Tales From a Jinn Palace

In the UK a boarded up house might attract squatters. But in Morocco it would be a magnate for an invisible legion of spirits, known as ‘Jinns’.

When I bought a large, crumbling mansion in Casablanca, I was prepared for every kind of cultural and linguistic difficulty – everything but the Jinns. All Moroccans believe in them, insisting that their dark parallel world exists within our own. Muslims say that Jinns were created from fire by God at the same time that He created Man from clay. They can transform themselves into any shape they wish, and can cause havoc. The worst thing imaginable would be to have them living in your home.

As if by some Medieval right of sale we inherited three guardians with the house. They insisted that we weren't safe and wouldn't be until a full-scale exorcism had taken place. The place, they said, was chock-full of the most despicable Jinns.

In the West finding exorcists might be difficult. You wouldn’t know where to look. There’s no listing in the Yellow Pages. But in Morocco, nothing’s simpler. I travelled to the old Imperial city of Meknes and tapped into the Underworld, where pimps were ready to supply exorcists at cut-price. I soon found there was a vast supply, a dime a dozen. So I hired twenty-four.

When they eventually arrived at the house, the exorcists took over. They stayed for days – killed and skinned animals at the centre of the house, nailed up gall bladders, drank their own blood, cut themselves with knives, went into trance, bit heads off chickens, sang wild mantras and, of course, they sucked all the Jinns from the walls and swallowed them whole.

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