“Islamic holy scripture is now among a patient’s legally sanctioned therapeutic options as a clinic gets a permit to offer treatment with Koranic incantation. For some people, alternative medicine means acupuncture, for others it’s macrobiotics. But now, in Saudi Arabia, Islamic holy scripture is now among a patient’s legally sanctioned therapeutic options. This week, the government awarded a license to a clinic treating the ill with Koranic incantations. The permit for The Center for Treatment through Ruqiya (Incantation) in the coastal city of Jedda was given by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which also oversees the center’s activities……Until now, regulations have been designed to eliminate the practice of sorcery, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia and punishable by death. Two men were sentenced to death last October following charges of practicing witchcraft in the kingdom. But Saudi practitioners insisted that ruqiya should not be confused with sorcery. Al-Hashimi told A-Sharq Al-Awsat that half of all diseases are treatable by using the Koran because they are “Satanic afflictions” that disappear following prolonged verse incantation. Al-Hashimi added that 80% of cancer cases in the kingdom are caused by the evil eye, which is treatable by the Koran as well……”
There are at least two people awaiting the executioner’s sword for the crime of sorcery. There most likely are others on the way in the court system. Then there is the poor Lebanese television magician, who was ambushed during a pilgrimage (umarh) by the Commission for the Propagation of Vice (religious police) and sentenced to beheading. They decided not to behead him, or maybe postponed it, after international publicity. I am looking to the day when magic, witchcraft, and sorcery become as legal in the Kingdom without Magic as toking is in most of California or Seattle (well, effectively), as legal as another “profession” is in Amsterdam.
I think the Saudis have decided to do as the Dutch did to another ancient “industry”: if you can’t fight it, legalize it and organize it. Yet I doubt that the Saudis will establish the equivalent of Amsterdam’s “Red Light” district for these Salafi shamans.
He said: “Half of all diseases are treatable by using the Koran because they are “Satanic afflictions”…..”. Okay, what about corruption? It can be cured by the Quran and the Shari’a: the Second Caliph Omar (the Just) did it effectively. Why can’t the Saudi dynasty cure their own kelptocrats through the use of the Holy Quran? I forgot: Omar himself was neither corrupt nor a thief. Omar was incorruptible, these guys are incorrigible.
Cheers
mhg