You Really Shouldn't Laugh (But You Can't Help It)

The Religious Policeman has a very interesting (and darkly humorous) posting on a major problem Saudi Arabia is having right now, namely Witchcraft. He starts with

There is an upsurge in Sorcery, as this letter to the Saudi Gazette shows:. SirIt was amazing to know that some gangs of sorcerers were busted in Jeddah, while performing dirty tricks, black magic and other life-threatening evil acts. .... These people perform these tactics by writing amulets by writing Qur'anic verses on it upside down or with the blood of snakes, and writing satanic names with their own waste, and making an innocent's life miserable. The authorities must be tough with them.

The article goes on quite a ways but it includes a link to this astonishing site: Protection From Black Magic, SunniPath An Islamic Academy. This apparently official site makes several points.

1. It definitely exists.

2. It was created by a Jew pretending to be a Muslim. (Why does that not suprise me?)

3. You can protect yourself from it by quote the proper texts or, alternately, by eating 7 ajwa dates every morning.

4. He also says (with suprising wisdom considering what I read earlier in the text) that you should be very cautious about accusing people of using black magic; look for non-magical reasons for your problems first.

I definitely needed to know all that.