Aisha Qandisha

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Aisha Qandisha , also Aïcha Kandicha, Aischa Kandischa and Aischa Qandischa ( Arabic عيشة قنديشة, DMG ʿAiša Qandīša ), also Lalla ʿAïsha or Lālla ʿAischa (لالة عيشة, DMG Lālla ʿAiša ), is the most influential spiritual being in the Islamic popular belief of the Arabic-speaking population in northern Morocco who takes possession of people . It is mostly men who feel attacked by the dreaded female demon . Aisha Qandisha is mostly counted among the jinn , especially the Afarit . Her character traits suggest a connection with the ancient Semitic fertility goddess Astarte . In a healing ritual organized by the Islamic Sufi sect of the Hamadscha, the sick person is to be transformed into a spirit that is helpful for people.

Appearance and character

The spirits called Jinn in Arabic in the plural Jinn are called Jnun in the Moroccan dialect ( DMG ǧnūn , singular male Jenn, Jinn, female Jenniya, Jinnīa ). Afarit ( ʿafārīt, singular Ifrit, ʿifrīt ) are gigantic jinn or jinn-like creatures. Aisha Qandisha can belong to both and at the same time differ from them through certain characteristics. Djinn can be divided into different groups according to their region, their tribal affiliation or their religion. All of them lack a clear personality, their description is mostly vague. Only a few jinn appear as individuals with their own name, with which they are called in the cult. They were classified in the specialist literature as individual spirits ("individual spirits") or named-jnun ("named ǧnūn"). The appearance and behavior of the Aisha Qandisha are described differently in numerous traditional fables , but always in detail.

Aisha Qandisha appears as a young woman with a beautiful face, but with the feet of a goat or a donkey. On the other hand, as an old witch, she can have women's feet and the body of a goat with long breasts. She is honored as Lalla Aïsha . Lalla is the salutation for a female saint , the male equivalent is Sidi . Her most feared trait, which makes her different from all other Djinn, is her lustful greed, with which she drives young men crazy. If a man has got involved with her without first having recognized her true nature, she will become firmly established in him; However, it does not necessarily have to take possession of him, but can limit itself to providing easy access to the victim for other demons. In any case, the person concerned ( maǧnūn , general generic term for anyone who has to deal with a jinn) becomes their slave and has to follow their instructions, including wearing used clothing in red and black, the favorite colors of the mind. Occasionally it splits into slightly different personalities who, for example, prefer different times of the day to go for a walk. One aisha can be soothed by incense containing steppe rue (Peganum harmala) , another likes the oil (Arabic: qatran ) obtained from juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus ). Aisha Qandisha can be driven away by calling for a dagger, because like all jinn she is afraid of iron and needles.

Aisha Qandisha ambushes bathers at springs and rivers and kills them. The Beni Ahsen locate her together with her husband Ḥammu Qiyu (Qayyu) in the Sebou . Her followers, who want to bathe in this river, throw some burning straw and couscous into the water as victims .

origin

The cult of Aisha Qandisha is only widespread in the Arab north of Morocco, in the Rif Mountains , traditionally inhabited by Berbers , it is practiced just as little as in other Islamic countries. The name Qandisha has a Middle Eastern origin. In Hebrew qaddīš means "holy". With the resolution of the doubling of consonants , which occurs in Berber , qaddīša becomes qandīša . The Qedescha , which sounds like the same, was a Canaanite temple whore who was associated with fertility and was adopted by the ancient Egyptians as Qadesh in a similar capacity . There is a connection between Qedescha and Astarte . Like Aisha, Astarte has its home in water, which is considered to be the cause of fertility. It is believed that many of the nymphs worshiped at springs by the Phoenicians along the African Mediterranean coast were local forms of the ancient goddess Astarte. The Phoenicians are likely to have brought the religious cult of the Astarte including temple prostitution in the service of the goddess to their colonies in the west. There are reports from Phoenician Carthage about women involved in connection with the worship of Astarte. Starting from Carthage, the cult probably came to the Moroccan coast, for example to the Carthaginian settlement Thymiaterion, which is identified with today's Mehdiya, the beach of Kenitra at the mouth of the Sebou. According to the popular belief of some Moorish tribes, the old venerated goddess of love sank to the most despised mythological figure. It is particularly feared by the Beni Ahsen who live on the territory of the former Carthaginian colonies. Ḥammu Qiyu could possibly be descended from the Carthaginian god Haman .

The individual spirits / demons are not creatures of ancient Arabic mythology like the Djinn family, but have a black African origin. Corresponding cults of obsession can be found in Nigeria as Hauka spirits among the Songhai and as Bori and Dodo spirits among the Hausa . An unusual, mostly female, obsession that only affects men is Nya in Mali. The cult of tsar is important in the popular Islam of Sudan and Egypt . Most of the African obsessional spirits are female, some are male. There are also married spirits who can have children. Such spirits in the cultural memory of black slaves from the Sudan region are likely to have been brought to Morocco . Known as musicians and dancers, the Gnawa have black African roots. Most of Morocco's individual spirits are associated with them. Therefore, the Gnawa also invoke Lalla Aïsha along with dozens of other spirits in their Derdeba possession ceremony . Aisha Qandisha is reluctant to be addressed by her full name for fear of a harmful reaction, her surnames ʿAïsha Sudaniyya and ʿAïsha Gnawiyya refer to the origin of the cult. Less known and less common than the male-obsessed Aisha Qandisha are jinn, who are introduced as her husband, and which infest women attending the Hamajah cult sessions.

Adoration

Aisha Qandisha's husband is the Djinn Ḥammu Qiyu . It is described as very large, otherwise its external properties are poorly developed. Like her, he likes blood, so he likes to be around slaughterhouses. Both are home to rivers, springs or lakes. Belonging to water, rivers, also earth and mud is a trait of chthonic deities .

There are some holy places in northern Morocco where Aisha Qandisha is worshiped. Their cult is related to the two founders of the brotherhood ( Tariqa ) of the Hamajas (Ḥamadša) from the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, Sīdī ʿAlī ibn Ḥamdūš (Sidi Ali) and Sīdī Aḥmad Dġūġī (Sidi Ahmad). Sidi Ali's spiritual family tree ( Silsila ) is traced back to Al-Jazuli (1390s-1465, one of the Seven Saints of Marrakech ) via Bouabid Sharqi (Būʿabīd Šarqī, lived around 1600, buried in Boujad ) .

Above Moulay Idris towards El Merhasiyne lie on the dense with oaks wooded heights of the Zerhoun massif the most visited places of worship of the two saints, each with a Qubba (dome-shaped tomb ) and a mosque . The more important place of worship is the tomb of Sidi Ali above the relatively wealthy village of Beni Rachid, where a holy spring rises, the water of which is led into a bathhouse. Sidi Ahmed is worshiped near the poorer village of Beni Ouarad, about 1.5 kilometers down the road from Moulay Idris.

A few hundred meters east of Beni Rachid is a grotto dedicated to Aisha Qandisha (ḥufra) . The standing at the entrance to huge fig tree are magical powers attributed. Local farmers cut branches to refine their own trees . Scraps of fabric hang from the aerial roots of the tree. They are intercession or signs addressed to Lalla Aïsha for a vow (ʿār) with which pilgrims promise a sacrifice (usually a black and red chicken) if Aisha Qandisha fulfills their wish. On the route to Beni Quarad, too, rags are knotted in a sacred olive tree . The grotto is mostly visited by women. They press their heads against the roots of the fig tree, rub themselves with some earth or light incense. Some put down an amulet they had brought with them . A miraculous spring rises in the cave. The dark and muddy water is considered the abode of Aisha Qandisha. The cave is a place opposite to the human environment, as Aisha Qandisha's residence it symbolically corresponds to her being outside of social norms.

Higher up the mountain, goats, rams and chickens are kept in stables. The sacrificial animals are all black, according to Aisha Qandisha's favorite color.

Obsession and Therapy

Similar to the Gnawa, the Hamadscha appear publicly through music and ritual dances (ḥaḍra) . The events are a mixture of drama ( furǧa , public spectacle) and religious ceremony, which include karāmat (miracle of grace) and ṣadaqa (voluntary donation). The Hamadscha can fall into a trance during their rituals and inflict injuries with knives, hot water or hot coals. The dancers' trance is essentially caused by the music, more precisely by certain melody sequences (Pl. Aryāḥ , Sg. Rīḥ ) assigned to the Aisha Qandisha or another Djinn . The accompanying musicians of the dikkāra (Sg. Dikkār , for example “to exercise the ḏikr ”) play the melody-leading oboe ġīṭa (comparable to the West African algaita ), hourglass-shaped drums gwāl (Sg. Ġūwāl ), the plucked ganbri ( and occasionally a flute ) . The main purpose of public appearances is to collect donations. In return , those who give money to the Hamadscha receive the Islamic power of blessing Baraka from their members , which is supposed to bring prosperity and happiness in business in a practical way.

This is to be distinguished from private rituals that are performed for a therapeutic purpose, whereby the success of healing depends crucially on the trance caused by music. Similarly, where a ghost is blamed for the illness of the patient, for example, said as with other African healing rituals, Tsar -Kult, the related Pepo -Kult on the East African coast or in the Christian environment the Mashawe - cult in southern Africa, is it is not about the expulsion of the spirit ( exorcism ), but rather the immobilization or reconciliation of the patient with his spirit. In addition, the entire ritual creates an identity for the community.

The aim of the healing ritual is to satisfy Aisha Qandisha. This happens through a symbolic transformation in which the evil demon becomes a helper for the patient in the end. The Hamadscha try to convert the demon into a healing force against the illnesses it has caused. In this context, paralysis in the limbs, sudden blindness or deafness, menstrual cramps, infertility, and childhood diseases have supernatural causes. Impotence is also caused by Aisha Qandisha, but is not considered to be curable through the ritual.

The therapy is based on a certain conception of illness, according to which the illnesses caused by Lalla Aisha are seen in a social context. The sick person, predominantly the man, is prevented by his complaints from exercising his traditional social role, which in the Arab-Islamic society is shaped by a certain image of men. The disease consists mainly of an inability to meet the demands of society. According to a study by Vincent Crapanzano in the early 1970s, the roots of the problem lie in the relationship between father and son. The young man grows into his social role by orienting himself towards his father as the male ideal. The son submits to the father, plays a passive, feminine role towards him and thereby obtains his blessing. The word is not meant in a religious sense, but refers to the blessing power of baraka, with which the paternal tradition is passed on.

The comparison between father and (sick, female) son corresponds to the pair of opposites of mystical Hamadscha saints (Sidi Ali and Sidi Ahmed) - demonic Aisha Qandisha. Men are images of the two saints, women have disease-causing properties. They are not only weak and subordinate according to common thought patterns, but appear as dangerous, unreliable and sexually insatiable. The sick man is on the wrong side of the pair of opposites and thus in the wrong role. In order to resolve the contrast, Aisha Qandisha should be transformed into a saint in therapy. The greater goal is to restore moral and social order. As a result, the demoness is supposed to protect people from the same diseases that she taught him before. It now gives him strength, health, happiness and fertility. The transformation relates not only to the character of Aisha Qandisha, but also to the changed relationship that the patient is supposed to gain with her.

On the way to healing, the man can be symbolically forced to castrate himself by his possessive mind in a dramatic scenic translation of the basic psychological pattern. In the ritual, the man has to become a woman, after which he is able to find his way back into his male role thanks to the Baraka of the Hamajah saints. For Crapanzano, what is happening is subject to an unconscious desire on the part of the man to change the sex, for which a socially acceptable opportunity presents itself here. In order to maintain his health, men will in future submit to their spirit and receive its support. Aisha Qandisha is the real healing power. It supports the man in his rediscovered social role; In the event, the two saints only made their baraka available so that it could come to that. Aisha Qandisha therefore plays a key role in maintaining social order.

literature

  • Vincent Crapanzano : The Hamadsha. A Study in Moroccan Ethnopsychiatry. University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1973 ( online at Google books ); German translation: The Ḥamadša. An ethno-psychiatric examination in Morocco. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1981
  • Edward Westermarck : Ritual and Belief in Morocco. Vol. 1, Macmillan and Co., London 1926

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Westermarck, p. 391
  2. ↑ Crapanzano, p. (141) 171. Numbers in brackets refer to the English original edition, without brackets to the German translation
  3. ↑ Classification of diseases caused by jinns: 1) madrūb , possessed by jinn, patient suffering from paralysis of the limbs. 2) mamlūk (female form mamlūka ), dto., Not socially acceptable , also impotent. 3) maskūn , dto., Suffers from nightmares, disoriented speech. After Mohammed Maarouf: Jinn Eviction as a Discourse of Power: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Moroccan Magical Beliefs and Practices. Brill, Leiden 2007, p. 139
  4. ↑ Crapanzano, pp. (144f) 176
  5. ↑ Werner Vycichl: The mythology of the Berber. In: Hans Wilhelm Haussig , Jonas Balys (Hrsg.): Gods and Myths in Old Europe (= Dictionary of Mythology . Department 1: The ancient civilized peoples. Volume 2). Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-12-909820-8 , p. 660 f.
  6. ^ Vycichl, p. 660
  7. ↑ Westermarck, pp. 394-396
  8. ↑ Crapanzano, pp. (141-143) 171-173
  9. ↑ See Vincent Crapanzano: Mohammed and Dawia: Possession in Morocco. In: Vincent Crapanzano, Vivian Garrison (eds.): Case Studies in Spirit Possession. (Contemporary Religious Movements: A Wiley-Interscience Series) John Wiley & Sons, New York 1977, pp. 141-176
  10. ↑ Westermarck, p. 393.
  11. ↑ Crapanzano, p. 45.
  12. ↑ Crapanzano, pp. 89-91, 210.
  13. ↑ Bernhard Leistle: Sensory Worlds . A phenomenological-anthropological study of Moroccan trance rituals. (Dissertation; PDF; 1.7 MB) Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 2007, p. 264.
  14. ↑ Ralet, pp. 2-3.
  15. ↑ Vincent Crapanzano: Fragmentary Reflections on Body, Pain and Memory. In: Klaus-Peter Köpping, Ursula Rao (Hrsg.): Im Rausch des Rituals. Design and transformation of reality in physical performance. Lit-Verlag, Münster 2008, p. 219
  16. ↑ Crapanzano, p. 138
  17. ↑ Crapanzano, pp. 224-228