A True Story
This story occupied the whole population of Egypt in the middle of the 1980s.
It was reported in the newspapers as a journalistic subject that was tackled by all of the Egyptian press. It is the case of the wife who remained a maiden for nineteen years!!
The story happened in one of the delta villages in the depths of the Egyptian countryside.
A man that was working in a textile factory had married his cousin, but what a pity! From their first night together and right through their relationship, he failed to consummate his marriage.
This strange failure lasted throughout all of nineteen years.
Whenever that poor man approached his wife, he began to ooze sweat until he fell unconscious. This was because of something called ‘holding magic’.
Despite their situation, his wife lived honestly with her husband. Since she was his cousin, she bore up patiently, and continued living this hard life of suffering with him for nineteen years.
One day, the poor husband found out the secret of his suffering. It so happened that one day, one of his colleagues in the factory told him that he had knowledge of what he was undergoing.
“What a strange thing!! How could he know?!” This matter baffled the poor husband, so he asked his colleague insistently to tell him how he could know about his secret. At this point, his colleague said:
“Before your marriage to your cousin, I had asked for her hand, but she refused me because she preferred you to me. At that time, my heart flamed with rage, spite and jealousy, and I could not deal with her refusal. Because of this, I went to a sheikh that deals in black magic to ask him to make you impotent.”
When the miserable husband heard this, he pleaded with him to counteract the magic’s effect, offering to pay him whatever price he wished. His colleague agreed to this request and told him where the holding tool was hidden.
They then went to that place together, and next to one of the deserted water wheels that are found there, his colleague dug into the soil and uncovered a knife that was shaped like a gazelle’s horn. It was locked, so he opened it and undid the knots that fastened it.
The husband then took the knife and headed directly for his house in the hope of consummating his marriage with his wife after nineteen long years.
But what happened after that?!! What did he do after he was freed from this magic, and from the consequences of that merciless action against him?!
He went to his colleague and plunged the same knife into his heart in a single thrust, so that the man was killed at once.
Later on, when he was remitted to the prosecution, the legal investigation found that the murderer’s wife had actually been deflowered only a few days beforehand. In light of that information, the court decided to commute the husband’s penalty to imprisonment for only five years, taking into consideration the circumstances of the case and the difficulties through which he had passed.
Yet the killer, in fact, was blind-hearted. He did not take responsibility for the wrongdoing he had committed so that he could repent of it. He needed to realize that his bad deeds were the cause which allowed the magician to have influence over his sinful body.
A number of reports and studies by researchers indicate that about 90% of Egyptians still deeply believe, until now, in the superstition of sexual holding between husband and wife. But the fact is that this action only has an effect on those who deserve it and who do lowly deeds, and therefore the devil judges them rightly when he is given the power to make them impotent.
There is no difference between rural people and urban people in terms of their belief in sexual holding and the necessity of using amulets in this case.
Indeed, about 80% of Egyptians use these amulets for various purposes, such as: to protect themselves from disease, to neutralize the effect of demons, to draw their beloved’s heart to them, to be a success in their work, and others. This is true although the noble saying states: “Neither a toper nor a believer in magic nor a man that has broken off the ties of blood may enter paradise.”[55]
Also, about 60% of Egyptians have confessed that they do not see an evil omen in anything as much as they do in a black cat; however, the messenger (cpth) said: “Be willing to please the he-cat and the she-cat.” And he (cpth) said: “The cat is one of the family. He or she is one of those who are round about you.”[56]
People think that using an incantation or putting some salt in a pouch tied around the neck of a child can protect them from the evil eye, as can the fang of the wolf or the hyena, or the head of the hoopoe.
To understand the meaning of talismans and spells, we say the following.