Darfur’s Traditional Healing Practices

Islamic principles, deriving from Koranic verses, influence the practices of Darfur’s traditional healers, who craft special items designed to offer protection from all manner of harm.

By Rania Abdulrahman & Sharon Lukunka

 

Ahmad Ibrahim Ahmad sits on a mat inscribing special phrases from the Koran on a wooden tablet. As part of the process a faki (or traditional, religious healer) uses to provide hope, protection and even restorative healing to clients, Faki Ahmad is preparing to make a potion for a Darfuri who has come to him seeking help.

 

Islamic principles, deriving from Koranic verses, influence the practices of the traditional healers, who receive respect and recognition from their communities. Nearly every Darfuri has paid a visit to a faki at some point in his or her life.

Ahmad, age 37, moved from Jabel Sei to the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people in El Fasher, North Darfur, seven years ago. He lives with his father Ibrahim Ahmad Adam, age 65, who began educating him in the practice in his home village when he was 12 years old. “The practice is passed on from generation to generation,” says Mr. Adam. “My father practiced and so did my grandfather and great grandfather.”

Mr. Ahmad’s son, Adam Ahmad Ibrahim, who is five years old, has started learning how to read and write the Koran. His father says that when he turns 12, he will begin practicing the faki art. While there are a great many practitioners, not everybody is suited for the role, according to Faki Ahmad, who says it requires certain skills and spiritual gifts that only some people possess. “The Koran contains many secrets,” he says. “You should know them to be able to heal others.”

Some of the religious healers in Darfur never went to school, and cannot speak Arabic, the original language of the Koran, yet they still read it and have committed large portions of the text to memory.

Faki Ahmad says that most of the communities in Darfur rely on traditional healing for many purposes, chiefly to protect against threats, secure luck, remove evil spirits, cure disease and to induce love. Even newly born babies are given special tokens from the fakis to protect them from harm.

Read the full story in the August issue of Voices of Darfur. Download the magazine (PDF) here.

See more photos of traditional healing practices in this video: