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This book examines how different people in metropolitan Cairo experience zar as spirits, as rituals, and as a spiritual and initiatory path. Zar is a healing ritual complex practiced in societies around the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf. It also refers to jinn spirits who possess humans and afflict them with troubles and ailments. In Egypt, the way of zar is one of the healing options that address jinn. People seek out zar initiation when in crisis for a variety of motivations and reasons. Drawing on years of extensive ethnographic fieldwork in different parts of Egypt and on personal experience, this book explores some aspects of Egyptian zar spirit possession that have rarely been addressed in the literature: the zar community (tayfat al-zar), zar rites and rituals, and songs and music within zar communities. This introduction discusses zar and spirit possession from an anthropological perspective and provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

This chapter traces the history and origins of zar in order to elucidate how it migrated with Abyssinian slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to Egypt. It lays the basis for understanding zar spirit possession as practiced in Cairo from the nineteenth century until today. Following a short overview of the history and origin of zar in the Red Sea region and the reasoning behind thinking about zar in Egypt as a transnational phenomenon, the chapter discusses zar practices in Cairo based on the author's fieldwork. It also considers the relationship between zar and Islam, the zar ritual placation process, spirit afflictions and their symptoms, and the role of gender and class in zar participation. Finally, it looks at zar professionals (leaders and musicians), zar music and dance, and zar paraphernalia.

This chapter explores the association between zar possession crises and those that relate to the anxieties around periods of transitions in the life cycle of a person. Symptoms of zar affliction tend to occur during special moments of anxiety surrounding life-cycle transitions. The first episode of possession, or zar ritual crisis, typically occurs prior to marriage, when a woman is still a teenager. The chapter first considers crises related to adolescence, fertility, marriage, pregnancy, birthing, and menopause by using a variety of narratives to present people's varied perceptions and practice for zar. It then links Arjun Appadurai's concept of “locality” to the ways zar orients the devotee's body in time in time and space. It also examines how times of transition—ritual cycle crises—become socialized through zar initiations.

This chapter presents a sampler of zar sacrificial rites and rituals using a realist narration style, of the kind that is employed in fiction, based on transcriptions of actual recordings of real life. The opening sura of the Qur'an, the Fatiha, is the fundamental Muslim prayer. In zar rituals, the Fatiha is used as the central part of a special ritual formula performed at the beginning of any zar performance, called the Openings (al-fawatih). This chapter first describes the ritual use of incense in the Openings rite and its context before discussing the rite for sacrificial blood. It also considers the sacrificial procession dedicated to the Grand Lady, one of the most important zar spirits and leader of a spirit pantheon. Finally, it examines the mayanga (a Hausa word which means “cemetery”), a place where a zar devotee may harbor her possessing spirits and thus acquire direct access to them.

This chapter examines saint and spirit songs as “acts of transfer” as well as the most popular zar spirits in Cairo and the different ways through which they are placated in ritual. It first provides an overview of zar songs as “acts of transfer” before discussing the meaning enacted by a song dedicated to Hassan Abul Gheit, the patron saint of the Gheitaniya zar musicians. It then considers the historical context of the Abul Gheit song, along with the cultural memories of a marginal Sufi movement that originated in the nineteenth century. It also explores changes in the articulation of spirit possession by focusing on the spirit pair of Yawra Bey and Rakousha Hanem. Finally, it looks at zar music bands and their styles of singing, along with the history of the song “Banat al-Handasa”.

Women's religions are, from a cross-cultural perspective, anomalous. Most of the religions of the world are dominated by men. This chapter presents twelve examples of religions dominated by women. First, it points out ways in which these religions differ from one another. Some of the examples are self-consciously independent religions that exist in a society where the dominant religion is male dominated (Feminist Spirituality, Afro-Brazilian religions). Others are religious streams that co-exist alongside of, and sometimes intertwined with, male-dominated religions (zār, Spiritualism, Korean shamanism, Burmese nat cultus). Still others are the major religion of an entire society (the Ryūkyū Islands, the Black Caribs of Belize). And finally, others are sects of otherwise male-dominated religions (Christian Science, Shakerism).

This chapter describes the form and content of the Nubian zār ceremony and attempts to account for this therapeutic effectiveness. The Nubian zār ceremony is essentially a means of dealing with the demonic powers of evil, variously called gour (Mahas Nubian), shayṭan 'afrīt, iblīs, jinn (Arabic) or zār spirits, who may cause illness. The whole direction of the ceremony is towards propitiation and persuasion of spirit beings rather than coercion of them. Zār ceremonies vary considerably in detail according to the idiosyncrasies of the practitioner or “sheikh of the zār” and to the type of illness being treated. This chapter tries to single out those factors of the Nubian zār that could account at least partially for its curative effects on mental illness. Here, the essential emphases are on emotional rather than intellectual techniques.

Turkish policies involved rapid expansion of commerce, slavery and slave trade, migration, urbanization, and social dislocation. This chapter elucidates on one aspect of this extraordinary transformation, namely the development of urbanism as a way of life and leisure. Examining the life of marginal groups in nineteenth-century Khartoum offers a new perspective on Sudanese history in which Anglo-Egyptian colonial rule (1898–1956) tends to be seen as the main catalyst for social change. The few studies that dealt with the legacy of slavery in northeastern and North Africa have focused mainly on the role of ex-slaves in the dissemination of the zar cult (spirit possession) and other religious practices. Fair's work illustrates the numerous ways in which former slaves realized emancipation at both the ideological and practical levels as well as dramatic transformations in personal identities.

This chapter examines the socialization and localization of space and time in the zar ritual complex through elaborate and deliberate practices of performance, representation, and actions. In particular, it shows how zar connectivity builds community within the old quarters of Cairo. The chapter begins with a brief introduction about the relevance of anthropologist Arjun Appadurai's work on the production of locality to zar practices. It then considers historiographical studies of women in Cairo and zar as a remnant of a guild corporation (tayfah). It also explores zar divination practices as passiones by presenting the stories of three diviners as case studies of professional zar activities.

In 1836 an organized migration of 14,000 farmers (or Boers), known as the “Great Trek,” was under way north across the Orange River. As many as 14,000 Emigrant Farmers or Voortrekkers left Cape Town in a series of parties that founded several republics that violently collided with their African neighbors and amongst themselves. The emigrant boers North of the Vaal River developed their republic and adopted the name Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). This chapter discusses the Boer relations with the Africans on the periphery of the ZAR. It also highlights the Bapedi people, who went to war in 1876 with the Boers of the ZAR.