Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The Quran prescribes Muslims to believe in the existence of jinn. The Prophet addressed them, as well as people, to deliver the holy message. Some jinn accepted Islam, but the others did not. It is the latter that serve the source of witchcraft and sorcery in the Muslim world. According to the PEW Research Center survey, the number of people believing in witchcraft in the Middle East and North Africa varies from 89 to 16%. The data of the survey verify the wide-spread idea in the folk culture of the Arab World about the Maghreb as a place filled by jinn, magic, and sorcerers – as Tunisia and Morocco are on the top of the list. The author analyses this phenomenon on the basis of a leading article of an everyday Algerian newspaper dedicated to a case of, well-known in Maghreb, cemetery sorcery and the material of her personal field research. The results of the analysis allow drawing some conclusions, such as the definition of magic given by al-Qurtubi in the twelfth century, as something that “everyone may learn and practice,” is still accurate in modern Maghreb. Strong belief in sorcery and its wide distribution remains one of the main cultural peculiarities of the Maghrebian society even in the conditions of living outside the original area.