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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Greetings all, I forwarded the query about witchcraft in Islam to another list. Here's one of the more detailed responses. I note the writer's very good advice to turn to the Encyclopedia of Islam. Meg I'd be curious to know of any institutional persecution of magicians/ sorcerers/witches as well. I can add a few more anecdotal accounts, however: I believe Ibn Battuta mentions a witch trial that he witnessed in India, though in this case, the local Muslim ruler seems to have been bending to local custom rather than enforcing an Islamic penalty. I'm afraid I don't have the exact reference. Ibn Taghribirdi (in Hawadith al-duhur, events of the year 852) gives an account of murder by sorcery from Mamluk Egypt: the Sultan (al- Zahir Jaqmaq) apparently banished his ex-wife, the amira Mughul, under house arrest (as I understand it), on suspicion that she had murdered her rival, a Circassian concubine, with sorcery. Edward Lane (in Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, reprint London, 1987, pp. 94-96) gives a late (18th C.) account from Egypt of a certain shaykh Saduma, who was executed by a Mamluk amir after magical love charms were found written on the body of one of his concubines (Lane gives al-Jabarti as his source, citing the accounts of the death of Yusuf Bey in 1191, and of Hasan al-Kafrawi in 1202). I haven't looked up the original reference. Issues of definition are dealt with in several articles by T. Fahd in EI2. Another useful reference, though somewhat dated and old-school orientalist, is Edmond Doutté, Magie et religion dans l`Afrique du nord (1908, reprint Paris 1984). Some of the difficulties involved in defining sorcery (sihr) in contradistinction to other forms of magic turn up in Ibn al-Nadim's discussion of (spiritual) magic (al-Fihrist, al-fann al-thani min al- maqala al-thamin): although he seems highly skeptical, Ibn al-Nadim notes that some summoners (mu3azzimuun, "invokers?") claim to command spirits by virtue of their piety. On the other hand, he also recognizes true sorcerers (saHara) as "anti-Muslims" who actively break the taboos of religion. The big difference between medieval Christian-European and Islamic perspectives seems to me to come down to agency. Christianity recognizes only evil, malicious demons, that is, fallen angels. Islam recognizes good, bad and indifferent jinn, so the agency of demons alone is not sufficient to establish "sorcery." Doutté notes the relative lack of textual "necromancy" in the Islamic world, and spends some time puzzling over this. The best known texts of spiritual magic (such as al-Buni, Shams al-ma3arif, Al-Suyuti, al- Rahma fi l-tibb, and Ibn al-Hajj, Shumus al-anwar) all avoid the term "sihr" like the plague, and pass themselves off as logical extensions of Sufi practices (shortcuts to sainthood, if you will). Even when they describe nasty spells they are at pains to warn the reader to apply them only to oppressors. Incidentally, there's a thriving online debate on magic in Arabic: Googling "sihr," "ruqya," "ruhaniyyat," etc. turns up both angry orthodox Islamic diatribes and weird, Islamic New Age sites. A few shaykhs even upload their baraka to the web. Mark Pettigrew Queens College, CUNY ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html