Ethnomedical Attributes of the Zar Cult

It is impossible to understand how zar functions among Muslim women in Sudan without also understanding something about the position of women in Islamic and Sudanese culture more generally. A famous verse of the Koran articulates the governing principle in the society.

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): for Allah is Most High, Great (above you all) (Koran, 4.34).

Combine this belief with the practical fact that, in the Sudan as ruled since the early 1980s is fundamentally a theocracy. It has been formally governed by the sharia, or Islamic religious law. As Croutier says, "Islam holds women in particularly low esteem, considering them intellectually dull, spiritually

. . .
anthropological fieldwork focuses on the Hofriyati women of northern Sudan, develops the argument that zar participation, which has as its core communion with spirits, is women's way of encountering spirit power and transforming their consciousness toward responding to or even subverting the gendered asymmetrical power relationships that are endemic to the social structure of Sudan. Fadlallah, who analyzes the Hadendowa Sudanese of the eastern part of the country, says that Muslim women in that region view the ijar (= zar) spirits as dangerous, foreign, fearful. However, these spirits function as cautionary figures, keeping women alert to the perils of dishonoring their families. The Hadendowa, accordingly, make use of "halafa healing logic," which can reverse danger if one uses "objects and products from the spirit domain" (Fadlallah 17). This logic includes using magic words, wearing charms, or using such paraphernalia as perfume and incense; it is to be distinguished but not radically differentiated from the recourse to role playing and trance and dance behavior described by Boddy and Hale. Another strand of zar practice has been identified by Makris, who distinguishes the zar bore practice of northern Sudan from zar tumbura p
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4233
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)