Shahrazad who lives near El-Kawniya mosque in Nabeul—60 kilometers east of Tunis— has been hearing strange sounds as of late; women screaming and wailing. At first, she thought someone had passed away in the neighborhood, but the recurrent daily screaming after the evening prayer raised her doubts and urged her to find out what was really happening.

Shahrazad who lives near El-Kawniya mosque in Nabeul—60 kilometers east of Tunis— has been hearing strange sounds as of late; women screaming and wailing. At first, she thought someone had passed away in the neighborhood, but the recurrent daily screaming after the evening prayer raised her doubts and urged her to find out what was really happening.

She approached the source of the voices coming out of the mosque’s courtyard. When she approached, she realized a woman was going through “jinn exorcism” and screaming through loudspeakers while other women repeated what she was uttering.

 “I have seen children getting out of the mosque with signs of fear and horror on their faces because of the show which I, an older woman, could not and dared not watch, let alone little children who do not tolerate and comprehend what is happening there. What is even stranger is that they have often been accompanied by their parents,” Shahrazad said.

A recurring phenomenon

Similar stories of jinn exorcism and the ability of some Muslim clerics at ‘El-Kawniya’ mosque to heal the sick have been circulating in this coastal town of 56,000. The healing spectacle is attended by curious adults and children alike.

One of the attendees said when the sheikh started the session with reciting some Koranic verses, one of the crowd passed out and two assistants of the sheikh carried him to a nearby chair, then a loudspeaker was put close to the patient’s mouth and the ‘healing’ process was in full swing.

“The sheikh started a direct communication with the jinn, ordering him to give his name. The jinn declared he was a non-believer and that the young man’s father was responsible for bewitching his son. Afterwards, the sheikh claimed that the jinn declared his conversion to Islam,” he explained.

“The sheikh bent down as though he had been performing a theatrical role, pretending to be addressing the jinni and asking him about his destination after coming out of the patient’s body. The sheikh, then, turned to the audience and said the jinn replied he would head for Saudi Arabia and he then told the jinni: ‘I suggest that you go to support the Syrian people,'” he added.

“The sheikh’s words were indirectly inciting our youth to go to Syria for Jihad,” he said, describing what he saw as dangerous because it was “a provocative discourse since it used religion and the Koran as a means to brainwash and fool people.”

Some residents have complained to relevant authorities in an attempt to end the ‘farcical’ shows and eliminate such practices, which they say disturb worshipers and prevent them from performing prayers considering the over-crowdedness inside the mosque.

On the other hand, when the raised complaints came to the knowledge of the clerics supervising those practices, they moved to other mosques of nearby towns and villages and stopped using loudspeakers.

Official condemnation

Minister of Religious Affairs Nourredine Khadmi denounced this phenomenon and called for dissociation of mosques from all actions that were likely to harm their mission and turn them into places designed for healing patients. “Treatment places are well known and mosques have not been built to host such practices. There is a serious threat to the patients’ life and they could end up dead,”he said.

Khadmi cited many violations committed at mosques such as gender mixing and the presence of young children who accompany their parents for attending those performances rather than praying. “Today, we are required to restore the reverence and sanctity of mosques and ensure that they are exclusively used for prayer and preaching,” he added.

Khadmi called upon imams, preachers and worshipers to be more vigilant and wise in order to maintain the genuine role of mosques and combat any violations.

Magic should be left to specialists

Sheikh Ferid Beji, Head of Zitouna Hadith Association – known for its moderation and religious tolerance – and representative of the International Council for the Islamic world in Tunisia, expressed his surprise at such practices and considered them alien to mosques. “Mosques are places of worship and should not be exploited for practicing charlatanism and witchcraft in full view of the public,” he said.

He described those involved in jinn exorcism as “ignorant and purposeless” adding that, “We do not deny that magic is mentioned in the Koran, but its treatment must be exclusively performed by psychiatrists and specialists.”

He also stated that the spread of this strange phenomenon in recent months was caused by persons who took advantage of the instable situation in the country for making money, blackmailing people and exploiting others’ ignorance to achieve fame and earn money.