Sayyids and Other Practitioners
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Sayyids and other practitioners during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents what Sayyids are, Diviners and Medicine Men and Women, Midwives, Amulets, Witches, and Marabouts, and how the Qur’an supports this.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Sayyids and Other Practitioners.
I was I was mentioning in the last, lecture that the next one would be about, you know, it would be following after the missiological stuff, and it’s going to be about sayyids and other practitioners. What in heaven’s name are Sayyids? Well, a Sayyid is a descendant of the prophet. In other words, one who can trace his line right up to Muhammad. And these people, in my experience, were quite proud of the fact that they were sayids.
In other words, they could trace their their lineage right to the, to the top as it were. They, some all too often turned out to be beggars because they felt that that, you know, that the rest of the Muslims owed them a living. But they also got Sayyids get into prayer writing. You know, after all, if you’ve got the prophet’s blood in your veins, you can be, a van avenue, a conduit of special blessings. So you write prayers, for, you know, that people could use and wear, not prayers to memorize for their, for their beauty, but prayers to wear for power.
And, also, they’re the kind of people that get into healing, and I would think that their their spittle and stuff like that, is pretty powerful stuff. For the Shiites, we want to remember that there are certain people in Islamic history who are of special significance to them. Basically, they’re the big five. There is Muhammad, naturally, but Fatima, his daughter, because she was married to Ali, and of course this is more than, 5, but I’m I’m just saying that if we would take Mohammed, Fatima, Ali Husayn, and Hassan. That’s 5.
That’s apart from the imams, 12 imams, but it’s the big five, you see. The, the gang of 5 that are really, really important. Wanted to point out that Ali in, you know, in in, Shi’ite contexts is very, very important. If you were to go to a place like Mazar e Sharif in northern Afghanistan, where there are so many Shiites and the beautiful mosque there, you know, really, Ali is the one they love. They are thinking about him, and, Hussein is, his son who was so, as you know, brutally murdered in 680, and whose death is grieved and lamented and, just a constant source of of of grief every year every year for the last 1500 years.
So Hus Hasan is his brother who, wouldn’t take the leadership, but those are the for the Shiites. Now the graves, of course, of these people mentioned and others as well, you know, important people in Islamic history are extremely important for Barakah, for healing, and for help of all kinds anything. The tombs of Muhammad where he is buried in Medina and Fatima and the 4 imams, who were buried in in Medina, there have been, were such an attraction that the Wahabis, who are straight, you know, and orthodox folks, they, destroyed them. I don’t know what the condition is of right now, but they destroyed them because they they thought, you know, this is sacrilegious to spend that much time at the tombs, and so they were against the folk stuff. Thinking about the imams, you know, Iraq is is, and and Iran, of course, too.
Just in these days, in United Nations here in New York, Ahmadinejad, prime minister of Iran, is on hand, and he’s talking. There the UN is very, very worried about nuclear stuff, you know, Iran becoming a nuclear power. He is there, and, of course, he has made threats against Israel. You know, he says, well, Iran is 100 and 100 and 100 of years old, you know, 7000, 10000 years old. Israel is only 50 to 60 years old.
He is a matter it’s a matter of concern for everyone, his threats against Israel, but, I’m just going to say that, in in a very real sense, Ahmadinejad is not the one who is ruling Iran. It’s the Imams because that’s the Imam country. The Imams are the ones who call the shots and in Iraq too you have very, very influential imams. You have 7 of them, in Iraq who are extremely important, 2 at Qazimain near Baghdad, 3 at Samara, and then there is Sayyids Hussein, which is is close to Karbala. I’m talking about the graves here, the tombs, and Ali who is in Najaf or Najaf, and then there’s the 12th imam who doesn’t have a tomb.
Why? Because he went into hiddenness. So, those, that’s Shi’iteism or Shi’ism and, we often don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about the Shiites, but remember that there are a lot of Shiites in the world. Every country, Muslim country, 10, 15%, except for Iran. There’s a smashing majority and also a majority just, over half of the Muslims in Iraq are Shiites and Bahrain is also majority of Muslims.
So and and greatly persecuted by Saudi Arabia, I believe. So we’ve talked about the Sayyids. Now let’s talk about the diviners, those who divine. We’ve actually mentioned that before. Let’s go on to the medicine men, and I might add sometimes women, you know, women are into this stuff too.
We’ve said before that in formal Islam, the women are put down. They’re, really don’t have much of a say. They’re they’re not part of the mosque worship, but these women, resourceful as they are, have made their made their point and and, they have their influence in folk stuff. Thinking about the medicine men, Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, that’s up there in Central Asia, a shaman is called when a serious illness occurs.
So he contacts the familiar spirits in the court of a a seance for a source. In other words, where did this ill illness come from? Why is it here? He uses herbs, incantations incantations, and, understandably and predictably, in a situation like that, death is never used because of its it’s just a bad omen. Angels say amen to your supplications, so you don’t want to, you don’t wanna do that.
Now in Pakistan, medicine men are quite common, especially in rural areas. They’re called oftentimes hakims. Another word for them is quack doctors, but that’s not very flattering, but they do a lot of quackery and mixing concoctions. You don’t never know what they’re mixing, but they’re they’re mixing stuff. And I can, just, you know, see images of these fellows, mixing some kind of stuff in the middle of the village or the town and, usually, it’s a potion of, for virility.
This guy is just pouring in stuff, you know, and all incantation, all kinds of stuff, and all lots and lots of men, illiterate villagers standing around listening to this this stuff, but, their diagnosis is dangerous, because they’re diagnosing all kinds of things that they don’t have the training or the skill to do, but nevertheless, they’re into it, these hakims. They say there’s a saying that says, Niem Hakim, if the the, you know, the the quack doctor is a danger to your health. Well, the midwives may use sorcery to keep a husband faithful. So in other words, here is a husband going off to the Middle East or going here and there to, to work. The midwife may use some kind of potion to keep him faithful, but there is also the idea of of, you know, making somebody fall in love with you.
You want to attract a certain young lady, but she’s not interested and neither are her parents. In fact, maybe they’ve even she’s even refused you. So what do you do? Well, you might have to go to a midwife and resort to this. Then you have the prayer white writers, amulet makers.
And, if you are anxious, and all women are, to have a male child, You may have to have a prayer writer write something so that you can have a boy, a baby boy, because baby boys are much more valuable than baby girls. Here is a part of the Muslim world. I haven’t seen this myself, but and it’s probably not true today, but they used to have a when the, when they were waiting to see whether it was a girl or a boy, if it was a green light, It was a boy, a red light. It was a girl if they announced as they announced the birth of a child. So, of course, they’re waiting for a green light.
I’m not sure why they chose those particular colors. Sayyid Spirit workers, we’ve talked about those. Witches, witches, let’s think of some of the, first of all, things in the scripture. I wanted to just read a couple of verses here. One is the verse in, Revelation 21:8 that has to do with, witchcraft, it says that, you know, the the cowardly, the unbelieving,, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic arts are going to be in the fire of hell.
So here you have witchcraft, pharmaco, which is the word that we get pharmacy from, isn’t it? And remember, remember in Acts 13 where, Paul deals severely. He deals very, very severely with this sorcerer. It says in verse 6 that they traveled, they traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos, and there they met a Jew Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Barjesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. And so I’m sorry, in verse 8, it says, Elymas, the sorcerer, for that which is that’s what his name means, the same guy, He opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.
And then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, you are a child of the devil and enemy enemy of everything that’s right. Now Saul doesn’t mess around, does he, Paul? He doesn’t mess around with the sorcery. He just takes, he really takes it, you know, head on. Is he not?
Amazing. He doesn’t pussyfoot around at all. Now maraboues, which is the word for, that they use for, you know, peers in, in most of Africa, a French name, would be using a fetish, which is an object of divine power inhabited by the spirit, sewn in a leather case that’s very, very common, which is stiff paper and then Arabic letters of god in there, and that would be the charm, the fetish, or to, you know, some kind of a spell, magical stuff. In Nigeria, a left handed marabou Sayyids is highly esteemed. Now this is, interesting because most of the time in the Muslim world, you don’t use your left hand.
That is what is used for going to the bathroom. That’s what’s, you know, and and, they have it that Satan eats with his left hand, but here you have in Nigeria, the left handed marabou is highly esteemed. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? In, Mauritania, the Marabou Sayyids uses his saliva. You know, this saliva stuff is, is very, very important.
In Senegal, 85% belong to powerful Sufi brotherhoods. Sufism. Sufism. Sufism is very, very, strong, isn’t it, in the, in the Muslim world? Now we’ll keep talking about marabous.
Marabous Sayyids can be cruel. They can bless by spitting on, the head of of the of the person. You see this spittle is very, very important. People eat scraps from his meals. The bottled water he’s used is saved.
It’s mixed with sand and sold, in amulets and, and and then, there’s some of the verses that would be used. I could think of, one of them here is in 3 and 31. You know, it says that, say, if you love Allah, follow me. Allah will love you and forgive you of your sins. Now for some reason, that’s one of the verses that could be used, but another one, would be 10 and 62.
Behold, verily, on the friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve. So those might be the verses that are used, in the amulet. Now, the this we’ve just read that verse in 1062 about, you know, certain people are in this this class. So, those are the ones that can intercede. Those are the ones that you can get blessing through, and, they’re the friends, the from the it’s the plural of wali, which is aulia.
And, I wanted to make reference here to, let’s see, 18, If we can find the verse 18 and verse 65, this is, interesting stuff here. It’s, the idea is that, you know, you have a have a pier because, after all, Moses had a pier, and, this is what the Quran says. It’s 1865. It says they found 1 of our servants of whom we had bestowed mercy from ourselves, and verse 66 says, Moses said to him, may I follow you on the footing that you teach me something of higher truth? So in other words, they might say, well, you know, Moses had a pier, so why shouldn’t we?
Anyway, it’s a little bit off the topic, but, the next verse, that’s actually 18 and verse 85. It’s not the next verse, but it’s on ahead. It is 85 and 86. Well, I should have mentioned 85. It calls him, Hidr, which is, the green one.
And, you know, this is sort of the idea, isn’t it? You see these saints or Sufis or whatever, and they’re wearing green. But I wanted to mention something that’s a little bit off the topic here, and it’s 18/86, and it’s something that’s very unscientific, but it says that, until when when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water. Near it, he found a people. We said, oh, Dholul Qurnayn.
That’s the word for Alexander the great. Thou hast authority either to punish them. So here what you have is reference to Alexander the Great. It’s another name for him, a chronic name. He was in the 4th century BC, but here he is in the Quran and here it says that, he reached the setting of the sun, he found it in the spring of murky water.
This is most unscientific. The commentator tries to get around it, you know, tries to explain this, which is, really ridiculous. But, I thought I’d just mention that on the side. We’re we’re talking focused on. We’re not this is not, you know, apologetics, but we we couldn’t help but mention that.
Now the Hausa is among the Swahili. The Wolofi, or Surdanese, often blindly follow a, a Sufi, and this picture is covering up some of it, but it’s, some of these these, Sufi groups like, the the Janiyah, and so on, like that. So, all over the place. In other words, it’s they’re they’re quite common. Practicers in in Indonesia, background here, followers of Aghami Javi movements called kabutaynan, and their, attitude to of total surrender to the Sufi, to this Sayyids
Mysticism is Islam is called Sisawuf, the book, by the way, that was written by this, in reference to this. Mystic Sufi organized into a tariqat. We would say tariqa, and, under a charismatic leader called a mushed, you see, that’s the word for healer, and on and on. So the dukun is a traditional midwives called dukun bayi. Masurs are called dukun.
They pack practice magic. They’re respected and important people. They can be possessed by the spirits, so act as medium. They specialize as aggressive or destructive magic or they specialize in that and, are into divination and numerology. Now, we go on to associations, we’re almost finished with this lecture here, but, the idea is that in Islam and folk practices that the souls of men may inhabit dogs, cats, gazelles, snakes, etcetera.
And so you see here you have again the idea of, why Muslims are often so much against dogs. It’s it’s not just the dogs are unclean, which they are, but to the idea that they might be actually, you know, demon possessed and so on. So, and then, you have the the fact that some say bones are the food of gins, so you don’t touch the bones. And animals might be, the object of an evil lie as I’ve already mentioned, over and over again. There is, of course, the fact that pigs are unclean, and that is taboo, but the dogs are, are, no no.
Now there are some animals that are sources of blessing in folk Islam. For example, horses are okay as they may be associated with braq, the animal that, Muhammad allegedly traveled used on his trip to heaven. So you see horses and then sheep doves also give barakah. So you see bad animals, dogs, cats, anything else like that, not to mention pigs, but then the good ones through whom, you know, there can be blessing. And I could have mentioned, well, with dovesies on there as well.