Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the other forces of natural representation in Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents other representations of the most sacred material forces in Folk Islam, like hair and jewelry.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Other Representations of Forces in Folk Islam.
Lecture 3rd or 34, I guess it is now, and it’s, objects, other forces representations. Other not meaning of lesser importance because we’re going to be talking about, I think the most important, material representation and its hair. I say sacred, most sacred, particularly if you don’t have any, but, seriously, in folk practices, hair is of utmost importance. The animistic belief is that it’s it says that parts of the body, including the placenta and hair, notably right now looking at hair mainly, but teeth, saliva, sweat, tears are sort of the soul stuff. Tears, definitely more a part of some than others, but, hair couldn’t be of any more importance in Islam.
And the traditions say that, the, you know, the prophets, that’s the Arabian prophet, Mohammed’s spittle, his urine, his blood, and his hair were, you know, of great value. And there is a lot of spitting and blowing and and then, specifically, we’re going to look at some of the, the, the fact looking at the fact that hair is the way through which bewitching is done, haircuttings, and particularly when you get your haircut. So in Morocco, women hang their hair. In other words, they cut the hair. When they get their hair cut, they hang it on a tree, of the saint.
In other words, where the shrine is, there’s always remember, there’s a tree there, and sometimes they say that here, the, the saint planted his his staff and up came the tree. But there, they would hang their hair on the branches of the tree hoping to gain forces for some help and, blessing and also perhaps even a miracle In, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, hair clippings and nails are disposed of very carefully. In North Africa, a man won’t let his hair be cut in the presence of an enemy. Why? Because the enemy could use that against him to put a curse on him and to cause him harm.
In Bahrain, your fingernails are discarded in in a piece of white cloth with a magic formula. So, back to Muhammad. When Muhammad shaved, even in in his day, in other words, not even to mention today, 1500 years later, even in his day, it had already gotten to the place where every hair was kept for good omen, for blessing, and, preserved as relics among Muslims. When I say preserved, we’re going to note that, more hairs have been preserved than ever existed, a 1000000 times over because, you know, they’re always claiming that here is a relic, that is one of Mohammed’s heirs. So we’re really talking about heirs of the prophet, not heirs of the prophet, are of most importance.
I before we tar start talking about Tunis, let me tell you a little bit of a story about, Afghanistan. Not sure where it is, but I think it was Mazar e Sharif, which is way up north if you look on the map, but I’m not exactly sure. But any event, Jay Christy Wilson talks about this, and I believe his book on prayer, praying for, for for Muslim converts, he says that in this town, there was talk of building a school for boys. Good idea, said everybody. Great idea.
Let’s build it. But then somebody came back from the pilgrimage with a hair in his hand. He said, this is a hair of Muhammad, and what we need to do is we need to take that money that was set aside for school for the boys and build a shrine for the hair of Mohammed. Well, you know, who can disagree with that? After all, this would would bring good luck and all this kind of stuff.
But a journalist in the town said, wait a minute. If Mohammed was here, you know, Mohammed would want education of the boys more than that that we spend this money on a shrine for Mohammed. Well, the journalist who spoke up, and said this was basically run out of town, And, that’s the only way, I guess, the government saved his neck was by, giving him a job outside of the town, because he had dared to, to object. Well, talking specifically now about Tunis. In Tunis, nail pairings are buried or burnt.
In Algeria, if nail trimmings fall on the ground, Satan and his forces can use them, and he does use them. In Iran, nail trimmings are sometimes kept in bottles till the resurrection. In Java, Indonesia, you can’t cut your nails on Friday or after dark. And the Malays think that a guy is in danger if his hair, hair or nails are cut. So often, what do they do?
Get them cut by a friend. And, after eharam you know, eharam is the the state of, purity, when you’re on the pilgrimage. So when you when you go this, you know, Iharam is also the the gown or the the clothes that they wear, but Iharam is that state. So after that, then you are not to get your hair cut or your nails cut or anything like that. Zweymer talks about that, but it’s well known.
I mean, it’s well known in his book, the, influence of animism on Islam, page 66 and so for or onward. Fingernails in Uzbekistan, are the way to put a curse on somebody, and and I have had former students in my class and have talked to them who’ve come back from, Central Asia and have confirmed this and talked about it and talked about it on in class and in private conversation. A placenta often is buried by the midwife in the cemetery to avoid attack by jinn. You see, the the baby is pretty vulnerable, small babies, and and then, of course, the mother is too when she’s expecting pregnant stuff, but then the baby is is, and and, the mother continues to be vulnerable so that’s one thing that often is done. Dirt, excretions, excretions, and things like that too are, some are are to be noted as sacred objects and images.
Images. Wanted to just say something about images. You know, I don’t know about this. This is just a some wild thinking perhaps, but, you do know that Muslims are totally against showing any images of the prophet or any prophet. This is really, something that they don’t wanna do.
And, also, you know, you don’t you don’t show images or take pictures of people with a camera. That’s dangerous because the idea is, I think, besides the modesty and besides the other issues that Muslims talk about is that if you get someone’s image, then you have some controling force over them. I mean, this is an old idea in animism, And I have wondered if their strong objection to images of the prophet have anything to do with their animism, their their idea, that, you know and and if, also, of course, if you get a picture of a of a woman and you can, perhaps, process her or force her to marry you and stuff like that. So images, I believe that their aversion to images, I wonder, really, I’m just sort of thinking off the top of my head here, has anything to do with, this, this concept. Now masks are another thing.
If you get a person’s mask, then you can, you know, put put a use that to put a curse against someone. The I too, you know, the is is very, very important, and and we’ve talked about the evil eye. I’m going to, if god wills, show you some, before this course is over, some of the stuff that I have gathered and that friends, students, particular former students, have sent me from here and there, Turkey and wherever, of, you know, the objects that Muslims use, like a Starbucks cup and so on in Turkey. Now Fatima’s hand, this is what this represents. I don’t know.
Keep your eyes open for this kind of stuff because, Fatima’s hand. And notice the, the 5 fingers here. This represents the hand of Fatima force. And why is it used? It’s a protection against the curse, 5 fingers.
Of course, other things too, in other words, represented here, but, you know, the 5 pillars of Islam, it’s a protective gesture. And, as I’ve mentioned before, when you’re preaching, you don’t wanna go doing this here because you would be could be interpreted as warding off a curse. So you have to change your preaching style when you’re in the Muslim world if you are prone to those kind of gestures. There are 2 amulets here in this. This is the first one here on top.
It’s got all kinds of stuff. These are not earplugs, but they this was found on the left arm of a Turkish officer during a fight with the Arabs at the Suez Canal. Now the Suez Canal is this amazing canal that was built joining the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. So that’s an amazing work of man, really, and women, I suppose we could say, of human beings. The second amnidate here in the bottom was found on Shadal Arab, where the Tigris Tigris and the Euphrates, merge.
So I guess we would be down here. The Tigris and the Euphrates River merge right here, and that’s where this other, was found on the body of somebody else, an officer. So you see, they would wear these amulets hoping to have face to save, you know, be delivered and protected from harm and danger. Now, also, other, representations are animal representations. For example, the antlers of a deer in Afghanistan ward off off the evil eye.
I have friends who do a lot of hunting and, this one particular fellow has more antlers in his living room than you can shake a stick at. I think his wife, finally got to his wife. But but, you you see, this is to to a Muslim, this would be something else. Atlas of Adir in Afghanistan ward off the evil eye, and the fish symbol, is for protection as well. I wonder where that comes from, don’t you?
Because the fish in Christianity too, is a, is a symbol of Christianity. You see the cars and, you know, Christian, they got this fish on the back. I’ve never put one on mine, but I’m not because I’m not much for that kind of stuff. But, the fish is a symbol of, for protection in Islam and Musk talks about that in his book, page 69. Here are a few fishies down here.
Then there’s vegetation and material representations. Sufis in Turkey consider the tree sacred. At least, I suppose the extreme ones would would because, most many Muslims would think that’s really idolatrous, but they would, according to some, maybe a, a powerful force phallic symbol from the fertility cult. I won’t say anything about that because I don’t really know, but there is a lot of those symbols. There has been since the beginning of time, really worshiped.
In other words, those are forceful symbols. Now, what about manufactured material? Well, beads have powerful force. I did bring one thing today, and that is the beads. Hold them up here.
Hope you can see them. These are the prayer beads called Taspi in Pakistan. They have other names in other places. You know, an orthodox Muslim would denounce these. He would say, this is this is not right.
This is not. But beads are used, very, very much. Now blue for children, and for vulnerable animals. Now what do we mean by what do they mean by a vulnerable animal? Would it be a tiny tiny little puppy or something very weak and small and delicate?
Not necessarily. A water buffalo would be constant value vulnerable because, of its value. In other words, it gives milk. And and if someone put a curse on that water buffalo and the milk dries up, wow. I mean, that’s vulnerable.
And so oftentimes, they keep these animals in their courtyard lest someone put a curse on them. In Moriah Rabat, Afghanistan, It talks about these kind of beads. I’m not sure what kind of beads those are. Whether they’re wind beads, I used to think wind beads. I I I really looked on the net for them and wasn’t sure.
I I I it sound looks to me like it’s, beads that wind up, but I’m not sure because that’s a kind of a word that you never know. But tied on the area of pain with the hopes that, it will it will alleviate the suffering. Now continuing on with beads, we have, of course, in the history of Christianity, the rosary, hail Mary, Christian used, this beginning in 11th century and could have been imported to Islam according to Samuel Zweimer, who had all kinds of ideas about these kind of things, 2, 300 years later. Excuse me. In Algeria, there is divining done when this where the sick will die.
How? It’s used they use the, prayer beads, and you can hear see here, prayer beads. I don’t know why they would put this little thing here, in here in but, those are used for divining. You know? The prayer beads are not just for prayer, you know, remembering the name of god.
They’re used for devotion, and they’re used for divining powerfully forces too, to figure out, you know, who put the curse on you or so on and on. In Java, well, back to Tunisia, there’s it’s similar to Algeria and Iran. That’s how you figure out what kind of medicine, you know, what kind of medicine. In Java, this is used for healing for sick, and you hold it in your hand and read to the 15th verse of some kind of of of a reading, presumably a Koranic reading, and you have, talismanic forceful power. During the reading, you count on that rosary.
You see, just picking a bead at random and working your back way back to the pointer. Now in Egypt, the cops too. I don’t wanna pick on the cops because I know that there are cops who, don’t believe in this stuff, but, they would sometimes use means like this to, to cure, you know, retention of urine, people who have weak kidneys or something like that. Again, Zwemer, gives witness to this kind of stuff. Now there is notice note here of bells.
Generally, Muslims don’t like bells. You know, we play the bells, don’t we, on our churches? I go to Germany every year, sometimes more, and I am very much impressed by the church bells as I get up, you know, Sunday morning and I hear the church bells. Muslims say sometimes, and you can Google this and look at it yourself, maybe study it, They say that the bells attract the devil forces, just like, whistling attracts the devil. You know, you wonder really why they, where they get these ideas, but, sometimes, you never know really what Muslims are thinking.
Containers, I’m not gonna say anything about those because I don’t know what to say. But, bracelets and anklets, these are all manufactured material that could be used forcefully, in some way, shape, or form for folk practices. Bowls, yes. Definitely, bowls are sacred, can be sacred as well. And, of course, the Quran and Koranic materials, these are all considered to be to be, you know, sacred stuff, and and depending on the area, used in different ways.
Names, and then with, you know, numbers, magic numbers. We’ve talked about this, the fact that, that numbers have great value. You know? I I can remember hearing about this kind of stuff in in, Christian circles too. I can remember a guy, and there have been many times people have spoken on numbers in the bible, you know, 7 is the perfect number and 3 and all this and 40.
Well, Muslims have this too and they give great value to numbers. 7 which has force, they think, is a perfect number. But god does he like odd numbers? It would seem that there’s something like that, because Muslims have the idea that, you know, when you throw stones at the devil in on the Hajj, you have to throw a nod number of numb numbers. I think 49, but they couldn’t agree.
I heard some discussion there. They weren’t exactly sure how many, and and when you cleanse yourself, you have an odd number of of numbers and so on. It it’s it’s quite interesting, is it not numbers? And then, of course, artifacts and relics. We’ve talked about those a lot, relics of the prophet, relics of the saints, they have powerful forces.
More to come on that. And, here’s a little bit of discussion. A good friend, this is a, a religious guy. Somebody’s telling this story. It didn’t happen to me, but, this religious guy in his twenties with whom you have been spending time, tends to explain time what?
Spending time, talking about the Lord, about Christianity. He, doesn’t seem to have much interest at all, But then one day, he says his parents find a little bag of food, spices, and other things in the cabinets. And what they’re afraid of is that someone has put a curse on them, and so he wants to bring in the sheikh to cleanse the house. And he asks you, what should you do? What would you do?
Well, here again, as we’ve talked about before and, if we were face to face in the classroom, would have you, you know, break up into small groups and talk about this. You’d want to set this up in a careful, thoughtful way and say something like this to them, yes. I will cleanse the house, but I won’t do it in, conjunction with the sheikh because I know that Jesus can cleanse the house. And if you’re gonna call on me, then I will do it. If you’re calling the sheikh, you can do it.
But don’t call on both of us because I want Jesus to have the glory. I mean, maybe this sounds a little bit dogmatic, but you do want to under you want people to understand where the power force is coming from. You don’t want to because sometimes they’ll go to this person, that person, that person, then, you know, something will work. You don’t want to set it up that way, so, you know, Jesus will never get any glory that way. You wanna set it up so that, when all else fails, then Jesus is gonna come in and cleanse the place if, in fact, there is a curse put on it.
This is a difficult situation, isn’t but you want to glorify god. You want to set it up so that he gets the glory through Christ.