Abdulrahman Al-Lahim Alsharq An electronic newspaper recently reported that a housemaid in the city of Al-Ras, Qassim province, had performed sorcery on her sponsor and his family, immobilizing their movements. It said the Commission for Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice (Haia) team specializing in dispelling sorcery and talismans was able to discover and ward off the sorcery at the right time. The team had safely dispelled the magic the same way the security forces would diffuse explosives. The housemaid, who was not identified, was handed over to the concerned authorities for investigations and legal action. This means that the case has taken a legal course and will be considered by a court. This step raises a number of legal questions that should be posed to legal experts. As the woman may seek the help of lawyers to defend her at the court, these legal representatives should then know how to deal with cases involving magic to provide their clients with correct and sound legal advice. The main question that arises here is: how will anyone be able to prove a sorcery issue? How can anyone prove that the claimant and his family were under a magic spell? Has humanity been able to invent a device to measure the level of magic in bodies? Will this device be used as criminal evidence in courts, similar to DNA tests and coronary reports? Judges usually rule according to the material evidence in their hands. They do not depend on personal opinions, even from people who claim to be experts in black magic. How can anyone prove that the maid had used the help of a jinn to harm her sponsor and his family? Has anyone intercepted the communications between her and the jinn to use them as evidence? Have these calls been translated if the jinn did not speak Arabic? Things will further be complicated if the housemaid asked to bring the jinn, her accomplice, before the court to give his testimony and to determine whether she asked him to enchant her sponsor and his family. The story is not that simple if we want to tackle it from a legal point of view. We have to deal with such cases not by the law but by spreading awareness among society members. The law only acts on material evidence, not on metaphysics.
