Similarities between jinn and microbes
While reading El-Shamy’s text on the folk religion in Egypt, an aspect that I found particularly starling was how the description of the jinn, their world, and their actions can be such a close...
View ArticleSpirit possession: a double-edged sword for female empowerment
In Bilu’s article on spirit possession in Judaism, we can clearly identify certain patterns that suggest that this belief in spirit possession could be a double-edged sword for the female part of...
View ArticleMuwallah: the triumph of folk over official religion
During class we have discussed extensively whether the belief in saints was coherent with monotheism and whether it was more part of folk or official religion. Particularly, whether people asking for a...
View ArticleSaints and Demon’s as Tuhami’s Motivations
While reading Crapanzano’s “Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan”, I felt tremendously confused about the character of Tuhami. I did not know whether what I was reading or not was factual or not. We...
View ArticleZaar as cultural self-critique
In Janice Boddy’s text on zaar possession in Northern Sudan, she discusses that zaar spirits are usually not Sudanese but rather of some other nationality or religion. Furthermore, she adds a...
View ArticleSh’chur: Comparative Civilizations
When I was watching the movie “Sh’chur” in class, I could not help but forget that I was watching a movie about Moroccan Jews and see that family as Muslim. Growing up in an Ashkenazi Jewish family...
View ArticleFemale empowerment divisions in folk Muslim belief
During week thirteen of our course we read material on two different aspects of folk Muslim belief that provided women with weapons of empowerment, the position as a madjuba and the practice of magic....
View ArticleThe social consequences of magic
Throughout Chapter 9 of “Women’s Discourse on Magic” by Kapchan several references are made to the use by women of magic and its stigma, “many women distance themselves from the practice of magic,...
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