Gulf News Report
Dubai: A Saudi religious guide has lashed out at charlatans who abused people under the guise of spiritual healing.
“Almost 90 per cent of these impostors have taken advantage of the genuine Islamic ruqya (healing), turning it into a lucrative business to make money by deceiving people and selling illusions to them,” Abdul Aziz Al Zeer said.
“These swindlers are using religion to exploit and cheat people and in some case blackmail them financially and even sexually,” he said in an interview on a television channel.
Al Zeer, a well-known social researcher who often appears in television talk shows, said that some of the abusers he personally knew were without jobs and decided to grow their beards and claim they could provide ruqya, the recitation of verses from the Holy Quran to help repair damage believed to have been caused by black magic, witchcraft or evil eye.
“In a case of sexual blackmail, a man told a ‘patient’ that the only way to evict the jinni out of her body was to have sexual intercourse with him,” Al Zeer said, quoted by Saudi news site Al Marsad on Tuesday.
“In fact, some of these abusers do not know anything about ruqya and were locked up in prison for various offences. They are now just abusing people who believe they can provide them with a cure.”
