Life wasn't going well for S.A., 27. She had a high-school diploma, had taken some computer classes, and she wanted to put her education to work. Her parents, though, didn't want her working for a company. She applied for teaching jobs instead, but school officials told her she needed a bachelor's degree in education. Instead of working, she sat at home and worried for three years. And with the worry came terrible headaches—constant, blinding headaches. Sometimes she even fainted. S.A. tried to find help. The story of her search for relief from her headaches highlights a debate that goes on today at every level of Yemeni society: What is the source of healing? Does Western-style scientific
medicine cure disease, or is the cure to be found in the words of the Holy Qur'an? When S.A. began her search, she thought she knew the answer to those questions. Western-style medicine, she believed, held the key to health. So she saw several doctors, but none of them knew what to do. They gave her various pills, mostly tranquilizers, but they didn't make the headaches go away. They just calmed her a little and made her sleepy. "The doctors failed to find a medicine for my disease," she
says. "They couldn't even diagnose my condition correctly. Every doctor gave me another diagnosis and different medicine." Frustrated with the doctors, S.A. turned to another kind of healer. For a year now, she has paid frequent visits to Mohammed al-Lahabi, a
sheikh who treats
patients by reciting the Holy Qur'an. "The sheikh just puts the palm of his hand on the sick organ and recites a number of specific verses from the Holy Qur'an," S.A. says. "Then, he gives me water that he has recited some verses over, and asks me to drink. That simple treatment makes me feel better." When the treatments first started, the sheikh recited so many verses, S.A. thought her head would explode. But before long, her pain eased. The treatments have helped so much, she says, that she now needs to visit the sheikh only occasionally, when she's tired or feels a headache coming on. And each visit makes her feel better. Like many traditional Muslim healers, Abdullah Taj-Adeen believes that some physical, mental, and psychological ailments are caused by evil
jinn that enter the body and cause suffering. "Some patients have symptoms that puzzle the doctors, because tests and x- rays do not show any disease," says Taj-Adeen. "For us, such things are evidence that jinn are present inside the patients' bodies. They enter as a result of witchcraft, or because the patient has fallen away from religion." Such ideas horrify physicians trained in Western medicine. For them, sickness has a purely physical basis, with no intrusions from the spirit world."There is no such thing as possession by a jinni," says
dr. Abdul-Majeed al-Kholaidi, a Sana'a psychiatrist. Al-Kholaidi doesn't trust the motives of the sheikh—or his patient. "I think that this girl is the sheikh's partner in misleading the poor
people," he says. "She may be telling this story to convince people to go to the sheikh for treatment. This person has used the Holy Qur'an to deceive people and take their money."The accusations don't bother Taj-Adeen. He doesn't think that jinn cause every disease, he says. "Some patients come to be treated by Qur'an because they think that their bodies are possessed," he says. "But, in fact, they are affected by psychological diseases." In such cases, the sheikh says, he has no problem referring his patient to a medical specialist. Some medical specialists return the favor, says Taj-Adeen. He tells of a certain Dr. A.A., a pediatrician at Kuwait University Hospital who is also an imam. "Sometimes, Dr. A.A. meets patients who he thinks will benefit from reciting the Holy Qur'an," says the sheikh. "Those patients he sends to me." Dr. A.A. doesn't send the patients suffering from cancer or liver damage, Taj-Adeen says. He knows that verses from the Qur'an won't heal them. But Drents with psychological complaints. Like other physicians, he doesn't necessarily believe in jinn, but he does believe the Qur'an confers a psychological benefit that promotes healing. That's the view of Dr. Hussam Hamed, an internist at Al-Khalil Hospital. "I think there is a strong connection between psychological medicine and treating people with the Holy Qur'an," he says. "It helps them recover faster." No matter what the doctors think, though, many people believe that jinn exist and have an influence on human health. "I think that some people are possessed by jinn, and suffer from some difficult diseases," said Hana'a al-Kibsi, a computer programmer. Dr. al-Kholaidi, the psychiatrist, can only shake his head in exasperation. This talk of jinn, he says, isn't just bad science. It's bad theology. "Jinn are separate creatures with different characteristics from human beings," says. "So, they cannot enter the human body. Besides, jinni weren't created to enter people's bodies. They were created to adore Allah." But it will take more than the opinion of one psychiatrist to change the minds of people like al-Kibsi, or S.A.
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