Infusions and Fumigations
Literacy Ideologies and Therapeutic Aspects of the Qur'an
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/post.32508Keywords:
Qur’an, medicine, materiality, text, ideologyAbstract
Written texts, especially sacred texts, can be handled in different ways. They can be read for semantic content; or they can be materially experienced, touched, or even be inhaled or drunk. I argue that literacy ideologies regulate social acceptability of specific semantic and somatic text practices. Drinking or fumigating the Qur'an as a medical procedure is a highly contested literacy event in which two different ideologies are drawn upon simultaneously. I employ the linguistic model of codeswitching to highlight central aspects of this event: a more somatic ideology of literacy enables the link to medicine, while a more semantic ideology connects the practice to theological discourses on the sacredness of the Qur'an as well as to the tradition of Prophetic medicine. Opposition to and ridicule of the practice, however, comes from representatives of an ideology of semantic purity, including some Islamic theologians and most Western scholars of Islam. Qur'anic potions thus constitute an ideal point of entry for analyzing different types of literacy ideologies being followed in religious traditions.
References
Abdalla, Ismail H. 1997. Islam, Medicine, and Practitioners in Northern Nigeria. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen.
Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid. 2002. “Everyday Life, Qur'an In.” In Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an, vol. 2., edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, 80–98. Leiden: Brill.
Bruchhausen, Walter. 2006. Medizin zwischen den Welten. Geschichte und Gegenwart des medizinischen Pluralismus im südöstlichen Tansania. Göttingen: Bonn University Press/V&R unipress.
Bumbacher, Stephan Peter. 2012. Empowered Writing. Exorcistic and Apotropaic Rituals in Medieval China. St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press.
Dilley, Roy. 2004. Islamic and Caste Knowledge Practices Among Haalpulaaren in Senegal. Between Mosque and Termite Mound. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, London.
Doumato, Eleanor Abdella. 2000. Getting God’s Ear. Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press.
Elgood, Cyril. 1962. “Tibb-ul-Nabbi or Medicine of the Prophet.” Osiris 14: 33–192. https://doi.org/10.1086/368625
Eneborg, Yusuf Muslim. 2014. “The quest for ‘disenchantment’ and the modernization of magic.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 25: 419–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2014.890847
el-Tom, Abdullahi Osman. 1985. “Drinking the Koran: The meaning of Koranic verses in Berti Erasure.” Africa 55: 414–431. https://doi.org/10.2307/1160175
Flood, Barry Finbarr. 2014. “Bodies and becoming: Mimesis, mediation, and ingestion of the sacred in Christianity and Islam.” In Sensational Religion. Sensory Cultures in Material Practice, edited by Sally M. Promey, 459–493. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter. 2006. In Amma’s Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Heath, Shirley Brice. 1982. “Protean shapes in literacy events: Ever-shifting oral and literate traditions.” In Spoken and Written Language. Exploring Orality and Literacy, edited by Deborah Tannen, 91–117. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Heissig, Werner. 1989. “Heilung durch Zettelschlucken.” In Die Mongolen. Begleitband zur Ausstellung im Haus der Kunst München, 22. März bis 28. Mai 1989, edited by Werner Heissig and Claudius C. Müller, 232. Innsbruck: Pinguin.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. 1998. Medicine of the Prophet. Cambridge: The Islamic Text Society. Translation by Penelope Johnstone.
Imbach, Josef. 2008. Marienverehrung zwischen Glaube und Aberglaube. Düsseldorf: Patmos.
Kaptchuk, T. J. 2011. “Placebo studies and ritual theory: A comparative analysis of Navajo, acupuncture and biomedical healing.” In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences 366: 1849–1858. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0385
Keane, Webb. 2003. “Semiotics and the social analysis of material things.” In Language and Communication 23: 409–425. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00010-7
———. 2007. Christian Moderns. Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kirmayer, Laurence J. 2016. “Unpacking the placebo response: Insights from ethnographic studies of healing.” In Placebo Talks. Modern Perspectives on Placebos in Society, edited by Amir Raz and Cory S. Harris, 119–143. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kriss, Rudolf and Kriss-Heinrich, Hubert. 1962. Volksglaube im Bereich des Islam. Vol. 2 – Amulette, Zauberformeln und Beschwörungen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Kruk, Remke. 2005. “Harry Potter in the Gulf: Contemporary Islam and the occult.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32: 47–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530190500081626
Lory, Pierre. 2012. “Verbe coranique et magie en terre d‘Islam.“ span 12: 173–186.
McAuliffe, Jane Dammen. 2003. “The persistent power of the Qur'an.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 147: 339–346.
Meyer, Birgit. 2009. “From imagined communities to aesthetic formations: Religious mediations, sensational forms, and styles of binding.” In Aesthetic Formations. Media, Religion, and the Senses, edited by Birgit Meyer, 1–28. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623248_1
Mirbt, Carl. 1911. Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus. 3rd edition. Tübingen: Mohr.
Nieber, Hanna. 2015. “The body reading the dissolved Qur'an.” Paper presented at the International Association for the History of Religion (IAHR) meeting, Erfurt, Germany.
O’Connor, Kathleen Malone. 2004. “Popular and talismanic uses of the Qur'an.” In Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an. Vol. 4, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, 163–182. Leiden: Brill.
Perho, Irmeli. 1995. The Prophet’s Medicine: A Creation of the Muslim Traditionalist Scholars. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.
Peters, Francis E. 1990. “Hermes and Harran: The roots of Islamic-Arabic occultism.” In Intellectual Studies on Islam: Essays Written in Honor of Martin B. Dickson, edited by Vera B. Moreen und Michel M. Mazzaoui, 185–215. Salt Lake City: University of Utah.
Raz, Amir and Cory S. Harris, ed. 2016. Placebo Talks: Modern Perspectives on Placebos in Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Robson, James. 1934. “Magic cures in popular Islam.” The Moslem World 24: 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1934.tb00278.x
Savage-Smith, Emilie. 2003. “Safavid magic bowls.” In Hunt for Paradise: Court Arts of Safavid Iran, 1501–1576, edited by Jon Thompson und Sheila R. Canby, 241–248. London: Thames & Hudson.
Schneegass, Christian. 1983. “Schluckbildchen. Ein Beispiel der ‘Populärgraphik zur aktiven Aneignung’.” Volkskunst. Zeitschrift für volkstümliche Sachkultur 6: 27–32.
Shakespeare, William. 1595. “Love’s Labour Lost.” In Complete Works of Shakespeare, World Library 1990–1993, Project Gutenberg e-text 1109, available at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1109/pg1109-images.html.
Styers, Randall. 2004. Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0195151070.001.0001
Suit, Natalia. 2013. “Mushaf and the material boundaries of the Qur'an.” In Iconic Books and Texts, edited by James W. Watts, 189–206. Sheffield: Equinox.
Ware, Rudolph T. III. 2014. The Walking Qur'an. Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Watts, James W. 2013. “The Three Dimensions of Scripture.” In Iconic Books and Texts, edited by James W. Watts, 9–32. Sheffield: Equinox.
Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems. London: Mouton.
Wilkens, Katharina. 2013. “Drinking the Quran, Swallowing the Madonna: Embodied aesthetics of popular healing practices.” In Alternative Voices: A Plurality Approach for Religious Studies. Essays in Honor of Ulrich Berner, edited by Afe Adogame, Magnus Echtler and Oliver Freiberger, 243–259. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht (CSRRW 4).
———. Forthcoming. “Text als Medizin. Ablöschen und Trinken koranischer Verse als therapeutische Praxis.” In Texte vernichten, edited by Joachim Friedrich Quack. Berlin: De Gruyter (Materiale Textkulturen, open access).
Woolard, Kathryn A. 2004. “Codeswitching.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, edited by Alessandro Duranti, 73–94. Malden: Blackwell.
Zadeh, Travis. 2009. “Touching and ingesting: Early debates over the material Qur'an.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129: 443–466.
