People in the Gulf have a reputation for being particularly superstitious people with strong beliefs in the evil eye, the easiness of being possessed by a jinn, and susceptibility to being affected by white and black magic. Through his research, Dr Fahad bin Abdulaziz Al Sunaidi, a Professor at the Department of Islamic Studies at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, discovered that Arabs spend up to 5 billion dollars a year on magic and witchcraft and that for every 1,000 people in the Arab world you will find one practicing magic.
The Evil Eye
Many Arabs have a general belief in the evil eye - believing that you can jinx someone just by having a negative thought, or by making a negative body gesture or statement. Some people in Qatar blame illness, broken marriages and engagements, miscarriages and the inability of a woman to conceive a child as all consequences of someone putting the evil eye on them. For example, the refusal of a woman to attend another woman's wedding and her sitting in her house with the doors and windows closed and her arms folded is a sure way to put the evil eye on the bride's marriage.
White Magic
If you have been cursed through black magic or the evil eye there is a way out � white magic. While black magic is prohibited not just by religion in Qatar, but also law, white magic is perfectly acceptable. What do I mean by white magic? White magic is a combination of magic and religious rituals which people seek out as a cure to what they believe is a curse or spell through black magic and the evil eye. There are many religious sheikhs, and even a well known community of older Qatari women who people go to with the belief that they can cure them.
White magic usually entails the reading of Qur'an over water and then having the supposed victim to wash in that water or drink it, as well as other rituals such as breaking eggs over things while saying Islamic prayers or sprinkling salt and other food substances over one's self. Some people genuinely believe that white magic works and if it doesn't work, they come to the conclusion that the spell or evil eye is just too strong and that they need to seek out another form of white magic.
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