Writing cures: religious and communicative authority in late modern Morocco

This article examines an Islamic practice of jinn curing and counter-sorcery in contemporary Fez, and identifies the distinct religious power of its practitioners, fqihs (Ar. faqih pl. fuqaha'), with widely held Islamic reformist norms of authoritative communication. Whereas most studies of jinn curing rites in Morocco emphasise 'popular' (i.e. ostensibly heterodox) trance or possession rites, this study examines fqihs' 'scriptural' science of exorcism, using occult Qur'anic knowledge and talismanic writing. Based on observation and interviews with fqihs and their largely young adult clientele, I propose that the distinct religious authority of the curers derives from their cultural and historical association with 'writing' in an enhanced sense: as literal inscription, but also as communication beyond present visible and audible social life. By the power of 'writing', I argue, fqihs summon and connect young clients beyond their present social and familial relations, and thus enable their therapeutic passage to a new, healthy life. The religious authority of these curers is 'scriptural' also, I propose, in its fundamental correspondence with modern reformist communicative efforts in Fez, namely: to summon Muslims away from culturally defined social structures bound up with 'popular' spirit veneration in favour of an ostensibly universal and salutary set of social connections. The article additionally notes the emergence of a younger generation of Islamist jinn exorcists who at once condemn fqih's practices in favour of new 'Islamic curing', but share the same therapeutic-reformist aims of 'writing', that is, of summoning and social connection.