CONSULTING SAUDI ULAMAS

Praised be Allah and peace and blessings on his Prophet.

By the mercy of Allah I took the opportunity of my hajj to go to the office of the Saudi Arabia general mufti in Mina. For those who do not know this rank, it is he person in the country who takes the official and last decisions - with a committee however - concerning religious issues. It was a great adventure from mufti to mufti and from office to office until I reached the top. All those meetings were interesting and rich.

The mufti and his colleague sheikh Ahmad Almubaraki - permanent member of the Saudi Arabia fatwa committee - with whom I discussed most, did not want to give me a written and stamped answer as I asked. My object was to put an end to the debate around djinn catching, or at least to have an unbeatable argument: an official ok from the highest ulamas of Saudi Arabia, or to leave it if they say it is haram because I don't want to fight against the ulamas and our movement will go nowhere if we go against the decisions of the biggest ulamas. Besides it will be very arrogant to consult ulamas to get their approval and reject their decision if they don't approve. I cannot give you sentence by sentence what we have discussed because I stayed 3 hours in the tent of the mufti (where he receives his hundreds of guests) but I ask Allah to help me give you the content clearly.

1- The djinn catching as I explained and gave them the letter I prepared contains nothing forbidden by Islam. The reaction of the muftis - and all those I saw before - was to understand the functioning and especially how to know if the djinns say the truth and that we are not being manipulated and tricked by the djinns. So the problem is not in the fact of bringing the djinn in another body than the patient but in the reality and efficiency of this procedure. Mufti Ahmad Almubaraki told me: “As long as we use duaa, Quran, and what rassool Allah (s) taught us like hijama, oil etc., and there is nothing else, there is no prohibition”.

2- Mufti Ahmad Mubaraki asked me if I had certitude that the djinn we brought is the djinn of the patient and that he is really gone and I said yes, by experience, by using verses of Quran and by the healing of patients. The problem is that they cannot have the certitude I have, so they observe a phenomenon where djinns are brought and seem to convert and leave, and how can they tell it is true or not? According to each person’s appreciation some can see a great step forward and a revolution in ruqya and others will think djinns are manipulating us or even humans are making a show to trick people. This is why they can’t take an official position.

3- Mufti Ahmad Mubaraki told me it will not be allowed in Saudi Arabia because their rule is to be cautious and not allow anything if there is a doubt. This rule comes from the numerous wrong practices that occurred in ruqya centers in Saudi Arabia: bad practices concerning money, women and ruqya methods that led to closing down most of those centers and of course preventing any new center from opening. When I tell them I established by the mercy of Allah over 60 centers in 20 countries some are happy and amazed and others are shocked and say: “how can you do that with all the risks in it?” I say: “But the sorcerers are everywhere, are you against the ruqya as a whole?” and they don’t say anything. Forbidding ruqya and ruqya centers is the solution they found to cut short the problems coming from ruqya, and to fight the problems related to sihr they shop off sorcerer’s heads and educate people on the harms of sorcery.

Then I had a long discussion with a pupil of sheikh Ahmad who was raqi and very interested by my methods and didn’t have any difficulty to accept the djinn catching. He told me the history of raqis and their relations with authorities and ulamas in Saudi Arabia, and that now most of them treat patients individually or go to people’s houses, and they are controlled by police, “ordering good and forbidding bad” department, state security, health authorities and ulama committee. For example, those who use violence are forbidden.

I thank Allah for this step forward, may Allah accept us and use us for the good of Islam and muslims.