillow or somewhere, and, he is supposed to dream of the spirit in the woman. And what he says to the woman is that one of the things you’ve got to do, besides this other stuff, is you’ve got to have a czar ceremony. And it’s sort of like a wedding. Some of the things that they do is sort of like a wedding.

But the evening before the czar ceremony, the sheikh goes to the patient’s home with musicians, and those musicians, as we’ve said, are men. And the bride, which is she’s less sort of like a bride, is dressed in white, and the sheikh, wraps bread and stuff or salt in a hanky, ties it on her arm as a pact with spirit money. You know, this is the money he’s given, this is always, you know, a costly thing, and, there are male dancers, apparently, some, at least musicians. I don’t know about the dancers, but at least the musicians. And the woman in in the trance is lending her body to the to the master, and apparently no longer really responsible.

And so there’s lots of jumping and dancing around, and 1 by 1, women join in to this, this procession. If this, this possession is this ceremony is never done during Ramadan, and then aft thereafter, the woman is required. In other words, she she has to keep on attending ceremonies. In other words, so, her neighbor has a ceremony for a particular problem and so she’s gotta go too. So you see you have a pretty, you’re you’re you’re assured of a clientele.

One thing I wanted to ask was, just discuss and think about was that this this author here, Janice Bode, who teaches at the University of Toronto, an anthropologist, she says that, you know, this is this zone is not too harmful. I’m a little troubled by that. I have wondered about some other things that Janice Bodey has or says. I remember her saying and reading in a newspaper in Canada, that she says that the circumcision is not all that bad either. In other words, female circumcision, which I think is a terrible practice in its its more and more terrible the degree to which it’s done, but but but that’s also something she said.

But she says that the practice of the czar is not too harmful and what she means, I think, is that this spirit, you know, it’s induced and then when they’re, through with it and they then they, they quieten down and and everyone’s had a good time and their needs have been met and healing is might come. I don’t know. But I I think, you know, if we were face to face, we could talk about this, but I think according, to a Christian, our idea is that it’s never a neutral thing. In other words, Satan, some way or another, he gets his he gets his control of us, and so to dabble in this in any way, shape, or form is wrong, harmful, and dangerous. So, I think that, because she’s a secular person, she doesn’t know the Lord, she doesn’t profess to be a Christian, I think that she’s wrong here, but I’ve just that by the book I used to require for my people who took this class, but but, some of the students complained that it was pretty heavy going.

You know, you can, just by the way, you can, Google on this subject, and I have before me an article that I printed out some time ago called Egyptian music, colon, czar, tradition, gives a woman, I think I’m not for sure what the next word is moment at center stage and was found in the Christian Science Monitor and it goes on to say that, you know, fundamentalist Islam has stamped on this as they naturally would, because they think it’s nonorthodox And, so that it it goes on to say that there are only 25 czar performers left in the country. Now that would be a surprise, because, these things go on under the surface. Zar, it says, is a song and dance ritual. See? And I think that’s what Baladi means, basically, is a dance that historically has been used in a healing rite.

It’s the only musical tradition from Egypt in which women hold the most important roles. In fact, the act itself is intended to be a mode through which women can experience freedom and release anxieties and tensions without being restricted by the social norms of their conservative upper Egyptian culture. The music with this distinctly, African sound became threatened after religious hardliners deemed the practice on Islamic is on Islamic, and today there are only about 25 performers left in the country. So you can be sure that the Muslim brotherhood, but even more importantly, the Salafi, al Salafiya, would be against this thing totally. It goes on to say that, you know, that some people have a bad idea of the czar, because of media portrayals that describe it as an exorcism ritual that communes with evil spirits.

But these preconceived notions quickly disappear as soon as Egyptians come to see Zara. They like it. Oh my god. It’s beautiful. And so, this person, the star of the show, says that she’s learned zar from her mother.

So there you see the, the conflict, between, those who wanna keep it up, but then, fundamentalist Islam or at least, those who call themselves orthodox want to stamp on it.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Jinn in Folk Islam (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Jinn in Folk Islam (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Jinn among Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of the Jinn (or spirits) and discusses how Folk Muslims think, live, and understand Jinn.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Jinn in Folk Islam (Pt. 2)

We introduced, in the last lecture the topic of Corina and now we’re going to carry on with it in, lecture 18 of the carina. And we’re going to note that the carina, varies a bit in different contexts, karena and familiar spirits. They are definitely harmful. There are really different versions of the jinnia. The jinnia is a female term of of jinn.

They are malignant, this jinn doesn’t want you to marry, but you can protect yourself through the use of magic. And here are some of the variety. In Morocco, this, Karina is called Ayesha Kadisha. Ayesha from, you know, that that name that one of Muhammad’s, wives, 16 or ever whatever he had in in, Morocco. They’ve given this this name, Ayesha Kadisha.

In Algeria, Bint Jalal, meaning a lady of splendor, beautiful lady, and that tells you a little bit of the thinking. In other words, this carina or this, mate is attractive and can be used for, you know, for sexual purposes. But as we’ve said before, there is this this danger, this risk. In other words, this need for protection. And the 7 covenants of Solomon, a very powerful amulet.

Al Subyan, is what is sometimes used. In Turkey, the name of that double is Alkrisi. And, also among the kabil, there is another term called tabah. In Egypt, the karena is often jealous and, seeks to kill children, so you must appease the jinn, mate. And so the midwife goes to the home.

She has the husband and wife stand in front of each other, join hands, by a thread, and then the midwife kills a fowl, plucks and embowels that chicken, cuts the thread, and buries the remains of the fowl under the room. And this comes out of a book that Cynthia Nelson has written, the late, I should say, Cynthia Nelson, who was an anthropologist in Cairo, taught at the American University in Cairo. She, has written articles, and I’m I’m sorry that I don’t have her listed in the bibliography, but, spirit possessions, so she’s done some good study on, on on that among the, Muslims in Egypt. What is the relation of the karena to animals? And, as we’ve suggested before, sometimes this karena takes the, form of a cat, especially an all black or a white cat or dog household animals.

Now that’s one of the reasons why many Muslims do not warm to the idea of having an animal in the house. You know, we think nothing of it and we hug our dogs and and then we kiss them and all kinds of things. This is reprehensible to Muslims, not just because dogs are dirty, but, one reason here, probably the major reason is the, the idea that, that they can be a a form of gin. Now the, the one who worked on my PowerPoint here, she substitutes some very prim and proper looking dogs. I I I wouldn’t have put that in myself.

So, you know, they’re they’re not thinking of dogs who were manicured like this, but but you get the idea, don’t you? All black or all white particularly would be dangerous in reference to, the you know, in on this topic. In Hausa I’m sorry. In, the Hausa of Nigeria say that the jinn of the opposite sex generally live underground. They don’t want your mate don’t want the mate to marry, sleeps with the mate, has relations, you know, in the dreams, and, they think that donkeys and dogs see the djinn before we do.

So a donkey bring, a dog barking means that they’ve come across this jinn. There is a book out, Al Asghar, and, he has written a lot about the jinn. So, there you have it. Now what do you do for protection? What do you do for protection against, against the jinn?

Well, of course, there are verses, you know, there’s a verse here like there’s no other god but god, and another very popular verse is to use in all type of, protection against the jinn or anything else, really, that is threatening Muslims is the throne verse. 7 verse 54, your guardian, lord, is Allah who created the heaven and earth in 6 days when he established himself on the throne. So the fact that God is sovereign sitting on the throne, and that is a verse that is used for protection. Also, you know, the zikr, saying over and over and over, naming God’s names, with a taspee, although that in itself, some Muslims would consider to be, unorthodox, yet it’s done. It’s done quite often and just just, you know, just as common as as day and night.

And and and and you wear the Quran as well. In other words, verses the the best amulet in the world, according to Muslim are verses where the Quran is written, verses of the Quran. And various and sundry verses are used, 23, for example, 97 through 98. And say, oh my lord, I seek refuge with thee from the suggestions of the evil one, and I seek refuge with thee, oh my lord, lest they should come near me. You know, refuge, I think of, the Psalms and the comfort they are to me, but it’s not a magical thing.

You know, when David said, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. I’m not thinking of magic and neither was the psalmist, but I’m thinking of him, God’s personal presence and my relationship to him. For Muslims, this is a, a magical thing as if, you know, these verses worn around your neck or, can can protect you. 16 and verse 98 is another one. We’re thumbing our way here quickly, back and forth in the Quran.

16 in verse 98, then thou dost read the Quran, or when you did read the Quran, seek Allah’s protection from Satan, the rejected one. And as we’ve said before, maybe too often during a coalition, say Bismillah, so the child doesn’t become an infidel or the devil, and you have charms, charms to protect yourself from the kurina. There are scratches on a 6 day child old 6 day old child, sometimes on the baby’s stomach to let out the jinn, causing fever. A little baby is extremely vulnerable to the jinn in much of the Muslim world, so, that’s really when, you know, protection is important. Interestingly enough, there’s no exorcism.

None. So what do you do? You try harmony. You know you have to live with it. Or you can’t live within with them, you can’t live without them.

But you can take precautions, and so you don’t, pour hot water on them. You a frail person may have, you know, have an infidel jinn, and so you change, the name or something like that. Children like to pray play with human kids. The Jin children like to play with human kids. One of the things you do is keep pigeons and roosters in the house for them.

If a child cries without reason, it must have hurt the baby jinn. So the mother puts her own milk on the spot and says Bismillah. Interesting, isn’t it, the things that Muslims will do to, try to protect themselves from these miserable jinn. But, as we’ve said before that it’s not all miserable, there is some, protection out of it. Here is the 7 covenants of Solomon and we’ve talked about that before, this comes right out of the, of the Musk book and, it’s all kinds of things there.

You know, here’s Mohammed down here in the corner and Allah up here in this corner and, all kinds of things in between. But, specifically, put it in English, 7 covenants of Solomon. On one corner is Abu Bakr, who was the first actually, the the the caliph after Muhammad, the first caliph. And then, along the side there, Hassan Gabriel and Israfil. Hassan was, also one of the sons, grandsons of Muhammad, sons of Ali.

In the middle, God and Muhammad, Umer, Hussein, Michael, Israel. So you’ve got angels there, you’ve got God there, you’ve got cay Caliphs there, everything and anything. Mix it all together and, hope that you can gain and that’s a very expensive amulet, A favorite in the Arabic speaking world, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, to protect from that lone and dis woman who destroys by her mere presence causes childbirth, barrenness, infertility, impotence. Notice that, these are the causes. A verse in the Quran says this, Solomon, soon shall we see whether thou hast told the truth or lied.

And that’s, you know, an amulet too. So so Solomon, he grabs her and forces her to make a covenant for man’s protection. Excuse me. She never comes near anyone who wears that amulet and, the, the amulet ends with this, from 20 in other words, the verse from 24 verse 34 that Allah is the light and there is no other god but but god. Musk talks about this in his book.

So, lots of stuff, isn’t there? Now here is a I’m sorry. There is a case study, and we’re going to end with this, just for a little bit of missiological implication, a little bit of of thought, and this really happened. A woman’s husband in the Philippines suffered an enlarged heart. So she went to the witch doctor, and the witch doctor said she was possessed by a woman of the clouds and that the spirit wanted the sick man as her spouse.

So the practitioner said that the spirit was clutching his heart in effort. So in an effort to please the spirit, the family did several things. You see, they’re doing all kinds of things. They, of course, did sacrifices, went to the hospital. The sick man went into a trance.

He spoke in a woman’s voice and said that she had and and and and that this woman said that she’d return in 3 days for him. 3 days later, he dies. Now the spirit woman now had him, and the woman has no fear, no sense of offending Allah. This is pure pragmatism. This comes out of the book that you, I think, might have seen, Bridges to Islam by Phil Parshall.

So, it’s a pretty good illustration of some of the, I guess, amoral stuff that goes on because really, you know, it’s pragmatic, isn’t it? It’s it’s you you do whatever you have to do to get by, to live with the spirit world, to cope, and, there is really no right and wrong in particular. It’s just you do whatever you have to do to manipulate and to, please the spirits and to survive.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Jinn in Folk Islam (Pt. 1)

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Jinn in Folk Islam (Pt. 1)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Jinn among Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of the Jinn (or spirits) and discusses how Folk Muslims think about, live with, and understand Jinn.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Jinn in Folk Islam (Pt. 1)

Now it’s on to gin. And, I think an interesting more interesting topic, it is meaning spirits. Jin is a very, you know, it’s a common belief to believe in spirits in the Muslim world, certainly was where I was, in Pakistan, but it seemed to be a subject that sometimes the Muslims and the Christians too would be sort of would joke about. In other words, I think they were a little bit afraid and embarrassed about, the the topic. The the one of the expressions was to be hit by a jinn, struck by a jinn as if the person was a little bit, you know, crazy or off his rocker.

It’s interesting to think about how Muslims, you know, talk about it or don’t talk about this topic, gin and similar spirits, and how sometimes they avoid it. Several years ago when I was, in fact, quite a few years ago now, when I was doing my PhD in, California, I, was invited to speak at a mosque where a famous mosque in, in the southern part of California near not too far from Los Angeles and, it was not a debate, but it was a discussion and the imam there was going to tell why he was a Muslim and I was to speak on the topic of why I was a Christian. And, so, students from a Bible college came down from the north and they were there in the audience, I don’t know if any Muslims were there or not besides, there might have been a few Muslims there, I don’t know, besides the imam. I spoke first on why I’m a Christian and then he spoke, a very educated fellow, a doctor, in fact a couple of 2 brothers there who run that mosque are both medical doctors, I believe, and I’ve written about Islam. One of them, I think, the book is the mindset of Muslims.

But I remember that after we spoke and, by the way, my article, Why I’m a Christian, is still in print, you can Google it, Warren Larson, Why I’m a Christian, and, I gave three reasons, because of who God is, because of who, Jesus is, and because of who I am, and, it’s on the on the website, www.warrenlarsen.com. And, a couple of days ago, a Muslim or 2 found that article and wrote into me wrote in to, he wasn’t very happy with it. He he said, you know, you really haven’t read the Quran, and I bet you you haven’t read the Bible either. So I haven’t responded to him yet, but I probably will and do it as graciously as I can. In fact, I tell him that I do read the Bible once a year, but what I was going to say is that in the QUEST q and a time after we had spoken, both of us had spoke, I presented my paper and he had spoken too.

One of the students, said to him, sir, I just wanted to ask a little bit off the topic, what, what about jinn in Islam? You know, what about it? What about jinn? And he did this. He just sort of took shook his hand and shook it like this, which I’m still puzzled that he would do that.

Either he was saying that, he didn’t wanna talk about it, because it didn’t, you know, it wasn’t, the Islam, the Orthodox thing to do or he had a sort of lapse of memory. But but the fact is is that as as we know, that jinn is very much part of Islam and in one chapter in the Quran, 72, is called, the jinn. And in fact, I think it’s fair to say that in Islam, in the Quran, Al Jin, the topic is much more prominent, you know, the the devils and spirits and stuff like that, than it is in Christianity when you look at the Bible. One of my students several years ago, when he took this course, he’s now a missionary in in Europe, and he said, out of curiosity, he wrote, I did a word search, in on biblegateway.com to compare the number of times evil spirits, the devil, and Satan are mentioned in the Bible versus, Ataluz Ataluz, this is a Muslim writer, summary of the Quran. So this, Ataula does the summary of the Quran.

The Bible, NIV, has 44 references of evil spirit and 14 to evil spirits compared to 33 and 26 respectively in the Quran. It refers to Satan 47 times and the devil 35 times compared to 65 and and 17, respectively, in the Quran. It strikes me. Now this is the important thing, that the numbers are very similar in spite of the fact the Quran being significantly shorter than the Bible. However, I must note that all but 23 of the total references in the Bible are in the New Testament.

In any event, it is evident how prominent of a role the jinn is assumed in in Mohammed’s revelation, and he refers to one verse in particular. 7 and 179, he says the reference to the jinn and men destined for hell, who have hearts that do not understand, eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, reminded me, he said, of Matthew 13 verses 14 through 16 when Jesus quoted Isaiah 6. He says, again, I have to wonder how much Mohammed was borrowing from Christianity in his religion. And then he, goes on and talks about some of the things we’ve been talking about in this course, you know, and washing your nose out and mentioning all his name repeatedly to drive away Satan, warning a snake 3 times, standing shoulder to shoulder prevents Satan from getting in, in between, covering utensils, tying water skins and water skins and closing doors at night, sat Satan circulating in the blood, no eating with the left hand, and, so on and on and on. So, that is, was an interesting, I think, thing that happened.

So I’ve already mentioned the fact that you do have jinn, in the Quran. Lots of lots of it is there and, we need to keep in mind that there is a variety of jinn, in the in Islam or this folk stuff. There is the div, who is a demon. You have Afrit, who’s a female div, a ghawl, a pari, which is a fairy. Dogs in solid color are generally understood to be the djinn.

In other words, black, all black, all white, or something like that. Spotted, could be those expelled from the Jin tribe. Note too, interestingly enough, the Jin can be good or bad. They can be good or bad. They can be Muslim or they can be infidel.

A Shi’ite jinn in Iran is holy, and, everyone in Iran has a twin. This is another word for, that we’ve we’ll talk about a little bit more in the future, but another word for it is hamzad, ham meaning, the same. Jinn, according to the Koran, are they are free from smoke. They’re created free from smoke. So this is 55 and verse 15.

And he, it says, created gins from fire free of smoke. Now we’ll look at some other verses as well, as as we go along here. But before Islam, Arabs held orthodox, held old beliefs. I’m sorry. They held, you know, pagan beliefs.

And, here’s a verse here that we’ll be looking at in a minute, particularly because of Ali’s commentary. But, jinn are thick in in pre Islam, and kissing the black stone, some of the stuff, in animistic influence, Interestingly enough, whistling is sometimes thought to be calling the djinn. This is what Zwemer one of the points Zwemer makes. I myself, like to whistle, but I realized that it wasn’t always the thing to do in Pakistan, so I had to cut down on it because, especially when, you know, the Muslims had some suspicions about you whistling, so I decided not to do very much of that. Here is the context of suitors 113 and 114.

I think I mentioned before that I was gonna talk about that. This is an interesting context of how these 2 suitors came to be. These are very short short suitors at the end of the Quran, and here’s what happened. According to the hadith, that somebody, induced to make a charm against Mohammed. In other words, they sort of put a, you know, a a curse on Mohammed, and Mohammed got sick.

So he has a dream and in his dream, he hears 2 angels discussing that a curse has been put on him. So what does he do? He empties the well, that he had there, his own well, and then came these verses 113 and 114. They’re very few. I mean, you know, it’s 1 it’s it’s 5 in 113 and 5 and, I think, 6 and 114.

Say I seek refuge with the lord of the dawn from the mischief of created things, from the mischief of darkness as it overspreads, from the mischief of those who practice secret arts, and from the mischief of the curious one as he practices enmity. And in 114, I seek refuge with the lord and cherisher of mankind, the king or ruler of mankind, the god or judge of mankind, from the mischief of the whisperer of evil who withdraws after his whispers, the same who whispers into the hearts of mankind among jinns and among men. Those 2 surahs are used very much in, dealing with evil spirits and curses and stuff like that. Well, how does high Islam, if there you know, if there’s a such thing, deal with this? Well, high Islam basically, embraces it, and, I wanted to read this verse to you, and it’s 6 and 100 in the Quran.

6 and 100. I hope that you are able to follow in the Quran. It’s true that we are, you know, making these references, quite quickly, but it says that, in the Quran 6 and 100, yet they make the jinns equal with Allah, though Allah did create the jinns. What it says? And they falsely, having no knowledge, attribute to him sons and daughters.

Praise and glory be to him for he is above, all of that. In other words, what they attribute to him. Wanted to read the, commentary here too, jinns. That’s, 929 in Yusuf Ali, a commentary note. Who are they?

In 18/50, that’s chapter 18 verse 50, we are told that Iblis was one of the jinns. Suggested that that is was why he disobeyed the command of Allah. See, in the in the bible, he wasn’t a jinn in the beginning. He was an angel. But in the passage, another similar passage, we are told that Allah commanded the angels to bow down to Adam, and they obeyed except Iblis.

That implies that Iblis had been one of the company of the angels. In many passages, jinns and men are spoken of together. Man is stated to have been created from clay and jinns from a flame of fire. So, yes, I do not wanna be dogmatic, he says, but I think from a collation and study of the chronic passage that the that the meaning simply is a spirit or an invisible or hidden force. In folklore stories and romantic romances like the Arabian Nights, they became personified into fantastic forms, but with them, we are not concerned.

Both the Quran and the Hadith describe the jinn in a definite species of living beings. They are created out of fire and are like man. They may believe, listen to this, or disbelieve, accept, or reject guidance. The authoritative Islamic text show that they are not merely a hidden force of spirit. They are personalized beings who enjoy a certain amount of free will and thus will to be called to account.

Alright. That’s, 6 and 100. Now, I wanted to ask you something. I want I wanted to read something here that is in 37 and verse 158. Here’s what it says.

And they have invented a blood relationship between him and the gins. But the gins know quite well that they have indeed to appear before his judgment seat. Well, that’s quite a a verse, isn’t it? They have in and, they have invented a blood relationship. So, you know that, the the the question that I really wanted to ask here is is is really I think we’ll get to it in a minute, but it has to do with this last part here.

But let’s just read, a little bit, ahead of time too here in high Islam. The fact that jinn can be good or bad, and, God says or the Quran says that he will fill hell with men and jinn. Another verse here that’s quite interesting is 4629 and that is that jinn listened to the Koran, some jinn. Muhammad is preaching away and, preaching in the sense of reciting the Koran and it says that the jinn gathered around and they listened to it. I want to close with this question here, and it it sort of comes up from what we just read here a couple of minutes ago from 6137158, and they have invented a blood relationship between him and the jinns.

And it sort of strikes me that, when we speak of Son of God, that Muslims are totally misunderstanding what we’re talking about and, you know, they, I think, are conjuring up all kinds of thoughts of God having a wife or, perhaps back to pre Islam days of paganism where, you know, the belief is that people can, you know, procreate, jinn will procreate, and so when you say son of God, they are, thinking all kinds of evil things that we do not believe by the term, and I think that’s one of the reasons why Muslims are so upset by the term son of God that you some Muslims would say that you’re you’re cursed and you’re damned to hell when you mention the son of God. So what a challenge we have to, to, explain to Muslims that this is not what we mean at all. But I just wanted to point out to you too that, it it is folk Islam, but in high Islam, somehow the, in high Islam, orthodox Islam, they do, you know, live within and admit the activity of these jinn, and as Ibn Sina said, only god knows. There is some indication that they, get some of this stuff from, Jewish mythology.

There is this, Jewish this Lilith here, this word that, that is a female demon of night. Amulets are used to protect, and they have the idea there too, that, one is united, you know, that that you have this united, one that was born the same time as as, we were. So what I’m saying is that the idea of a familiar spirit is not unique to Islam. There is also the term incubus, which is a spirit demon in medieval times who lie on a sleeping person for sexual purposes. But in pre Islam, Egypt, Arabia, Sudan, there is this idea too of a ka or sometimes, even among the cops, a ko, a double person who moves freely and unites with the body at will.

As I’ve been suggesting, it sounds like that the jinn procreate. And, you know, that’s paganism. That is really pre Islam, but Mohammed never changes his mind. He doesn’t his worldview is not changed. It is not affected, through his, through this Islam stuff.

In other words, he’s really animistic at heart when you think about it. Again, more about high Islam, al Badawi, and Maududi too. They also believe in the qurina, a lifetime mate who goes to hell at judgment, tries to ruin a person. God saves the believer, but it’s a blessing to see one’s Corinna in hell. Al Tabri, the king of the commentaries, says that, Kareena is everyone’s personal devil.

Aisha said, that’s Muhammad’s favorite wife, and, his sparkly, feisty little wife says that the devil is with all, including Muhammad. In the hadith, ibn Hanbal, Mohammed said Mohammed’s Kareena only did good. Tradition says Mohammed said he’s superior to Adam in 2 ways, His devil, his that Kareena became a Muslim, and his wives helped him. While Adam’s, devil remained infant, and his wife misled him according to Zweymer in page his book, The Influence of the Animism, page 112. They procreate.

Iblis is a hermaphrodite. He lays eggs lays eggs out of each comes 70 male, female devils. So, we’ve talked a lot about, high Islam and low Islam. High Islam Al Ghazali writes in the revival, sorry, of the, revival of the religious sciences, he who forgets the name of God for even an instant has for that moment no mate but Satan. For god said, whoever turns in remembrance of me, remembrance of the merciful, we shall chain a devil to him who will be his karena.

And this, verse I wanted to read here is 43 and verse 36. It says, if anyone withdraws himself from remembrance, and this is basically what the Quran says. For of Allah, most gracious, we appoint for him, an evil one, to be an intimate companion to him, and that is the word.