Siraj Wahhaj is suddenly making national headlines. The imam has for 20+ years been on the hardcore speaking circuit. He has appeared at ISNA conventions (he’s their former VP). He has given the keynote at CAIR banquets, etc. However, he only occasionally gets outside attention. Now he is because he son, Siraj Jr did starve his own son to death.
“Bright Light-bulb”
I haven’t paid much attention to him because it’s hard for a native Arabic speaker to take him seriously: his name means “Bright Light.” or “Bright Light bulb” in some dialects. Anyone with that name would have gotten beat up in elementary school back home. He chose for himself that pompous name when he converted – sort of like “Lucifer Morningstar.”
But now his son – Siraj Jr. – has gotten into trouble with the law for abducting children to a New Mexico compound, starving them nearly to death, and stockpiling a mini-arsenal of weapons. CBS News and other national media are picking up on Siraj Sr.’s past, including his connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Why Starve A Child?
But I have been mystified by the story of the child abduction and forced starvation. What kind of craziness is this? I reached out to my friend Omar, an ex-Salafi, for an explanation. Here is part of his reply:
When I was a Salafi, we talked all the time about “Ruqyah” – which we thought of as exorcism. The Arabic term means to “raise up” emotionally, a kind of inspirational therapy to help depressed people. But Salafis think it means expelling the devil from your body.
Salafis believe they have the ultimate truth – something any normal person should recognize. If you don’t, the only explanation is that the devil is blocking you from getting the truth. And so the devil has to be beaten out of your body.
At the mosque I watched the Ruqyah beating many times. The “possessed” person would be held down by four guys. As someone recited Quran he would be beaten with a slipper (the shoe dishonors the devil). They would whack the person all over except the face and head (that’s strictly forbidden).
The Salafis believes the devil feels what you feel. so, in hitting your body they are trying to hurt the devil to get him to leave your body alone. They also would starve you to also starve the devil in you. the beating can last up to an hour, and then the bruised person is left alone. It’s extremely traumatizing and humiliating. Watching one of these beatings finally convinced me to leave the Salafi world.
Cerebral Palsy
Omar’s explanation began to make more sense when I read Siraj Jr. had abducted his own 3-year old own son. The boy suffers from seizures and can’t walk. Media reported it as a “condition caused by lack of oxygen and blood flow around the time of birth.” That sounds to me like cerebral palsy.
The media reported: “Documents made public in a court filing Monday said the father told the boy’s mother before fleeing Georgia that he wanted to perform an exorcism on the child because he believed he was possessed by the devil.”
Exorcism Turned Deadly
If I understand Omar correctly, Siraj Jr. was trying to starve the devil out of his son, to make the devil so uncomfortable he would leave. Omar explained that Salafis believe the devil tries to possess every baby who is born, a nasty teaching of their revered Ibn Taymiyyah.
How could the son of a leading imam celebrated by major Islamist organizations like ISNA and CAIR descend into such insanity? The rot inside our community has gone deep. We need an exorcism of our own.