Jinn and human entanglements

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Jinn

and

Human Entanglements

Janneke Groothuijse 10000259 Email: jannekegroothuijse@hotmail.com Research Master Social Sciences,

University of Amsterdam Supervisor: mw. prof. dr. R. (Ria) Reis Second reader: mw. dr. K. (Kristine) Krause

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Abstract

In Islam spirits, jinns, are part of the religious reality and in rare instances a jinn can take possession of a human (Ali & Aboul-Fotouh, 2012: 41). This study explores ethnographically the multiple ways jinns and humans are entangled. This thesis is based on five months of fieldwork in an intercultural specialized mental health outpatient clinic in the Netherlands. It explicitly concerns seven men and women, who live in the Netherlands and who experience the infiltration by jinns as profoundly distressful. They all consider themselves Muslim and identify at least partly as Moroccan. Furthermore, my respondents approached religious healing practices as well as biomedical mental health care facilities, to find relief for their distress. The aim of this research is not to draw a picture of how jinn possession is experienced in general. Instead, this research addresses the particular experiences of these seven men and women for whom jinn possession and biomedicine are not mutually exclusive. This study explores how jinns go about in actualizing their presence; how possession is entwined with family related distress; and what the ontological effects are of jinn possession as a lived experience. What is assumed in this study, in line with Science and Technology Studies, is an expanded notion of agency beyond mere human intentionality (Latour, 2005: 46). Thus, I maintain with my respondents that in manifestations of the jinn their bodies become those of the jinn. The first chapter attends to the first manifestation of the jinn as a life-changing event, which retrospectively redefines the past. Thereafter, I address the multiple shapes jinns take in biomedical and religious healing practices, and how they are made visible to the human senses. I attend to how the reality of jinns is maintained, and sometimes confronted, in biomedical encounters. Furthermore, this thesis addresses the communicative potential of jinn possession and explores how jinn possession and suffering are entangled. Finally, I demonstrate that jinn possession can facilitate binding with other devotees and the divine. I hope to contribute to the study of spirit possession by showing the intricate and situated practices through which jinns come into being, the myriad ways in which jinn possession is intertwined with suffering and the transforming effect jinns have on the lives of their hosts. I argue that jinn and human entanglements are not solely characterized by a relation between jinn and possessed, but even more so by the drawing of new entanglements between previously disconnected realities, different forms of suffering, between devotees, and between heaven and earth.

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‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that

it is not real?’

- Dumbledore to Harry at King's Cross (Rowling, 2007: 579)

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Acknowledgments

My gratitude goes first and foremost to my respondents who courageously shared their intimate stories with me. In particular I would like to thank Mrs. Azizi.1_{I also want to thank}

all the psychiatrists and psychologists working at the outpatient clinic and especially: Agnes, Bert, Fatima, Zulfiye, Marjanneke, Karima, Mariam, Marije, Ihsan, Lia, Prashanti, Selda, Haci, Hanifa, Andrea and Sumeyye. Thank you for your enthusiasm for my research, for helping me approach possible respondents and for trusting me. Special thanks to Hasib, who taught me that jinns can also be funny. I am also very grateful to the ladies undertaking the administrative tasks at the clinic. Canan, Kismet, Hediye and Ingrid, you made me feel welcome. In addition my gratitude goes also to Sam, without whom I would have never been able to do this research. Thank you for introducing me to this intriguing field. I am also grateful to the management Henry and Yvette, for allowing me to do this research.

Second, my gratitude goes to those who supported me in writing this thesis. My gratitude goes to my supervisor Ria Reis, your knowledge and encouragements helped me to maintain a scientific stance and to not get lost in the overwhelming perplexity of my respondents' narratives. I would also like to thank the people who have supported me both during this thesis and countless other times. I am grateful for my mother who not just enabled me to become familiar with the unfamiliar, but who always supported me with her kindness. My father has been indispensable in the process of becoming an anthropologist. I don't know anyone else who is as curious as my father. He is an anthropologist pur sang by nature.

I have dedicated this monograph to my grandfather and grandmother, who have both passed away before I began my journey in anthropology. My grandfather was a religious man and curious like my father. He introduced me to the depth of religion and the deep feelings connected to it. My grandmother, oma Koosje, was raised as a Catholic but after the early death of her husband she stopped believing. My grandmother taught me how deep personal experiences can change how we come to understand the world around us. Special thanks to Iris and Liselot not just for sharing your thoughts and insights, but mostly for your friendship. Also thanks to Isa, with whom I spent countless hours in the library this past year. I would also like to thank Bree for sharing this incredibly stressful and exiting time together. Last but not least, I want to thank two important cats in my life, Toots and Blazert, they were there for

1_{I have changed the names of my respondents. To further ensure anonymity I have also changed contextual}

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me through every step of the process. Their company has been indispensable throughout the writing process. It would have been a much lonelier experience without them.

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Prologue

Let me tell you the story of king Sulaiman, you call him Solomon, and the throne of the Queen of Sheba. King Sulaiman was given a ring by the archangel Jibreel2_{. This ring gave}

him the power to control the winds, the feathered creatures and the Shayâtîn (devils, ifrit) among the jinns. He had heard stories about the Queen of Sheba, her mighty throne encrusted with precious jewels and her people worshipping the sun. Sulaiman ordered one of his servants to send an invitation to the queen to visit his palace and submit herself to Islam. The Queen of Sheba had heard about the incredible king Sulaiman. Accompanied by her army, she embarked on a seven year journey to the palace of the king. The jinns informed Sulaiman that the queen was heading towards Jerusalem. Sulaiman, who wanted to demonstrate Allah's greatness to the queen, asked which one of his followers could bring him her throne. An ifrit among the jinns responded that he would bring the throne 'within a twinkling of an eye.' When the queen reached the palace the inexplicability of her massive encrusted throne arriving before her, made her to convert to Islam. King Sulaiman ordered the jinns to build an incredible palace for the Queen to live beside him. With the help of the jinns Sulaiman became the greatest king of his time. Eventually, whilst overseeing the Jinns obeying his orders, he died. The jinns were so frightened of the power King Sulaiman held over them, that it was not until a worm had gnawed away his staff – which prevented his body from collapsing – that the jinns noticed he had passed away. Upon realizing Sulaiman had passed away, the jinns fanned out into the world. This is how the devils among the jinns were unleashed again. (Story told by a friend of mine3₎

2_{Gabriel in Christianity}

3_{This story was told by my neighbor. His father is a Moroccan Muslim and his mother converted to Islam at a}

young age. When I informed him about my research plans he was eager to talk with me about his experiences with and share his knowledge of jinns.

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1

Introduction

In the Quran a distinction is made between three different entities: human, angel and jinn, each residing in their respective, but not entirely separated realms. Humans are made of clay, angels of air and jinns out of smokeless fire (Chabbi, 2003: 48). Jinns are similar to humans in many ways: they are passionate, gendered and intelligent beings that eat, sleep, procreate, build societies, practice religion, engage in politics and, although they live much longer, die of old age. They are responsible for their own actions and can be both good and evil (El-Zein, 2009, 13-21). There are three kinds of jinns: Jinns that are capable of fast movement, jinns that perceive glimpses of the future and those that are able to take any physical form they like (Laughlin, 2015: 71; El-Zein, 2009: 53). In exceptional circumstances a jinn is capable of taking possession of a human (Ali & Aboul-Fotouh, 2012: 41). Over the course of five months of fieldwork in an intercultural outpatient clinic I came across all of them.

Before I immerged myself in the world of jinns and the people whom they possess, I barely knew anything about these entities other than their appearance in the novels I had read. I had first learned about jinns in Scheherazade's orientalist tails of "The Arabian Nights"4, which are popular in the Euro-American world but perceived with disdain in the Arab world (Yamanaka & Nishio, 2006: 154-156; Irwin, 2004 [1994]: 81-82). Later, I read about them in "The Devil's Mistress" by the Dutch-Moroccan novelist Naima El Bezaz (2003)5_{. The jinns in}

these stories are portrayed as powerful, volatile and dangerous beings situated in fictional narratives that seem far away from everyday life. It was therefore intriguing when I learned that possession by jinns is not a rare experience amongst Muslims with a Moroccan background in the Netherlands. It fascinated me even more that they are not an uncommon phenomenon in intercultural psychology. I wondered: How do people come to know that a jinn has infiltrated their body? Why would someone who suffers from religiously defined distress seek biomedical psychological support? What happens when a body is controlled by a jinn? Who are these people that are possessed and how do they go about in their lives?

4_{The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights}

Entertainments, translated by Richard Burton (1885).

5_{El Bezaz' novel is about an elderly woman, Lalla Rebha, a seherra, who practices black magic, sihr. With the}

help of the jinn Farzi, she offers her services against payment to predominantly women with adulterous husbands.

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2 Medical anthropologists have thoroughly investigated diverging expressions of suffering and lived experiences of illnesses (see, for example, Kleinman, 1980; Scheper-Hughes & Lock, 1987). In the field of medical anthropology spirit or jinn possession is often recognized and studied as an expression of suffering. It is predominantly addressed within countries where the belief in spiritual entities is more widely shared and their existence more acknowledged than in Euro-American contexts (Dieste, 2015; Larsen, 2014; Khan, 2006; Ong, 1988). However, the geographical focus of my study is the Netherlands, where the state apparatus, conventional health care services and a substantial part of its inhabitants are not accustomed to jinns interfering in the lives of humans.

This thesis is the result of my ethnographic explorations in an intercultural outpatient clinic in the Netherlands where patients with spiritual encounters are not uncommon to the psychiatrists and psychologists. Although more people were included in the research process, this study explicitly concerns seven men and women, who live in the Netherlands and who experience the infiltration by jinns as profoundly distressful. They all consider themselves Muslim and identify at least partly as Moroccan. Furthermore, my respondents approached religious healing practices as well as biomedical mental health care facilities, to find relief for their distress. The aim of this research is not to draw a picture of how jinn possession is experienced in general. Instead, this research addresses the particular experiences of these seven men and women for whom jinn possession and biomedicine are not mutually exclusive. The question this thesis attends to is: How are the jinns and the humans they possess entangled? More specifically this study addresses how jinns go about in actualizing

their presence; how possession is entwined with family related distress; and what the ontological effects are of jinn possession as a lived experience. Whereas jinns are entwined with suffering I do not regard jinns as solely expressions of suffering. What is assumed in this study is an expanded notion of agency beyond mere human intentionality, and I would like to invite the reader to do the same. Throughout this thesis I have allowed the jinns to become a pragmatic reality. As such, the actors in this study are both human and non-human. These actors are the people that are possessed by jinns, their significant others, Islamic healers and biomedical professionals, as well as the possessing entities.

The first manifestation of a jinn is a solicited, extraordinary happening and a prerequisite for the jinn to become knowable. It is only after this extraordinary event that jinns are able to unsolicitedly come into manifest presence. In this thesis I show that the multiple ways in which jinns come into being are situated in religious and occasionally in biomedical therapeutic practices, arguing that both the possessing jinns and my respondents do not

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3 discriminate between these material, social and religious-cultural practices. Moreover, the relation between suffering and the jinn's manifestation is not unilateral or explicitly addressed by the possessing entity. Throughout the experience with jinn possession, suffering caused by the jinn and distress that existed prior to the possession, become indistinguishable. Unlike spirits in other contexts, I argue that the jinns embodied by my respondents are not unaffected by the moral order in which the possessed is situated. In result it involves a precarious collaboration between jinn, possessed and significant others to reveal or at other times conceal the related suffering. However, while the possessing jinns are not concerned with the wellbeing of my respondents, there is a transformative potential in experiencing jinn possession, which, as I will show, is inscribed in the process of learning to live with jinns.

I hope to contribute to the study of spirit possession, specifically in a Euro-American setting, by demonstrating the intricate and situated practices through which jinns come into being. By paying attention to a multiplicity of ways and practices of knowing, I aim to encourage negotiations between seemingly incommensurable regimes of knowledge. Thus, what distinguishes my research is that it partly moves beyond the scope of anthropology. I hope to contribute to current debates in mental health care and raise awareness among biomedical professionals about the way biomedicine's hegemonic position can facilitate the in/exclusion of specific patient groups through silencing and translating experiences into something else. Despite the fact that cultural sensitivity in biomedical health care is by now perceived as a common good, there is still much to learn and to improve in order to mitigate the in/exclusion of those in need of care.

In the remainder of this introduction, I will first contextualize jinn possession through a brief consideration of the lives of inhabitants of the Netherlands with a Moroccan background and situate jinn possession within shifting discourses of Islamic healing practices6_{. After having set the outlines of jinn possession in the Netherlands, I will provide a}

discussion of the theoretical frames this thesis relates to. Thereafter, I will attend to the methodological considerations after which I will summarize the structure of this study.

6_{Providing an extensive consideration of the global and local contextualities within which Dutch-Moroccans are}

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4

Jinn possession

Spirit possession is found in many societies, ranging from enigmatic Candomblé rituals in Brazil (Van de Port, 2011), cen spirits haunting their murderers in Uganda (Reis, 2013), to jinns who are capable of both good and evil found in many Islamic societies (Dieste, 2015; Larsen, 2014; Maarouf, 2007; Rothenberg, 2004; Boddy, 1989). It is of importance to note that encounters with jinns and other spirits are not exclusively situated in contexts of suffering (e.g. Khan, 2006: 238-239). However, sustained contact with a jinn is unfortunately more often than not characterized by suffering and distress.

The kinds of suffering in relation to which spirits manifest itself are diverse and can among others include mass traumatic stress experienced in the wake of a war, economic hardship and marginalization, but can likewise encompass difficulties with relatives, confused family relations and identity problems (Reis, 2013: 635; Van Duijl et al, 2010: 383; Igreja et al, 2008; Khalifa & Hardie 2005: 352). My respondents' narratives were predominantly concerned with family related and individual experienced suffering. However, due to the co-occurrence of spirit possession and structural inequalities I will first shortly attend to the position of Dutch-Moroccans in the Netherlands. Thereafter I will expand on the phenomena of jinn possession and situate jinn possession within shifting discourses of Islamic healing practices.

As aforementioned, my respondents identify with the Dutch-Moroccan population in the Netherlands. This population can roughly be divided in three groups: those who came upon invitation by the Dutch government as part of the 1960s guest worker scheme, those who followed via family reunification and the offspring of those who migrated in the 1960s and 70s (Maliepaard, 2012: 10-11). Initially it was expected that the guest workers would eventually return to their country of origin, but as they started to bring their families over the Dutch government had to recognize that these people were not intending to return. This realization sparked heated political debates regarding cultural difference and the preservation of Dutch cultural values in the nineties (Schinkel, 2017: 122-123). Around the turn of the century the socio-economic disadvantaged position and high crime rates among certain immigrant groups became linked with culture and religion in Dutch political discourse (Ibid: 124). Especially Islamic and Moroccan culture became increasingly viewed as incompatible

contextualities and certainly not of the multiple ways in which Muslims in Western countries are confronted with populist imaginaries of belonging.

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5 with European or Dutch culture and a threat to western norms and values (Bouras, 2013: 1228).

Many Dutch-Moroccans encounter prejudice and discrimination on a daily basis (Maliepaard, 2012: 10-11). In her study on religiosity and social integration among Muslim minorities in the Netherlands Mieke Maliepaard shows that Muslim immigrants who experience discrimination tend to become more religious (Ibid:121). Maliepaard's findings indicate that religious identification is stronger among second generation Dutch-Moroccan immigrants, of whom the majority identifies as Muslim, than among the first generation. Her findings have shown, contrary to what was expected, that highly educated Muslims engage more in religious practices than their lower educated counterparts (Ibid: 39, 48, 58).

Furthermore, Dutch-Moroccan Muslims regard kinship ties, as the Quran emphasizes, as very important. Of particular importance is the relation with one's parents, but the familial system extends well beyond the nuclear family and also includes cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Family responsibilities can be the source of substantial distress, but the familial network can also provide relief in times of emotional, economic and personal crisis (Rahiem & Hamid, 2012: 57-58). On the other hand, addressing family problems can be difficult and discussing domestic issues within and outside the family is not always deemed appropriate (Maliepaard, 2012: 67). Moreover, Dutch-Moroccans have long been underrepresented in Dutch mental health care, but it has been observed that approaching mental health care has become less of an obstacle for adult clients (De Jong, 2010; Fassaert et al, 2010; Schrier et al, 2005: 774-776). However, persistent hesitancy to approach mental health care can be explained by stigmatization of mental health problems within the community and concerns about the possibility of being misunderstood by mental health professionals (Rassool, 2015: 59; Islam & Campbell, 2014: 230).

In a recently published paper it is stated that approximately twenty percent of Muslim mental health patients in the Netherlands attribute their distress to jinn (Lim et al, 2018: 6)7_.

More than forty percent of the interviewed patients of the overall population in this research has origins in Morocco (Ibid: 3). Due to the frequent occurrence amongst Muslim patients of attributing distress and suffering to the actions of jinns, psychiatrist Anastasia Lim has stressed the need for systematic empirical research on jinn possession, as experiences with jinns have proven not to be unilateral translatable to psychiatric diagnostic categories (2015:

7_{To be precise, 17,7 percent of Muslim patients from this specific intercultural orientated mental health}

outpatient clinic define their distress as related to jinns (Lim et al, 2018: 6). The majority of the interviewed patients were originally from Turkey (40,8%) or Morocco (40,8%) (Ibid: 3).

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6 23-27; 2018: 3). Belief in the existence of jinn is widespread among Muslims in general. Denying their existence is arguably tantamount to rejecting the contents of the Quran and Sunnah (Ameen in Lim et al, 2015: 21). Muslims who support this conviction argue that the Islamic declaration of faith, includes, next to the belief in one god (Allah), the prophets, the holy books, the Day of Judgment, the divine decree and angels, also the belief in the existence of jinns (Shafer, 2013). Dutch-Moroccans show a passionate interest when sharing stories of and experiences with jinns8_{. However, similar to mental health problems jinn possession is}

not something commonly shared for fear of being stigmatized and socially excluded by others in the Dutch-Moroccan community (Lim et al, 2015: 21-22).

Jinns are infamous for bringing illness and disorder to the humans they possess (Larsen, 2014: 7; Lim et al, 2015: 21). Jinn possession, al-mass, is considered an affliction over which the possessed has little or no control (Hanely & Brown, 2014: 348). Men and women who are going through a transitional phase such as a recent marriage or migration are recognized as more susceptible to interferences of jinns. Likewise, Muslims who do not maintain a ritually pure body and drink alcohol, use drugs and/or engage with other sins (zina) are considered more prone to jinn possession (Dieste, 2015: 47; Lim et al, 2015: 21). Women are perceived as particularly vulnerable to their afflictions (Dein & Abdool 2013: 292; Dieste, 2015: 50). However, this gender bias is not reflected in my own research. Furthermore, black magic, sihr, is frequently mentioned as the cause of jinn possession (Ibid: 56). Often, family members are suspected to have caused the black magic, and with that, the bad jinn. Considering the strong family ties within the community, this assumed black magic is a way to reflect existing family tensions (Reis, 2013: 624; Rothenberg 2004: 36, Geschiere, 1997: 11).

The diagnosis of jinn possession is performed through careful attention towards minor changes in a person's behavior, personality, cognition, physical appearance and religiosity (Dieste, 2015: 15; Utz, 2012: 21; Spadola, 2009: 156-157). My respondents explained that it is not unusual for inhabitants of the Netherlands with a Moroccan background to travel to Morocco for curative purposes. According to Cor Hoffer, who has done extensive research on Islamic therapeutic practices among Muslims and healers in the Netherlands, jinn eviction practices9_{commonly involve – aside of faith healing – the employment of amulets, herbs, and}

8_{Not all Muslims consider sharing stories of jinn encounters or discussing their existence as appropriate. For}

example, by talking with the therapists, I learned that among Turkish Muslims Jinn, written as çin, are not commonly spoken about. When it cannot be avoided çin are referred to as a "three letter word".

9_{I have chosen not to reference to practices against jinns as exorcism, for as Maarouf argues that exorcism has}

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7 other objects (2007: 4-5). These therapeutic practices, Hoffer stresses, have an ambivalent relationship with official Islam and are considered as residues of popular belief (Hoffer, 2000)10_{. Whilst recognizing the existence of jinns is part of the declaration to Islam, the}

ability of jinns to take possession of humans is contested by some Muslims who argue that this is not confirmed by the Quran. Many scholars have observed that predominantly elderly and less educated Muslim migrants attribute illness and mental health problems to jinn possession and sihr. These scholars hope that informing Muslim migrants on the pre-Islamic origins of jinn possession and jinn eviction practices will moderate the belief in supernatural beings and will encourage them to consider conventional "Western" mental health care practices and explanations (Dein et al, 2008: 46; Islam & Campbell, 2014: 240-241).

However, it is recently observed that ruqya shariya, faith healing, is gaining popularity among Muslims in Europe and elsewhere (Spain: Dieste, 2015; Egypt: Rashed, 2015: 16; England: Eneborg, 2013; Morocco: Spadola, 2009). In a ruqya shariya ritual a fqih, faith healer, evicts or weakens the jinn through reciting specific chapters (surahs) and verses (ayats) from the Quran, which jinns cannot stand (Dieste, 2015: 49). Yusuf M. Eneborg notes that in East London, the practice of ruqya shariya is in particular promoted by high educated young Muslims, who regard ruqya shariya as both more modern and Islamic than other therapeutic alternatives (2013: 1080). Similar to Eneborg, Mateo Dieste has observed among Moroccans in Spain, that ruqya shariya is viewed as a truly Islamic therapeutic practice. According to Mateo Dieste, a process of reconstruction of Islamic Prophetic Medicine through practices that are considered more faithful to the Hadith is currently taking place (2015: 49). He states that ruqya shariya "embodies a symbolic power that is not only healing but also legitimizing the authority of textuality and orthodoxy" (Ibid: 55), i.e. official Islam. These authors have signaled a discursive shift in which jinn eviction practices no longer solely run counter to official Islam, but are instead associated with a return to Islamic orthodoxy and Islamic reformist movements. As such, jinn possession is increasingly less associated with popular belief and elderly non-western educated Muslims.

This new focus was likewise confirmed by my respondents. However, while my respondents affirmed ruqya shariya's claim as truly Islamic along similar lines as discussed in the discursive shift described above, they did not agree on the boundaries of legitimate ruqya shariya practices. For example, while some of my respondents contested the use of herbs others did not perceive their use as problematic and stated it supplemented the ruqya shariya

10_{Official Islam refers to what is propagated by the ulama and imams in mosques. Popular belief refers to local}

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8 sessions. In addition, how ruqya shariya should be performed is a subject of discussion. I will come back to the latter in the final chapter of this monograph.

Theoretical approach

As aforementioned, psychiatrist Anastasia Lim has argued that jinn possession is untranslatable to a singular psychiatric category (Lim et al, 2015: 23-27; Lim et al, 2018: 3) Janice Boddy, known for her research on zar cults in Northern Sudan, has made a similar observation. She has remarked that spirit possession resists simple summation, because it "intersects with numerous cultural domains including medicine and religion, but is itself reducible to none" (Boddy, 1994: 413). I agree with Boddy that spirit possession is an irreducible phenomenon. Moreover, jinn possession is not only irreducible to any cultural domain, but also to one specific theoretical approach. I therefore have allowed myself to draw upon multiple theoretical approaches to grasp the multiple facets of jinn possession as experienced by my respondents. In the paragraphs that follow I will elaborate on the theoretical approaches and concepts that have informed this monograph.

Extraordinary voices

Well known in the study of spirit possession is I.M. Lewis (2003 [1971])11_{. As opposed to}

explaining spirit possession in terms of psychological processes, he focused on the sociopolitical context and approached spirit possession as a problem-solving mechanism (Lewis, 2003: 27-28). Lewis was reprimanded for his reductionist and conservative analysis of peripheral possession cults in which the downtrodden and particularly women intentionally use possession to improve their peripheral status (Boddy 1989: 6). Notwithstanding, his focus on the communicative potential of spirit manifestations has influenced future studies of spirit possession remarkably.

Under normal circumstances jinns are invisible to humans, except for when they manifest or communicate with humans in their sleep. Michael Lambek, in his study of spirit possession in Mayotte, has observed that: "[T]he notion of invisibility implies its opposite,

11_{He distinguishes between central and peripheral possession cults. In this, the former is a positive experience}

involving ancestral spirits that generally speak through men. The latter, such as jinn possession, concerns often harming foreign spirits who typically afflict women and marginalized men with illness (Lewis, 2003: 27-28; Ibid, 1996: 43-75).

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9 and there are times when [spirits] do become visible to humans" (1981: 27). The manifestation of a spirit, Lambek analyzes, is a kind of bursting out, which is characterized by an eventful topology bringing "the old place and time to the new" (2010: 7, 32). In the first chapter of this thesis, I attend to the eventfulness of the first manifestation of a jinn, which is a decisive moment in my respondents' experiences with jinn possession. Furthermore, my respondents explained that during manifestations they are oblivious to the actions of the manifesting jinn. When the consciousness of the possessed is precluded, the presence of another human being is crucial to mediate communication between the spirit and the possessed. Therefore, as Lambek and Boddy stress, there are at least three actors included in spirit manifestations, namely the self, an external force, and another human (Lambek 1981: 318; Boddy, 1994: 22)12_.

Lambek approaches spirit possession as a "complex system of communication" constituted by a "practice and politics of voice". The communicational shift from human to spirit, the eventfulness of a manifestation, grants the spirit's voice an authority beyond ordinary human speech (Lambek, 1993: 11). However, he points out that the ability of spirits to act (outside the normative) is constrained by the spirit's dependency on human corporeality to act in and interact with the human world (Ibid.). Manifestations are a prominent feature of spirit possession. It therefore surprised me that not all the jinns that possess my respondents have manifested. In order to grasp why some jinns do communicate and manifest while others do not, I draw on Lambek's suggestion that spirits are dependent on human corporeality to act in and interact with the human world.

From Lewis' treaties onwards the anthropology of spirit possession evolved from prioritizing functionality and intentionality to focusing on resistance, meaning and subjectivity. Scholars emphasizing the latter dimensions, studied spirit manifestations as a form of embodied subaltern critique of modernity, colonialism, subordination and economic domination (Ong, 1988: 5; Boddy, 1989; Boddy, 1994: 419; Stoller, 1995; McIntosh, 2004)13_.

A scholar closely associated with the study of spirit possession is Mark Nichter. Inspired by Lewis' focus on the sociopolitical context of spirit manifestations, Nichter coined the term

12_{Lambek has coined this three way communication "the communication triad" (1980: 318). Furthermore, the}

presence of another human being is necessary in order to mediate communication, as well as to authenticate that the agency of the possessed person is curtailed and that he or she is unaccountable for the things happening during the spirit's manifestation (Crapanzano in Boddy 1994: 412, Lambek 1993:11).

13_{The study of spirit possession as an embodied subaltern critique, is informed by Foucault's assertion "where}

there is power, there is resistance" (1978: 95-96) and the introduction of embodiment by Csordas (1990). Contrary to Lewis, these scholars do not regard what is articulated in spirit manifestations as intentional. Agency is understood here as conditioned through embodied dispositions which are acquired through socialization and bodily practices. (Boddy 1989: 3-10, 337; Bourdieu 1977: 15-20).

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10 idioms of distress (1981). Idioms of distress refer to culturally constituted, meaningful and legitimate ways to communicate and cope with distress (Ibid: 379, 395, 402). Idioms of distress are not necessarily structured and conventional ways of expressing distress. Kirmayer and Young argue that enactments of idioms are flexible and ambiguous (in Nichter 2010: 408). Idioms can be enacted for a range of individual, social and political suffering. Hence, the psychiatrist Joop de Jong and anthropologist Ria Reis stress that idioms should not be mistaken for a type of distress, which can be translated into discrete diagnostic categories (2010: 302, 315, 319)14_{. They argue that idioms of distress are "always related to structural}

problems", which is why the articulated distress cannot be addressed explicit (Ibid: 315). Hence, the heuristic purpose of the analytical concept of idioms of distress is to "focus on what is at stake in social suffering" (Kleinman & Kleinman in De Jong & Reis, 2010: 318). As aforementioned, becoming possessed eventuated for my respondents amidst complicated family relations and distressing situations. In this thesis, I draw on the concept of idioms of distress to explore how distress is woven through the experience of jinn possession and, informed by De Jong and Reis, to address what is at stake when jinns manifest.

However, Lambek cautions against equating spirit manifestations with resistance. While spirits in manifestations can provide a critique on what is considered normative, he argues that, they likewise enrich and modulate human relationships in everyday life (Lambek in Boddy, 1994: 413, Lambek, 2003: 41). He regards spirit possession not as an "art of resistance" (De Certeau 1984), but as an "art of living", as spirit possession involves living with both the manifest and latent presence of spirits (2003: 41). Spirit possession as "an art of living" is concerned with how spirits are intertwined in people's lives; how they weave through biographies, memories and family histories; and enable reflection through narrative and practice (2003: 41). Inspired by Lambek's focus on spirit possession as "an art of living", I attend to the taking shape of spirit and human relations beyond eventful manifestations.

14_{In response to biomedicine's assumed universality and neutrality, medical anthropologists have argued that the}

diversity in illness experiences and meanings cannot be comprehended through a single perspective (Good 2008 [1994]: 1062). Perceiving an expression of collective stressors solely through the individualized perspective of illness is what the anthropologists Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock have coined the process of medicalization. Medicalization, they argue, inevitably entails a missed identification between the individual and the social bodies, and a tendency to transform the social into the biological (Scheper-Hughes & Lock, 1987: 10).

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11

Mediums and spirits as actors of world making

As aforementioned, spirits need human bodies to mediate their presence. However, jinns do not only rely on human corporeality to come into being. Within the study of religion there is a growing interest in how materialities and practices enable religious sensations and make religious realities appear as immediate15_{. For example, historian of American Catholicism}

Robert Orsi defines religion as the practice of making "the invisible visible, tangible and present to the senses" (2005: 73). In order to make the sacred present, he demonstrates that religious cultures "offer multiple media for materializing the sacred" (Ibid: 74). These media involve religious objects, rituals, practices, smells and the human body (amongst many others).

Birgit Meyer, religious anthropologist and scholar of Charismatic Pentecostalism, draws on Orsi's insight of religion as a practice of mediation. She argues that the invisible and transcendent in religion 'is not a self-revealing entity, but is effected by mediation in a particular manner (Meyer, 2009: 11)'. These particular mediation manners are what Meyer conceptualizes as "sensational forms" (2006). Meyer stresses that sensational forms are not mere intermediaries that allow devotees to experience the sacred. Sensational forms alter and shape the invisible, generate particular religious sensations and bind devotees with the divine and to each other (Meyer 2009: 13)16_{. This thesis engages with Meyer's notion of sensational}

forms in order to explore how jinns are mediated into immediacy and to address religious binding enabled by experiencing jinn possession. Whilst Meyer's approach focuses on religious mediation practices, my respondents utilize both religious and biomedical therapeutics. Exploring how my respondents and their possessing jinns go about in biomedical practices demands a theoretical view that is not primarily concerned with religious sensations.

Whereas Meyer is concerned with the mediation of religious realities, the interrelated fields of "Actor Network Theory" and "Science and Technology Studies" are concerned with

15_{Of particular importance for the turn to materiality in the study of religion is the anthropologist Talal Asad.}

Asad argues that valorizing belief, meaning and inner religiosity over practices, materiality and outward religiosity is a product of the West's own historically situated Protestant legacy (1993: 27-54). This Protestant bias resulted in a modern understanding and scholar inquiry in which religion became "dematerialized" (Keane, 2007). Asad's argument that religious practices and objects are not solely symbols for religious piety (1983: 242, 243), was later on reinforced by Saba Mahmood (2005). Mahmood is in addition inspired by Michel Foucault's concept of ethical formation (1988) and Judith Butler's notion of performativity (1997). She attends to the process of religious subjectivation through which female religious subjectivities are formed. Mahmood argues that religious practices and objects, understood as disciplinary techniques, discipline or form devotees into pious subjects and allow devotees to discipline or perform themselves as pious. It is the interplay of formation in this double sense through which piety is enabled (Mahmood, 2001: 214-216).

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12 how reality, that is ontology, is "made" (Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Haraway, 1985; Law, 2004). Especially known for his work on how sciences partake in the making of scientific truths is Bruno Latour (Latour & Woolgar 1986 [1979]). For Latour, from a material-semiotic stance, actants are not solely humans and can include among others objects, concepts and technologies, which he argues are complicit in the construction of reality. The agency of actants is understood as not necessarily intentional but as dislocated and distributed symmetrically among the actors in the network (Latour, 2005: 46). Only in the relations, semiotics, which constitutes the network do entities emerge, become present, as actants. Thus an actant is "what is made to act by many others, in potentially infinite sets of associations" (Latour, 2005: 46).

Of particular importance to the ontological turn in anthropology is Annemarie Mol's ethnography of atherosclerosis "The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice" (2002). She observes that in contrast to atherosclerosis' assumed univocal reality, it is enacted differently in heterogeneous and contradictory ways across different spatialities, treatment and diagnostic practices in the hospital. Mol wonders how an object that seems dispersed and fragmented is understood to cohere and come across as singular. Her ethnography shows how biomedicine through hospital practices creates coherence out of non-coherence. John Law argues that what is enacted in the hospital practices of Mol's study is Euro-American perspectivalism. By drawing on studies of Latour, Woolgar, Mol and Singleton among others, Law shows that Euro-American perspectivalism is grounded on the ontological assumptions that there exists something like an out-thereness that is independent of our actions and perceptions (passive), which precedes us and is anterior (Law, 2004: 23-25). These particular assumptions are enacted in practices of gathering, bundling and assembling. In other words, Mol's atherosclerosis is being assembled into presence. Law defines this process as a method assemblage (Ibid: 42). A method assemblage condenses or amplifies presence and necessarily absences parts of reality. However, some absences are allowed to be made manifest, while others are made to disappear. In regard to Euro-American perspectivalism, absences allowed to be made manifest are absences that are representable as singular. Absences that are made to disappear are possibilities that do not cohere with singularity (Ibid: 92).

But method assemblages are not constrained to enactments of Euro-American perspectivalism, they 'may gather in any form (Ibid: 104).' However, as Marisol de la Cadena argues, Euro-American perspectivalism has a hegemonic position and can therefore dictate with which forms of life, and thus ontologies, to engage and disengage with. De la Cadena exposes an ontological politics in which Euro-American ontology decides which life forms

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13 are not even deemed worthy of an enemy status (2010: 343)17_{. These ethical and ontological}

implications are of particular importance for my own research as jinns do not cohere with Euro-American assumptions on what reality could be.

These academic endeavors have informed ongoing research among people whose worlds include engagement and interaction with animals, rocks, spirits and other nonhuman entities (e.g. Kohn, 2015; Povinelli, 2016; Goslinga, 2013; Espirito Santo & Tassi, 2013; Viveiros de Castro 2004). However, others have reproached the turn to ontology for its analytical preoccupation with nonhuman beings and "Actor Network Theory's" symmetrical distribution of agency among actors, through which humans have become virtually non-existent (Jackson & Piette, 2015: 21). The "flat ontology" practiced by scholars of ANT has been critiqued for being apolitical, reactionary and the result of "postmodernism's enduring love-affair with otherness" (Eagleton, 2003: 1; Bryant in Kohn, 2015: 316). With taking the criticism of the ontological turn into account it is the people and not the jinns themselves that are central to this thesis.

This thesis studies jinn possession through practices of spiritual becoming, events of manifestation and their effects on the lives of their hosts. This thesis treats jinns, following Latour, as emergent actors who are "made to act by many others, in potentially infinite sets of associations" (Latour 2005: 46). As such who or what is acting or has actor-ship remains ambiguous and undecided. However, while I study jinns as a pragmatic reality, jinn possession is interpreted and dealt with in a religious and culturally salient manner. I therefore conceptualize jinn possession as the embodiment of the jinn. With embodiment I mean the literal materialization of a jinn in a human body (Lambek 2010, Larsen 2014: 8), in which the lived experience of the body and the ways the body mediates life as immediate, is influenced by socialization in specific cultural, political and material environments (Csordas, 1990: 12; Kirmayer, 2003: 285).

While doing this research there was one question repeatedly raised. Do I believe in the existence of jinns as much as my respondents do? Oddly enough, this question never bothered me, but it did seem of importance to everyone else around me. Jinns are uncharted territory

17_{In "Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes" Marisol de la Cadena analyzes the politics of ontology by}

drawing on Chantal Mouffe's, who herself builds on the infamous Carl Schmitt, distinction between the political and politics. The notion of conflict is crucial in Schmitt's work, which he stresses is the aim of politics.

According to Mouffe, in the field of politics these antagonistic relations are tamed and transformed into agonistic relations. As such adversaries become oppositional instead of negative enemies, which is distinctive for

hegemonic orders (Mouffe in de la Cadena, 2010: 343). De la Cadena argues that hegemonic power is not limited to politics, within the realm of the political not just enemies are made but it is also decided which ways of life are not even deemed worthy of enemy status (Ibid.).

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14 for my senses and defined by a religion that I do not follow. I did once listen to a ruqya recording online to see what would happen. Nothing did. However, I do know that what my respondents experienced was very true to them. Because of that, jinns shaped the lives of my respondents actively.

Methods and the outpatient clinic

I take ethnographic research methods, following John Law, as a practice that does not only describe a social reality but is like any other science shaped by particular "hinterlands" through which it amplifies and silences realities. In other words, ethnographic research methods partake in the production of realities (Law, 2004: 5-8). The discussed theoretical frames are part of my hinterland through which I enact and have reassembled the narratives of my respondents. My own personal interests and theoretical points of view have likewise informed the kind of questions I raised in the interviews and which answers I finally selected. Thus, this thesis is the result of me ordering, selecting, layering and distributing these narratives into something that can be regarded as a partial, situated and particular monograph (Haraway, 1988: 585; Abu-Lughod, 1991: 473; Mahmood, 2005: 167). In the section that follows I will attend to some methodological reflections that shape the hinterland of my thesis.

From the beginning of November 2017 until mid-March 2018 I conducted ethnographic research at an outpatient clinic in one of the provincial capitals of the Netherlands. The outpatient clinic offers specialized mental health services to patients with a non Euro-American background. Unlike "halfies" or "native" anthropologists (Abu-Lughod, 1991: 468), for whom self and other are somewhat entwined, I remained an "other" in my research. Doing "anthropology at home", meaning one's home country, does not imply that one is considered a native in his/her research field. I was an "other" to the psychologists at the clinic and likewise to my respondents. My position in the field has shaped the process and outcome of this thesis, sometimes as a constraining factor and at other times opening up new possibilities. For example, language difficulties were a constraining factor, but not being a Dutch-Moroccan or from the same area in the Netherlands did ensure anonymity and made me less impendent for my respondents to talk with.

Being the only intern doing anthropological research and not being a health care professional limited the possibilities of my undertakings in the clinic. The psychology

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15 research interns at the outpatient clinic predominantly performed quantitative survey research, whereas my research involved in-depth interviews with patients which were more difficult for the psychiatrists to supervise. This proved problematic since the attending psychiatrist retains overall responsibility for all patient contact and as such it was of importance for them to be able to assess the research process. Moreover, due to my inexperience with mental health care, the psychologists were in the beginning of my research wary of my professional capabilities to talk with their patients without provoking unnecessary distress. A semi-structured interview style in which predetermined questions are used to get a response to specific topics and interviewees are allowed to wander off these topics, proved to be suitable. This interview style responded to the requirement for the psychiatrists and psychologists to be able to assess and supervise the questions I was likely to pose, while simultaneously facilitating the possibility to explore ideas with participants (O'Reilly, 2012: 120). I was fortunate that many of the therapists were enthusiastic about my research and were eager to help me. For example, the clinic provided a translator if necessary. But more importantly, the positive experience my respondents have with the clinic, made them more inclined to talk with me even though experiences with jinns are usually barely addressed in conversations with a person who is not a Muslim.

In the mental health care sector contact between patients and therapists is restricted to clinical spatiality. These same rules applied to me and the main body of this thesis therefore relies on information obtained through the semi-structured interviews, varying in length from one hour and a half to three hours, with patients from the clinic18_{. All respondents were}

required to sign an informed consent form prior to the interview. However the interviews were carried out in a consultation room which made it difficult for my respondents to differentiate between me as a researcher and the therapists at the clinic19_{. For example, one of}

the people I interviewed did sign the informed consent form, but her illiteracy and inexperience with the concept of research made me doubt if she understood what she consented to. During the interview she asked me if I could make a phone call to the asylum lawyer who is trying to arrange a refugee permit for her youngest daughter. I decided to exclude her from my analysis, considering that in addition to my doubt about her consent, she

18_{In addition I have spoken with an Islamic spiritual counselor, the psychologists and psychiatrists working at}

the outpatient clinic, and I consulted Muslims who do not experience jinn possession about the interferences of jinns in the human world. These people are not made present in this monograph, but they have been part and parcel of understanding jinn possession.

19_{The only thing I could do to differentiate myself from the therapists, as everyone wears casual clothing, was to}

not position myself behind the desktop and sit on a patient seat instead of using the office chair the therapist commonly sit on.

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16 also differed from my other respondents in terms of history of suffering and geographical origins.

Before entering the field, I intended to also interview my respondents' family members. I aimed to do so because a senior researcher at the outpatient clinic - also involved in jinn-related-distress research - suggested that jinns perform a specific function in addressing, balancing-out and explaining disturbed family relations20_{. However, throughout}

the fieldwork process I realized that I had underestimated the extent to which family related distress is entangled with the jinn possession experiences of my respondents and that distress is often particularly kept concealed from significant others. Therefore, obtaining contact with family members was incredibly difficult. Eventually I accomplished to conduct one interview with a family member. In the third chapter of this monograph I will further elaborate on why I have been unable to talk with other family members.

The people present in this monograph are all Sunni Muslims and of Moroccan descent or identify at least partly as Moroccan. Throughout this monograph I will introduce my respondents individually, because next to these general markers and being possessed by a jinn, my respondents do not have much in common. They are from different age groups, have different levels of educations, and have different migration backgrounds. This monograph is about the particular narratives of these seven people, their encounters with jinn, the specific treatment practices they engage with, how they deal with their experiences and the effects of jinn possession on their lives.

Outline

In the chapters that follow I will present my analysis of my respondents' experiences in four different chapters. In each chapter I will explore different facets of jinn possession. In the first chapter, I will explore how jinns come into being. I set out to describe how my respondents came to terms with the existence of jinns, which my respondents stressed was not something they had considered prior to the jinns first manifestation. I will argue that the first manifestation of a jinn is an extraordinary and inexplicable event, which informs previous and future acts of jinns, and thereby radically redefines the possessed person's autobiography.

20_{From the perspective of transcultural psychiatry research has been carried out at the outpatient clinic by}

Anastasia Lim on the prevalence of the attribution of distress to jinn among Muslim patients (Lim et al, 2015; Lim et al, 2018). In addition, for the purpose of her master thesis in anthropology, Karin Vesseur (2015) has done research on how the psychologist themselves relate to and frame the jinn experiences of their patients.

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17 Chapter two is concerned with religious and biomedical therapeutic practices involved in the mediation of jinns. Showing that for my respondents religious and biomedical therapeutic practices are reconcilable, I will attend to the way in which recent developments within religious therapeutic practices have altered the conceptualization of jinns and how jinns remain coherent entities in biomedical therapeutic practices and encounters. This chapter situates the jinns and my respondents in the at once global and local relations through which jinns come into being in the Netherlands. The third chapter is concerned with the communicative potential of jinn possession and I explore how jinn possession and suffering are entwined. Inspired by Lambek, I situate the jinn within the limitations imposed by its dependency on human corporeality to act in and interact with the human world, to argue that the jinns embodied by my respondents are not unaffected by the moral order in which the possessed is situated. I attend to the way in which distress can be addressed through jinn manifestations without explicitly articulating distress. In the final chapter I address the transformative potential in experiencing jinn possession. This chapter is not concerned with event-like manifestations, rather it is concerned with the embodied learning process of experiencing jinn possession. I argue that jinn possession can facilitate binding with other devotees and the divine. In the conclusion I will propose how this study can contribute to mitigating the in/exclusion of those in need of mental health care.

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18

Chapter one

Coming to terms with jinn possession

Unlike healing practices of jinn possession described in other settings (see, for example, Spadola, 2009: 160; Larsen, 2014: 7-11), the ruqya shariya practices of the Moroccan Diaspora in the Netherlands aren't grand rituals including music and dance that can be witnessed by the whole community. Instead, ruqya shariya rituals, faith healing, in the Netherlands are characterized by their intimacy and their execution in the private realm of a person's home. Aside from the fqih, the faith healer, there are only some close relatives involved at the most.

As I described in the introduction of this thesis, the phenomena of spirit possession has been referred to as a culturally and religiously shared, meaningful and complex system of communication which addresses and sometimes alleviates suffering (Lambek, 1993: 11; Reis 2013). However, when only attending to possession in such a manner, another aspect is overlooked which my respondents regarded as pivotal to their experience. While jinn possession is meaningful, this does not mean that their manifestation was expected or anticipated. To the contrary, my respondents repeatedly stressed that jinn possession was not something they considered as the cause of the bodily experiences that preceded the jinns’ manifestation.

Of particular importance is the first ruqya shariya session, because jinns only reveal their presence and speak after they have been summoned to presence by a fqih. This is what exposes their infiltration. I will attend to the first manifestation of jinn to understand how acts of jinns are granted their beyond human authority and how jinns come to re-define the lives of those possessed by them. This first chapter begins with where it all started for my respondents, with the bodily experiences which they recognized as expressions of a possessive state after the first manifestation of the jinn.

'What is wrong with me?'

We were driving home and I was vomiting the whole time. My stomach was hurting really bad. We both had a bloated and swollen belly. I looked like I was four or five months pregnant! I first thought my bowels were in an uproar because of something I ate. So I thought everything was going to be alright. But when it

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19 didn't get any better, I went to see my physician. I had my blood tested and they examined a stool sample. All tests came back negative and the physician referred me to the hospital for an intestinal ultrasound. For my husband it was the same, we went to an orthopedist for the pain in his shoulders and legs. When they couldn't find anything wrong he was referred to a neurologist. The doctors concluded that everything was okay and that we were both healthy (Mr. Gharbaoui and Mrs. Amagir).

The manifestation of a jinn very often follows after persistent bodily complaints, for which the people I spoke with went to their general practitioner (GP). At first, the experienced distress was not considered anything else than a worldly ailment, not something that requires specific attention. Only after the symptoms did not improve over time, my respondents suspected something might be wrong. Similar to Mr. Gharbaoui and Mrs. Amagir, my other respondents described the kind of tests they were subjected to, which were unable to provide a diagnosis. Mrs. Amagir's iteration is instructive as to how my respondents stressed biomedicines inability to provide a diagnosis, eventually lead to the consideration that the affliction could be caused by something beyond biomedicine’s explanatory abilities.

The case of Mrs. Azizi, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of four young children, is in many ways comparable with Mrs. Amagir in that her story also concerns biomedicine fostering a hypothesis of inexplicability. But in addition, her narration underlines another aspect of biomedicine in this early, not yet known, phase of jinn possession. Mrs. Azizi described that after what seemed like a severe case of food poisoning a series of inexplicable bodily experiences followed. She recalled one specific visitation to her GP for a medical check-up which, as Mrs. Azizi stressed, was unrelated to the strange symptoms she was experiencing. The GP asked her: "Do you need to tell me something?" To which she responded: "What do I need to tell you?" GP: "How did you get those bruises?" Mrs. Azizi had not noticed the bruises before. She felt a bit caught off guard as the GP seemed to imply that the bruises were the result of domestic abuse. She responded agitatedly to the GP's insinuation: "I don't know, you tell me!" GP: "They can't be caused by just bumping into something from time to time; they're all over your body!"

At the end of the consultation Mrs. Azizi's GP referred her for a blood test which came back without any explanation for her bruises. Analogous with my other respondents numerous other tests and examinations followed which likewise were unable to provide a diagnosis. However, in Mrs. Azizi's case her symptoms were not simply acknowledged, they were

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20 observed by the GP independent of Mrs. Azizi's account. Thus biomedicine is not only partaking in a hypothesis of inexplicability, but is simultaneously authorizing the objectivity of the bodily symptoms.

What I noticed in the conversations was that my respondents did not simply state they started to have these inexplicable bodily complaints. Instead, it was underlined how everything was fine until they suddenly became ill. My respondents continuously emphasized that not even once they thought of jinn possession in these early stages. More so, even though they knew of jinn existence, back then they did not know jinns had possessive powers. Associating the lack of a biomedical diagnosis, bodily complaints, and deviant behavior with jinn possession is an explanatory act. At the moment of their occurrence, my respondents did not link them to jinn possession. In the iterations of my respondents the first indications that something more than a simple flu or food poisoning was causing their suffering, were validated through biomedical practices. It was not themselves, but the doctors and tests that authorize and speak about inexplicability.

Similar to my findings, Mattijs van de Port has observed that Candomblé practitioners in narrations of their spiritual calling repeatedly put forward biomedicine's inability to provide a diagnosis for strange bodily sensations. Initiated, he clarifies, thereby ground the truth of an intervention by spirits in people's lives: "beyond all human scheming and calculation", whereby people seek to make the inexplicable nature of the forces that have seized them even more poignant (Van de Port, 2011: 192). The importance accredited to biomedicine is not random. The fact that a hegemonic practice, which denies the ability of spirits, jinns and other supernatural entities to cause human suffering, perceives the bodily complaints as alarming - yet remains unable to diagnose the suffering - underscores the truth of the jinns manifestation. In addition, it rids my respondents of all prejudice that the soon to be known cause is the result of mere folk belief, something which could be readily explained by biomedicine (or by myself) in another way. In other words, the transformation of the ordinary into the remarkable and inexplicable is uncorrupted by particular agendas and personal desires of my respondents. Thus, the remarkable and inexplicable becomes factual and beyond mere opinionating (Ibid: 193).

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21

Spiritual events

Janice Boddy has commented that spirit possession's incompatibility with Western notions of possibility, the dramatic Otherness of the phenomenon, seduces anthropologist to require an explanation (1994: 408). But the very theoretical constructs and conceptual categories we impose on the phenomenon do not have the same ontological make up as the phenomenon it describes and explains (Goslinga, 2012: 404; De la Cadena, 2015: 14). The issue here is reminiscent of the question if you need to be a religious person to understand faith. Evans-Pritchard, who converted to Catholicism, concluded that the atheist anthropologist "feels the need to account for an illusion", whereas religious scholars do not feel this urge (Evans-Pritchard, 1976 [1931]: 246). Accounting for an illusion, Gillian Goslinga argues, serves to reaffirm the Euro-American ontological assumptions of reality in which many anthropologists themselves are schooled (2012: 404). In order to transcend anthropology's own ontological impulses to explain religious phenomena, Rane Willerslev and Christian Suhr argue that anthropologists have to accept that the transcendent or divine always lies beyond the anthropologist's conceptual grasp, because it lies beyond the explanatory capabilities of our respondents (2018: 69). It is like Mattijs van de Port writes: "The challenge before us is not to answer to the unanswerable. It is to understand its presence and its effects in all world-making (2011: 23)."

Van de Port proposes to think of spirit possession as an instance of "bafflement politics" (Ibid: 192). In the spirit possession cult Candomblé, which is promoted by the local tourist industry as a cultural icon of Brazil, miracles and revelations are enabled by cultists and priests to assert that their voice is the true voice of Candomblé (Ibid: 34,50). However, miracles are not only part of the cult's boundary politics. Van de Port describes the case of Walmir whose encounter with flying saucers, an event "to weird to be true", led to his initiation into Candomblé (Ibid: 196). Van de Port puts forward that it is an "inexplicable and incalculable event axiomatic in a new vision of the world", a truth event, which precedes the initiation of people in the spirit-possession cult (Ibid: 194). Van de Port builds upon philosopher Alain Badiou's notion of the "truth event" to develop an argument on the eventfulness of the inexplicable. According to Badiou:

Knowledge as such only gives us repetition; it is concerned only with what already is. For truth to affirm its newness, there must be a supplement. This

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22 supplement is committed to chance – it is unpredictable, incalculable, it is

beyond what is. I call it an event. A truth appears in its newness because an eventful supplement interrupts repetition (Badiou in van de Port, 2011: 25).

According to Badiou truth must potentially be available to everyone, has no objective content and it cannot pertain to anyone or to, already, existing knowledge. Because knowledge is that what transmits and repeats, Badiou concludes, truth has to be "eventual". However, Badiou stresses that the event does not have to be a truth event for everyone and individuals may decide for themselves to acclaim it or not (in van de Port, 2011: 192-194; in Humphrey, 2008: 360). Anthropologist Caroline Humphrey stresses what is distinctive for a Badiouian event, is that the truth emerged through an epistemological break, separates the time before and the time after its happening. She suggests that the event is a revelation, an epistemological break, and a catalyst, the splitting apart of the state of being before and after the event (Humphrey, 2008: 360,374).

In the remainder of this chapter, following van de Port, I will show that the first manifestation of a jinn is a Badiouian truth event which is grounded in inexplicability and touches beyond of the world as my respondents knew it. Adding to van de Port's use of Badiou's truth event, I will explore in which ways the inexplicability and incalculability of a jinn's first manifestation, a truth event, sparks an epistemological break from previous knowledge. In order to understand how their inexplicable bodily experiences and deviant behavior became recognized by my respondents as symptoms of jinn possession, I will particularly attend to the effect of the truth event, as pointed out by Humphrey, to separate the time before and after the event. In what follows, I will share the story of Mrs. Azizi, who taught me how jinns become an undeniable reality and can redefine the life of those possessed by one of them.

The eventfulness of the inexplicable

One of the psychiatrists at the clinic advised me to talk with Mrs. Azizi. Mrs. Azizi holds a bachelor degree in social work from the University of Applied Sciences and has worked at a secure psychiatric facility. She is not someone I expected to experience jinn possession, which is probably why her story made such a considerable impact on me. Mrs. Azizi’s story began after a dinner party she had been invited to. She suddenly experienced inexplicable bodily

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23 complaints and abnormal behavior. As aforementioned, what followed were numerous visits to doctors and hospitals. Eventually she and her husband contacted a fqih for a ruqya shariya ritual to be organized.

It was on a Friday, I will never forget that day. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, I dropped stuff, I felt cramped and exhausted. When the fqih arrived, my mother and I went to the kitchen to show him our respect. He asked my husband for a glass and bucket of water over which he recited verses from the Quran. The fqih filled a glass with ruqya water and instructed my husband to bring it to me. While I was drinking the water, my mother and I joked that probably nothing was going to happen. We were sitting at the kitchen table when suddenly I got a terrible stomach ache, indescribable pain. Normally, like now, my stomach is soft, but at that moment my stomach was rock hard. I heard the fqih telling my husband to ask me how I felt. I told my husband that my stomach was hurting, but that I didn't know what it meant. The fqih summoned my husband to bring me to him. I went to the living room where my father, brother, husband and the fqih were sitting on the couches. He started reciting and at a certain point my legs began to shake uncontrollably. I thought what is happening to me?! My farther put his arms around me and said: "She is so afraid. She doesn't know what is wrong with her, look how she's shaking." The fqih told my father, "This is not your daughter, your daughter is gone." Janneke, what then happened, I felt a ball crawling up my trachea towards my mouth. At that moment something snapped inside of me, I had never experienced such anxiety before. I could hear everything, but I couldn't respond. I couldn't control my tongue, I couldn't say: Stop it, I don't want this anymore! My whole body was shaking, my legs, arms and hands. My mouth went crooked and the thing inside of me started screaming. It was a man, it was really a man, it was a man's voice.

After the jinn declared his presence, Mrs. Azizi was no longer present and she cannot remember anything that happened subsequently. When she regained consciousness she noticed her father and brother crying, which rarely occurs. Her parents and brother informed her about what had happened, how she had been shaking and was thrown into the air. The jinn had denied causing Mrs. Azizi's suffering and had expressed his love for her. He revealed that he had been in her body for more than ten years and had proclaimed that Mrs. Azizi's