Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Evil Eye
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the Evil Eye during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents on the Evil Eye in both the Bible and the Qur’an, what the Evil Eye is, the Evil Eye in the Muslim world, and how it is understood in Folk Islam.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Evil Eye.
In this one on 30, we have really quite a few, case studies. I believe, if I’m not mistaken, lecture 30, still on forces and, the evil eye. So we’re going to be talking about the evil eye, but also in the process looking at quite a few case studies. The evil eye I apologize for this this diagram here. Now they this is what the assistant came up with.
It’s not really when you get into the Muslim world, it’s, you know, a young woman, is not really what you think of oftentimes as one who has the evil eye. Of course, you don’t know. She doesn’t look exactly friendly, that’s true, and so we don’t know. But, but before we talk about Islam, let’s talk about a little bit about the the Bible and, get some context there, and then we’ll go on, to to Islam. But I just wanted to quickly cover some of these, some of this, in the bible.
You know, there are verses, like Mark, let’s see, Mark 722 where, it it it says that, you know, what comes out of a man, Jesus says, is, you know, it’s it doesn’t matter about the outside, but what comes out of his heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy. Now this word, envy, sometimes is translated in the King James, for example, and the New King James, as what? Evil eye. So, envy and evil eye really have a connection. The Amplified also says evil eye for that verse.
So we know that the eye in scripture, that we’re talking about the Bible now, is that it’s, it’s much more than the physical. It’s the total process. It’s perception and understanding. Remember that, in Genesis chapter 3, the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened. So this is certainly more than, you know, just, that that they could see, this beautiful fruit.
I mean, there is some some deeper meaning here. It’s, the organs of spiritual perception. Didn’t David say in or the psalmist said in Psalm a 119 verse 18, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law? So this is spiritual perception, isn’t it? And, in, Psalm 19 and verse 8, the law of the lord is good, you know, it’s enlightening the eyes.
So many verses in the bible. On the other hand, blindness of the eyes is a terrible, terrible spiritual problem. Remember second Corinthians 44, the god of this world has blinded the eyes of them that believe not, lest they, they should, light of the glorious gospel, should shine on them and they should be saved. You know, we don’t blame and curse Islam. We don’t curse the darkness, but we do recognize that Satan is blinding the eyes of Muslims today, and so Satan is our enemy, not Muslims, not Islam, but, there is the widespread ancient belief in the power of the envious glance.
You see this envy stuff. And, the ancient Jews, the ancient Judaism really had quite a bit, you know, to say about this. But as it comes out of the, the animistic belief that the gaze or the stare can cause material harm. Now we are going to get into that more and more when we think of Islam. Muslims and folk Muslims.
You know, Paul uses a verse in Galatians, where is it? It’s in Galatians chapter 3 in verse 1. He says he’s talking about these Galatians. He says, who has bewitched you that you should, be turning to these these stuff? In other words, he’s using this, sort of smite with the eyes.
It’s almost like he’s he’s using something in their culture that, that, he says, who has bewitched you that you should be doing and thinking the way that you are? Let’s see. I I’m just wondering if I missed something here. Yes. I did.
And that is that, where I was, oftentimes, donkeys would have their ears slit. Why? Well, to prevent the evil eye. Here it says in 5103, it was not Allah who instituted superstitions like those of a slit ear, she camel or she camel. Now I haven’t seen that them slitting the ear of a she camel, but I have seen them slitting the ear of a donkey.
Now they might say, well, you know, we do it for various and sundry reasons, but they may not even know it. But, even though the Quran forbids it, Nevertheless, nevertheless, Muslims do this kind of stuff. Now the word nazar is a word that means, you know, illness causing an illness by some kind of a spell. Now there is an, there is a, chronic basis for this. 68 and verse 51 says the unbelievers would almost trip thee up with their eyes when they hear the message.
They say, surely, he’s possessed. Alright. Now what’s it say? What does it say? Well, it indicates that, that, the evil eye can be used and here the accusation is on those who never really embraced Islam.
And the, tragedy is here that the one who has this power may not even know of it. So what do you what what’s the what’s what happens? You’ve got suspicion of everyone or at least suspicion of some people. And so, fear there is this fear of admiration. And for that reason, oftentimes, the baby, a little baby who is not seen for 40 days.
And the mothers make up all kinds of stories. I mean, they say that a precocious child is dumb. Beautiful one is ugly because, you know, unless someone admire the baby, if, you know, that that the Muslims do that, of course, how can they not do it? How can so then what they have to say afterward is, in other words, god be praised. So a misfortune, to the healthy child comes from the mother of the sick child.
An owner of a healthy animal, can then become under the the, spell or the evil eye of one whose animal is not healthy. A beautiful bride is in danger lest she come under the spell of smallpox. The mother with the homely daughter is jealous, and that goes for not just daughters and children but also for trees. In other words, trees with a lot of fruit on them can be, evil eye can be cast on them. See?
In Iran, the power of the evil eye, the eye can wound, the salty eye. See? Jafar’s children are readily susceptible to the influence of the evil eye. So comes out of the mishket, out of the hadith. May I use a spell for them?
And Mohammed says, yes, for if anything could get ahead of this of the decree, the evil eye could. Well, quite amazing, is it not? How do you protect yourself? How do you protect yourself? Well, you do it through various and sundry ways, but one is exorcism, and Bukhary is 7.
That is volume 7 and, 4 number 426, narrated Ayesha. The prophet ordered me, it ordered rukiah to be used from the evil eye. See? That’s Islam. Now other other things, to use, protection, shells, stones, mother of pearl, or we will get into that, I think, try to recognize it in the next slide.
The agate stone, incantations, incenses made from seed, wild rue. I have a book out of Iran that’s called the wild rue, leaves, frankincense. And remember, coal under the eyes of the baby, not just, football players as you see in this country, but coal. Now they might say, well, it’s for beauty. But, really, the deeper meaning is to prevent, you know, to make the baby ugly.
That’s what, they think so that the spirits will leave him alone or the Ashley. Now here is, a little story that comes out from one of our students, in South Asia, former students. Ashley, that’s his wife, kept getting defensive towards friends and neighbors here because they were using the word weak to describe our newborn baby. Ashley’s response was she’s not weak, she’s eating well, she’s growing well. Finally, a kind neighbor explained to us that the word for weak is also the word for fragile.
So no one was calling our baby a weakling, just simply delicate. Here, listen to this, people do not compliment babies because they are afraid they will call attention to the child bringing the attention to the evil eye. In other words, bring upon them bad luck. So, apparently, fragile is the closest thing they can say to give a compliment. Isn’t this interesting for a baby without bringing on bad luck?
For people that live in fear of forces of darkness, the this evil eye literally affects every aspect of their lives. This has led so many opportunities for us to share how we serve the one who has victory over evil. We do not fear the evil eye, but we serve the one who has conquered evil. So that shows you. And now here’s another, case study.
A missionary was told, and I hope this is clear, that a Muslim friend had a baby girl. So what does the missionary do? The missionary brought a gift, got a gift, and then the mother lied and said the baby was a boy. Why? Well, reason is is that the missionary, when she saw the baby, she raised her eyebrows, Sort of I don’t know.
I just, I guess, the natural thing that some people do. So the Muslim woman looked at that and, immediately was worried that this missionary maybe was, you know, putting the evil eye or envy or something on the little child, and so then she told a lie. The missionary says, hey. Hey. Why why did you tell me a lie?
You know? This was a baby girl, and then and then, I brought this gift for a baby girl and it turns out to be a boy. Why did you tell I mean, you told me a lie. Why did you not tell the truth? You know what the Muslim woman said?
She said she feared the evil eye more than God. She said God is merciful, so that’s why she lied about the gender. Fears the evil eye more than God, which is quite an interesting, isn’t it? Now it’s not uncommon for the mother of a new baby boy to say it’s a girl, to use a girl’s name or a feminine pronoun or verb. Why?
To avoid the evil eye or the eye of envy. Person or evil spirit might be jealous of a mother’s good fortune in having a son and look with envy and make that little child sick or even cause the little one to die. This, story comes out of may the evil eye have no effect on you comes out of Turkey. So in other words, there are stories after stories about this. There are so many cases, so many stories that, maybe in your context, maybe you could tell a story yourself.
But how would you, I guess, respond to a similar situation? In other words, this missionary that we just talked about. I think one thing is that you can, I guess, anticipate something like this and so make sure that you know the the gender before you buy a gift, and also to be, somewhat subdued in the way that you express yourself and your actions? I don’t think that, you know, we necessarily have to, say well, you know, boy, there’s a beautiful baby, like, the Muslims do, but we can be use other words in saying, well, now God has given you a very, very beautiful child and I thank him for that and, and stuff like this to just remember of the to be cognizant of the fears and of what to expect, that, this is not totally uncommon and also to pray perhaps for the child that God would bless him and her, you know, just make sure that you are aware of things, and, this is this is very important. Now here are some of the things we’ve talked about before a little bit.
The mother of pearl, as far as I can figure out, and this is, not the best, I I realize, pictures, we had to take them and a student drew them, couldn’t use it for the course without, duplicating them. I think this is the mother of pearl here, if I’m not mistaken, the mother of pearl fish, to please the jinn. In other words, these charms are 1, worn actually, and so you have, other things that turquoise agate agate rings and so on to protect from harm and danger. You see all kinds of stuff, that you use. In Islamic ceremony, we’re gonna just keep moving, We have various and sundry things.
We’ve talked about the Ig before, we’ve talked about the open hand, a Pakistani fisherman might blame his lack of success on somebody who’s put a curse on him. And in North Africa, the hand of Fatima, you see this thing right here, is used for door knockers, and jewelry and chameleons and so on. Things like that could restore a wandering husband. In Morocco, infants have a torn piece of fabric around their wrist as protection. Moroccans, struck by physical spiritual force may throw a chameleon into the fire, wooden fire, walk around it 3 times.
If that chameleon explodes, the evil is averted. If it melts, there’s trouble. So you saw all kinds of things. World Vision says that, aid ministry in many Muslim converts is difficult. Why?
The reason is, is it because if, you know, no one really wants to succeed too much because if this farmer succeeds, others would be jealous of him and so he will come to harm. So in other words, you don’t wanna be too successful, you don’t wanna fail miserably, but you don’t want to be too successful and use this fertilizer and so on. Aid ministry is hard so that’s keeping all of these things in mind. In Nigeria, one saint forbade women and dogs. Now I apologize again.
This is a very western looking little puppy that you would not see in the western world by and large, but that’s what we have in our notes. In Pakistan, again, touching dogs with your right hand is, a no no. In India, playing with scissors brings bad luck. Mocking pregnant woman causes squint eye, so you don’t wanna mock a pregnant woman. That’s interesting, is it not?