Abstract
This article analyses the
revitalisation of Islamic exorcism in Morocco since the 1990s and how its
practitioners legitimise it as a ritual largely adapted to theological
orthodoxy. The rhetoric of these exorcists on spirit possession defines certain
afflictions as an intromission of the genies (jnun) into the body by physical
mechanisms, comparable to the processes undertaken by microbes. From interviews
and observation of ritual exorcism of Moroccan faqihs in Tetuan and Barcelona,
I analyse their techniques and the way they legitimise them. I conclude that
the moral intervention of religious specialists through Koranic recitation
becomes effective throughout a dynamic worldview that reinforces old basic
assumptions about a physical intercourse between jnun and humans. At the same
time, with the revitalisation of the ritual, many Koranic exorcists incorporate
new rhetorics to demonstrate scientifically the materiality of the jnun and
their effects on the possessed bodies. But Moroccan Koranic healers not only
rework definitions of affliction and legitimise the physical agency of the
jnun, they also contribute to define gendered experiences of the body as far as
women are conceived as the favorite and weakest victims of the genies.
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