Dark circles and bloodshot eyes tell the tale of a 12-and-a half-hour marathon flight from Boston to Muscat across eight time zones.Īmid the cacophonous flight notifications, I shake her hand and make an announcement of my own. A gawing pit of anxiety starts to sours my stomach.Ī glimmer of recognition - she’s spotted my sign. In the Gulf Cooperation Council states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, people are not deported but rather imprisoned or even beheaded for dabbling in witchcraft or sorcery. For me, an English teacher who could be deported at any time for any reason with no legal recourse, this is a huge risk. ***A month or so later, just on the other side of customs at the Muscat International Airport in Oman, I wait for my possessed guest with a cardboard sign displaying her name.įor her, this is a trip to find salvation. Despite my initial reluctance, my curiosity won out, and I agreed to make the necessary arrangements. She had done ruqya, an exorcism, already in the UAE, but the jinn possession continued, so she wanted me to fix a meeting between her and Moalim Salim as soon as possible. Shortly after the story was published, I received a message from a young woman who said, “I am an American - live in Boston - and have a jinn problem (and I am not crazy).” He claimed to have helped more than 5,000 people dispel jinn that had possessed them. Living just down the road from it in Nizwa, in 2011, I penned an article for Matador Network about a famous Islamic exorcist who lived there, Moalim Salim. In 2014, Bahla even made it into National Geographic’s list of the top 10 most haunted cities in the world. When these beliefs collided with Islam, the legend of Bahla was born.īahla, Oman, is the Middle Eastern version of Salem, Massachusetts.
East African slaves brought their voodoo practices with them, which mixed with the pre-Islamic, polythestic belief in spirits called jinn, or genies as they are known in the West. Historically, Oman was a slave destination country.
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