Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Amulets

Kathleen Malone O'Connor, "Amulets" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Ornaments worn as charms against evil and sickness. Muslims have used amulets (ruqā, sing. ruqya) most often to cure spiritual or psychological conditions, including madness, spirit possession and the evil eye.

The Qurʾān may be recited in the form of a spell (duʿāʾ) or worn in written form (ṭilasm) on the person or placed in the home. Among the Indonesian Gayo, spells, called doa, include the use of qurʾānic verses in Arabic for healing and other purposes accompanied by supplementary words in Gayo and visualizations (J.R. Bowen, Muslims through discourse, 77-105; J. Flueckiger, Vision, 271). Others employ a practice known as «erasure» (maḥw), whereby select verses, or the whole Qurʾān, are written out and water is poured over the paper. The water is then drunk (Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ṭibb, 124; J. Robson, Magical uses, 40; A.O. El-Tom, Drinking the Koran, 414-8; J. Flueckiger, Vision, 258). Another way to tap the power of the Qurʾān has been to recite verses over water and to apply the water as an external wash (nushra, al-Suyūṭī, Ṭibb, 172; D. Owusu-Ansah, Talismanic tradition, 107-11). Other procedures include reciting the muʿawwidhatān, the last two sūras of the Qurʾān, and other verses and names of God, together with magical gestures such as spitting into the hands, blowing to the four winds and stroking the face or other parts of the body (Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ṭibb, 11, 121-4, 139, 145-6; C. Padwick, Muslim devotions, 84-91, 104-7; J.C. Bürgel, Feather, 34-5). Ḥadīth mention written uses of the Qurʾān for healing, including talismans to be attached to clothing or animals or placed in the home (Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ṭibb, 172-3; ʿAbdallāh and al-Ḥusayn b. Bisṭām, Ṭibb, 125; J. Robson, Magical uses, 42; C. Padwick, Muslim devotions, 87; J. Campo, Other side, 104-5). Amulets bearing qurʾānic verses, numbers and geometric symbols, such as magical squares, were often carried or worn on the person (E. Westermarck, Ritual and belief, 144-6; A.O. Owusu-Ansah, Talismanic tradition, 96-100 and appendix; J. Robson, Magical uses, 35-7; J. Flueckiger, Vision, 251-7; V. Hoffman, Sufism, 154-5).

The essential qurʾānic justification for the use of the Qurʾān in amulets to transmit the divine blessing(baraka) of the text is its God-given characterization as «a healing and a mercy» (shifāʾun wa-raḥmatun, q 17:82; D. Owusu-Ansah, Talismanic tradition, 122). The words of the Prophet Muḥammad as recorded in the ḥadīth have also been used as support for the practice. In its chapter on medicine (Kitāb al-Ṭibb), the famous collection that is the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) contains a number of ḥadīth on the proper use of amulets bearing verses from the Qurʾān. Those who employed amulets could cite a range of positive juristic opinions which argue that amulet use cannot be an act of unbelief (kufr), if the process brings benefit and the contents of the amulet are from the Qurʾān (D. Owusu-Ansah, Talismanic tradition, 25-40). Nevertheless, the use of amulets was surrounded by continual legal debate.

Medieval sources for the making of qurʾānic amulets drew on the books of magical healing, such as the so-called «books tested by experience» (mujarrabāt) of Aḥmad al-Dayrabī and Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Sanūsī (d. 892/1486) and the magical texts like the Sun of knowledge (Shams al-maʿārif) by al-Bunī (d. 622/ 1225), Strung pearls on the special properties of the Qurʾān (al-Durr al-naẓīm fī khawāṣṣ al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm) by al-Yāfiʿī (d. 768/ 1367), and The brightest lights and the secret treasures (Shumūs al-anwār wa-kunūz al-asrār) by Ibn al-Ḥājj al-Ṭilimsānī (d. 737/1336). These works were complemented by the various ḥadīth collections and the medical corpus devoted to «prophetic medicine» (al-ṭibb al-nabawī), the medical practices ascribed to the Prophet. Some notable works on prophetic medicine include Sunnī works by Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣbahānī (d. 430/ 1038), al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), and al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505). There is as well a Shīʿī text known as the Medicine of the imāms (Ṭibb al-aʾimma) by ʿAbdallāh b. Bisṭām and his brother al-Ḥusayn (fl. 300/913) which collects the reports of the medical practices of the Shīʿī imāms (see imām; shīʿism and the qurʾān).

This higher literature on religious healing generated a large body of popular literature on folk religious healing in the form of chapbooks for amulet usage, usually bearing the title «a collection of cures» (majmaʿ al-adwiya), in manuscript form and later in print. Among these are The gleanings of safety in medicine (Luqaṭ al-amān fī 'l-ṭibb) by Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200) and The benefits of medicine made easy (Kitāb Tashīl al-manāfiʿ fī l-ṭibb) by Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Azraq (d. 815/1412) . This testifies to the widespread popularity of employing amulets (F. Rahman, Health and medicine, 41-58). Such practical manuals become the guide for local handwritten copies used by adepts, e.g. the umbatri of the Sudanese Berti (A.O. El-Tom, Drinking the Koran, 416; see also D. Owusu-Ansah, Talismanic tradition, 44-91). Special editions of the Qurʾān were even published with marginal notation on the methods of divination and the apposite verses for magical spells or talismans. The talismanic manuals traditionally categorize the verses into various classes, e.g. verses for protection (āyāt al-ḥifẓ), for healing (āyāt al-shifāʾ), for victory (futūḥ al-Qurʾān). These verses, the divine names of God (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā) and qurʾānic formulae such as the basmala («In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate», see basmala) and the repetition of the formulae of taking refuge (istaʿādha) became the materia medica of the makers of amulets (K. Opitz, Medizin im Koran; J. Robson, Magical uses; B.A. Donaldson, Koran as magic; C. Padwick, Muslim devotions; A.O. El-Tom, Drinking the Koran).

The belief in and use of qurʾānic amulets continues as living practice within the framework of Islamic religious healing and is documented in anthropological studies throughout the contemporary Muslim world, particularly in the Middle East (C. Padwick, Muslim devotions, pp. xi-xiv, 289-97; P. Antes, Medicine, 187-91), Africa (A.O. El-Tom, Drinking the Koran), south Asia(J. Flueckiger, The vision), and southeast Asia (J.R. Bowen, Muslims through discourse). Men and women still have recourse to qurʾānic amulets and other forms of religious healing, often for the sake of children. The amulets are carried on the person and placed in the home, vehicle and place of business. The male practitioner is more likely to be able to consult the amulet chapbooks and texts on «Prophetic medicine» or to be trained by someone expert in the use of amulets, e.g. a local Ṣūfī adept or a religiously learned person in the urban neighborhood or rural village (A.O. El-Tom, Drinking the Koran, 415-7). Women, especially older women, can also occupy a visible position in public ritual as charismatic healers and as spirit mediums and by employing the techniques of dream interpretation, divining and other folk religious healing techniques, such as amulets (J. Flueckiger, The vision, 261-80). Contemporary religious healers operate as alternatives or complements to the practitioners of western medicine, in both Muslim countries and among the emigrant Muslim communities in the West (P. Antes, Medicine, 181-91). The widespread production and use of qurʾānic healing images highlight the strong creative interaction of authoritative sources, the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, and actual belief and practice in medieval and modern Islam.

Bibliography

Primary

• al-Ḥusayn and ʿAbdallāh b. Bisṭām, Ṭibb al-aʾimma, Beirut 1994
• Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Ṭibb al-nabawī, Cairo 1978
• al-Suyūṭī, al-Ṭibb al-nabawī, Beirut 1986

Secondary

• P. Antes, Medicine and the living tradition of Islam, in L.E. Sullivan (ed.), Healing and restoring. Healing and medicine in the world’s religious traditions, New York 1989
• J.R. Bowen, Muslims through discourse. Religion and ritual in Gayo society, Princeton 1993
• J.C. Bürgel, The feather of Simurgh. The «licit magic» of the arts in medieval Islam, New York 1988
• J. Campo, The other side of paradise, Columbia, SC 1991
• B.A. Donaldson, The Koran as magic, in mw 27 (1937), 258-63
• A.O. El-Tom, Drinking the Koran
• The meaning of koranic verses in Berti erasure, in J.D.Y. Peel and C. Stuart (eds.), Popular Islam south of the Sahara, Manchester 1985
• J. Flueckiger, The vision was of written words
• Negotiating authority as a female Muslim healer in south India, in D. Shulman (ed.), Syllables of sky. Studies in south Indian civilization, Delhi 1995
• V. Hoffman, Sufism, mystics, and saints in modern Egypt, Columbia, SC 1995
• K. Opitz, Die Medizin im Koran, Stuttgart 1905
• D. Owusu-Ansah, Islamic talismanic tradition in nineteenth-century Asante, Lewiston 1991
• C. Padwick, Muslim devotions. A study of prayer-manuals in common use, London 1961
• F. Rahman, Health and medicine in the Islamic tradition, New York 1988
• J. Robson, The magical uses of the Koran, in Transactions 6 (1929-33), 53-60
• id., Islamic cures in popular Islam, in mw 24 (1934), 34-43
• E. Westermarck, Ritual and belief in Morocco, 2 vols., New York 1926, i, ch. 1