Medical Anthropology Forum The Birth of the (Exorcism) Clinic

This paper deals with the exorcism clinic, a new and growing institution catering to middle-class Muslims worldwide. In these clinics hijama (wet cupping) and ruqya (exorcism based upon the chanting of Quranic verses) are combined under the banner of “prophetic medicine”, effectively clothing traditional practices in modern garb. The speaker argues that the very rapid growth of these practices can partly be explained by the fact that they save modern subjects from the embarrassment of being possessed by “medicalising” their condition; and he documents how practitioners try to legitimise themselves by publishing ‘scientific’ studies in various journals.