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Saḥir and Muslim Moral Space
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
Abstract
Metaphors of the evil eye (sahir) are interpreted as posing a threat to the Muslim Arab Rubāṭāb1 of the Sudan. A common situation in which these metaphors are used is when the speaker (saḥḥār) attempts to cast or “shoot” a sahir metaphor at persons or objects by comparing them to something else. A victim may then try to counteract the shot by uttering protective invocations. The victim's later account of the event in which the evil eye was cast upon him will include subsequent misfortunes and perhaps justifications for personal failure. For example, a sahhār likened someone eating a green onion to somebody speaking into a microphone. The man threw away the onion, cursed the sahhār, and complained thereafter that his hand had never been the same. The audience evaluates the metaphors. Good comparisons evoke much laughter. “He is really evil,” or “He killed him,” are often pronounced by the audience both in appreciation of the theoretical powers of the metaphor shooter and in anticipation of the harm that may come in the shot's wake. The audience later reports the interaction as a joke or legend.
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References
Author's note: An earlier version of this article was presented to the Conference of Sudanese Studies: Past, Present and Future held by the Institute of African and Asian Studies, University of Khartoum, Sudan, in collaboration with the Sudanese Studies Association, U.S.A., in Khartoum, January 1988. The author is grateful to Dr. Muhammad Ahmed Mahmud, Dr. Neil McHugh, and Dr. Ibrahim al-Zein, who took time to read the article and comment on it.
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