Palestinian Folk Magick🕊️
One of the most effective tools of genocide is cultural erasure. Since the Nakba, Palestinians have been robbed of the safety and community needed to continue many of these ancient practices. As magical practitioners, we are in a unique position to keep this information alive. We understand the sanctity of folk heritage and the cultural importance of it. So, let's take a moment to learn a bit about Palestinian folk traditions!
Before we begin, please note that we should treat Palestinian folk tradition as a closed practice. Out of respect for the ongoing genocide and occupation, it is completely inappropriate for non-Palestinians to expropriate these practices. Also, I will be using Palestinian, Arabic, and Arabic + western collaboration sources only.
Amulets [hujub] and talismans have taken many forms, many of which were written Qur'an verses on paper and tucked into fabric pouches, silver cases, and leather. Often they would contain spices like peppercorns and cloves to serve as protection from harmful forces.
Then we have jewelry like the gorgeous pieces you see above. Necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc. would contain protective stones and evil eye [hasad] glass beads. It's impossible to say for certain the attitudes of the people wearing them, as these were collected by a Palestinian doctor in the early 19th century, but beliefs about the evil eye still persist today.
Cloves seem to be especially significant, as they show up repeatedly. One example of a necklace made from cloves, beads, coral, and amber is an example of the kinds of magical jewelry that was used by women for protection from the evil eye and evil spirits.
Like many traditions, the Palestinians did not view these beliefs as pagan or witchcraft-adjacent. As the silver piece engraved with verses above suggests, these amulets were an extension of Islam in most cases. Around 98% of Palestinians are thought to be Sunni Muslims, with the remaining 2% being mostly Christian and other various faiths.
Beads were also handmade, and various designs could be called rooster eyes or camel eyes. Camels represented persistence, wealth, and resilience, which made them a popular symbol. Paper amulets, which I assume might have been most accessible to average folk, were commonly hung in houses and imbued with the words of the Qur'an.
When Palestinians made their pilgrimages to Mecca, a near-universal practice in the region, they would receive a certificate of completion [hajj]. These made popular amulets as well.
Offerings collected from Aleppo and Syria (though there is reason to believe this was a common practice in Palestine as well) often depicted the human form, like hands, feet, hearts, etc. This symbolism shows up in Palestinian amulet jewelry as well. Body parts symbolized a plea for good health and longevity, and offerings would then be hung inside Mosques.
My grasp of math concepts is very limited, so I apologize in advance for mistakes I'll surely make in communicating this area. I also want to note this practice is certainly called something other than numerology, but I was unable to find the proper word. Please contact me if you know it or find it!
On some amulets, numbers are used to represent various religious concepts and phrases. Each letter in the Arabic alphabet has a corresponding number. "This is the order used in numeration and sequencing, and is related to Arab mathematical science. It differs slightly from the normal Arabic alphabetical order and has only 22 letters, ending with ت [t]. For talismans however, six additional letters have been added to this traditional ordering, thus ending with غ [gh]." (Magic and Talismans, al-Ju'beh).
The numbers inscribed on many amulets will translate to God's name, Allah, or variations of his name, such as "God, the Kind" [Allah Latif] or "Guardian" [Hafidh].
Due to Israel's occupation, medical care has been difficult if not impossible for Palestinians to access. Because of this, Palestinians have turned to traditional folk healing to supplement the healthcare they ought to have. Sometimes, in the west, we romanticize folk medicine and holistic healing. While remedies of the past are extremely important and many are effective, we have the privilege of getting to choose holistic care over traditional medicine. Folk healing has always been what humans do out of necissity, not out of a desire to reconnect with nature.
Palestinian remedies have been passed down orally, each family having their own iterations of common ones. The treatments also vary by village, and is dependent on which herbs and plants grow natively in that region. Olive oil, however, is an ingredient shared by the whole of Palestine and is used in numerous ways.
When Yasmin Tams, a Palestinian woman (pictured above) was growing up, her mother would use cotton sheets soaked in lukewarm olive oil. This was applied to her chest as a compress for a cough. In the morning, the excess oil would be rubbed into the skin. The underlying reasoning was olive oil would soak into the skin and reach the lungs, where it would soften them and make the cough less dry and painful. Also according to Tams, the phrase "May evil be far from you" was often recited to the sick.
Herbal teas and steam inhalation is a staple in Palestine. Anise tea and fennel tea are some examples of what you might drink while recovering from a cold.
Amulets were unsurprisingly used for healing purposes, with some notable examples being animal bones and tortoise shells with talismanic inscriptions, used for the treatment of epilepsy. "Fear cups" were ornate and inscripted mugs filled with water and left under moonlight before being drunk by the sick person, a practice almost identical to modern moonwater practices.
Dr. Canaan was hugely important in the documentation of Palestinian culture. His primary interest, however, was medicine. As a doctor in the early 1900s, he noticed the folk medicine practices of his patients and sought to learn more. He recognized the healing power of belief, ritual, and community care. Inspired by this, he interviewed countless Palestinians and gathered amulets and other artifacts.
His approach to medicine was extremely progressive for the time. Medicine was viewed as a purely physical and biological matter, and the concept of the mind having an impact on the body was over half a century from discussed seriously. He also actively spoke out against Zionism, which led him and his family to being arrested.
Dr. Canaan advocated for the inclusion of traditional Palestinian folk practice to be included in institutional medicine, which is still a very contentious opinion in the medical world today. Despite it's obvious benefits and ability to promote healing, folk practices are consistently looked down upon by medical professionals.
Again, we see the importance of amulets in healing: "Canaan’s own
interest in folklore and popular beliefs was awakened when treating patients who wore charms and amulets and engaged in other traditional healing practices. 32 Such charms derived their supposed healing power from contact with shrines or other sacred sites
in a form of magic known as 'contact magic.' Canaan also observed how people would 'transfer' their illness to cloths which would then be placed on shrines which could absorb these maladies, in a process referred to as 'sympathetic magic.' (Magic, Medicine, and Materiality, Marshall & Qobbaj).
Sacred Space (& it's role in folk medicine)
Palestinian folk tradition challenged religious studies in many ways. In the 20th century, sacred spaces were thought to become sacred because something divine occurred there. Some thought places became sacred through rituals, tradition, and shared belief. In other words, sacred spaces were segregated into the "sacred" box rather than the "profane" box. This idea was heavily influenced by Christianity.
Palestine turns this assumption upside down. Sacred space for Palestinians shows us that sacredness isn't fixed or static. It's dynamic and fluid, born out of a complicated dialogue between people, landscapes, rituals, spirits, and yes, magic! The idea that non-human objects and entities are active participants in the world is called new materialism.
Palestine has been home to countless shrines, tombs, and monuments, such as the Tomb of Benjamin seen above. These spaces are viewed as liminal spaces between the mundane and the divine, and objects are believed to receive magical energies, such as healing energies, from these spaces directly. We can observe another example of contact magic looking at the famous Dome of the Rock, a shrine which was believed to cure sterility and improve fertility. As a result of this, newlyweds often washed their clothes upon the rock inside, hoping to imbue their clothes, and therefore themselves, with these blessings. This is contact magick happening twice; first through clothes, then to the body. All of this happens within sacred space and because of sacred space.
We also see the application of magical correspondence. The Milk Grotto in Bethlehem, a place where Mary was believed to have nursed Jesus for the first time, was thought to have magical properties associated with lactation. Pregnant and nursing women would choose stones from the area and put them in their drinking water as a treatment for difficult lactation. Many ailments could be treated in similar ways, such as with rocks or cloths draped against a sacred structure. Some ailments were thought to be caused by spirits, such as the djinn.
Bodies of water were also sacred spaces, especially ones where figures from the Qur'an had previously bathed in or used, and which now can be used to treat a number of ailments, from fever, infertility, eye diseases, blindness, and mental illnesses. People would bathe or wade in the waters to absorb it's healing properties. Some of these rivers were said to contain spirits who could awaken and cure the sick.
My favorite example is of the Cave of Healing [maghara al-shifa]. In the past, couples would travel to this cave which was thought to have the ability to cure infertility and have sex inside of it. Which, if you ask me, sounds extremely romantic. I can't say I expected to find sex magic in Palestinian's culture, but I am very glad I did.
Spirits, Ghosts, & Folklore
Palestine and other parts of the Middle East are known for their folklore about creatures such as the ghoul and the djinn. Ghouls are horrendous humanoid creatures and, like zombies, delight in human flesh. The word in Arabic, ghūl, comes from ghāla, which means "to seize."
Djinn have unfortunately been bastardized by the western portrayal of the "genie in a bottle" which perpetuates racist stereotypes. The real djinn are far more interesting. These entities are ancient, dating back to Arabian paganism. They can be either benevolent or malevolent, and both djinn and humans exist on the same moral plane, both capable of God's judgement and afterlife. Djinns have frequently been called on in amulets for magical and spiritual protection, but this practice has faded out of existence over time.
Then, there are ghosts, who are functionally like ancestor spirits. These ghosts play an active role in the lives of Palestinians who are surrounded by death. The spirit of the dead inspire the living to keep fighting, and the relationship with the fallen continues in just as valid a form as before. "...Some of the main liberatory protagonists in Palestinian magical-realistic texts are ghosts. Ghosts repeatedly appear in Palestinian contemporary literature not as passive byproducts of Israel’s settler-colonialism but as active agents of their own and their people’s liberation. Often, those ghosts emerge from the martyred Palestinians’ bodies and fulfill the role of constantly reminding Palestinians of what happened to them at the hands of the Israeli state." (Magical Realism as Resistance Literature, Abdelrahman).
In the same way faeries and land spirits protect the land in other parts of the world, so do the olive trees in Palestine. Stories warned against disrespecting very old olive trees by sleeping under them, insulting them, or cutting them down. Olive trees have always represented the Palestinians' connection with the land, but more recently, they represent the Palestinians themselves. In the poem "Lover from Palestine" [Ashiq min Filastin], Mahmoud Darwish writes about an olive grove being imprisoned and violated, and how the trees persist much the same way Palestinians do.
In the face of tragedy, we can witness the development of new folklore still being shaped. That's arguably the case for the black goat, an indigenous animal to Palestine, that is now upheld as a symbol of resistance and environmental sovereignty.
"Accused of being 'shrewd, rogue, ill-mannered and undisciplined', the black goat was constantly abducted and killed to prevent it from distorting the European landscape that Israel wished to create on the rubbles of the destroyed Palestinian one. In 1948, the year of the Nakba, Israel began importing a white Swiss goat to replace the black one. The white European goat was described as 'polite, beautiful, healthy' and even 'civilized.' This hatred expressed in portraying the Palestinian black goat as an 'evil creature' masqueraded under ‘scientific proof’ regarding its effect on the ‘Israeli’ environment really spurred from resentment regarding the black goat’s freedom and mobility. Unlike the Israeli settlers, the black goat possesses thousands of years of knowledge of Palestinian land and can, therefore, ‘trespass’ into ‘Israeli’ territories when seeking food. The black goat, which was accused by Israeli writers, journalists, politicians, and the public of being anti-Zionist, was allowed back into Palestine’s natural landscapes by the settler-colonial state following the eruption of wildfires as a result of the state planting pine trees that recalled its European origin. The black goat would trim the trees, prevent wildfires, and maintain the ecosystem. Such precipitous inversions of the relationship between colonial settlers and the land in ‘real’ spaces contrast deeply with the benign, intimate, and magic-infused eco-surrealism that connects Palestinians with their indigenous land." (Magical Realism as Resistance Literature, Abdelrahman)
Arabian Paganism (Wathanism)
While the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are Muslim, I want to take a moment to shoutout the pagan practitioners that do exist in the Middle East. There has been a small but concerted effort to revive pre-Islamic spirituality. This is very much an ongoing scholarship of research and archeology, and it's absolutely fascinating. You can learn more about it here.
From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free
Settler-colonialist states seek to erase those they subjugate. A non-existent culture cannot speak for themselves, revolt, or garner pity from outsiders. They seek to destroy people because the evidence of their destruction is humiliating. Regardless of how convinced Israel is of the Palestinian's supposed inferiority, there is a piece of them that feels shame. Maybe the shame isn't for harming those they hate. Maybe it's shame that their cowardice is the reason behind the theatre and extremity. Maybe they're ashamed of the rest of the world seeing the blood stains tainting the carpet.
I think non-Palestinians often feel like we're helpless to improve the situation. I'm cynical, so I still think that's mostly true. But I don't want to discount the work of remembering. We can donate to a Palestinian family's GoFundMe, advocate on social media, put pressure on our leadership, and whatever else we have the ability and capacity to do. It's hard to think about how much life has already been lost, and how irreparable that is. It's hard to think that, even if the genocide were to end tomorrow, Palestinians will be reeling and recovering from this for centuries to come. But as they say, a thousand small actions is better than one big one. They do say that, right?
If you're a magic practitioner or pagan of any kind, I hope you can appreciate and honor these traditions by never shutting the fuck up about it. Infodumping might change the world a little bit, even if it's by an extremely small margin. Israel wants these traditions to die and be forgotten to history, and if there's anything the magical community hates, it's ancient folk traditions dying out. That's like, the bane of our existence.
"The Ghoul Who Came Knocking" by an Anonymous Palestinian child.
"Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine" by Dr. Tawfiq Canaan.
"Irth Siti: On Palestinian Winter Remedies and Reconnecting with Generational Wisdom" by Yasmin Tams, who is selling her beautiful Palestinian folk medicine tools!
Disclaimer: I am not Palestinian. This article is based on extensive research from credible sources linked throughout. If you are Palestinian and/or have noticed ANY mistakes, please DM so I can edit this promptly!
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