Medical Anthropology Forum Discussing Islamic Healing and Jinn in Morocco: Beyond Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

In Morocco, there is a great variety of ways to explain afflictions and illnesses that are attributed to the jinn, as well as multiple therapeutic itineraries to cure or treat them: from prophetic medicine, the cult of saints, the role of seers or Sufi confraternities. In theory these therapeutic itineraries are labeled as orthodox and licit, as opposed to heterodox and illicit, but in this presentation Prof. Dieste will show the difficulty of handling these categories and the paradoxes that exist in the praxis of these rituals, based on his fieldwork in Morocco, mainly in Tetouan. To do so, he will focus on the contrast and interaction between three case studies: the ruqya (Koranic recitation), the Gnawa confraternity and a shrine dedicated to the jinn.