17/05/2022
17/05/2022
The cleric, Mohammad Al-Awadhi, attacked those who perform ‘ruqiah’ (casting out evil with prayer) and he did well by warning that some of its practitioners are tampering with people’s lives, minds and money under the guise of treatment.
I wish he had warned about this thirty years ago, he would have saved lives and stopped the ugly exploitation of some, and their trade that is far from reason and logic, but he chose to remain silent, and one of those performing the ruqiah one day caused the death of a citizen while treating him.
The man was convicted at that time, and the ruling sent him to imprisonment, but his party affiliation helped him and he left the prison before completing his term, and even obtained Kuwaiti citizenship, and the party forces pushed him into the limelight to blow the trumpet on their behalf. Later it was decided to withdraw his citizenship, but it was subsequently returned to him, with the support of the same religious forces, returned to the profession of all donations and ‘recruitment’ of preachers.
The recent move of religious forces against the trade in ruqiah practitioners is not without suspicion, as there is no school or method by which one can prove the eligibility of a person to perform it and therefore everything that takes place on the scene is closer to material gain than to spiritual treatment and clean the person of evil spirits (if it can be put that way). What has forced the religious forces to move against it?
I listened to ‘Fajr Al-Saeed’, criticizing the Minister of Information, for allowing 120,000 dinars to be spent on the ‘Mohammad Al-Awadhi’ Ramadan program on state TV. She indicated, based on her long experience as a producer, this a lot of money to be paid for the program and that she could have produced the same program for a small sum of money than what was paid for that program.
For my part, I contacted one of the specialists in this field, and asked him to provide me with a comparison between the ‘Biban Abdel Rahman’ program, for example, which is a relatively diverse and huge program, and the Al-Awadhi program and the result was really shocking.
It turned out that the latter is a program of religious advice in which the presenter speaks 90% of his time based on his previous long experience in this field, without the need for preparation. The preparation for the scene of the program occupies an area of no more than 40 square meters, and is often prepared by the TV workshop. Also, filming it requires only two light fixed cameras, and the film material does not usually require editing, and it is preserved on raw material whose price does not exceed 40 dinars. Any TV director can take on the task of making the show uncomplicated, it’s part of their job.
And if we look at the ‘Biban Abdel Rahman’ program, we will find that its production, directing and presentation requires a group of professionals in their field who are highly paid. It was also filmed on an area of more than 500 square meters, and in a rented filming location for 700 dinars per day, with all that required of an expensive decor that exceeds the height of some of its parts of five meters, and a staff of no less than 12 to perform various tasks of hosting 30 people throughout the month, and among them ‘stars’ they do not host for free.
Also, the presenter of the program needed dozens of suits, shirts and ties, compared to the simple and inexpensive clothes of the other presenter.
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By Ahmad alsarraf