Aisha Qandisha
- Origin
- A Moroccan tradition, found mainly in Morocco and sometimes in western Algeria (Douider, 2012), and practised in the possession rites of the Hamadsha and of zār groups; in Egypt's zār she goes by the name Aisha al-Maghribiya (Wikipedia). The oldest written record among these sources is Edward Westermarck's The Belief in Spirits in Morocco (1920), which sets down what he was told, including a story from Tangier.
- How we treat it
- The label covers the rites in which Hamadsha and zār members seek possession by Aisha Qandisha, and the belief that goes with them. It makes no claim that she exists. It does not cover her as a childhood story, which most Moroccans do not take as real (Hespress FR, 2020), or Hespress FR's portrait of her as a fighting countess.
- Routes out
- No source written by Hamadsha or zār practitioners was found. Hespress FR (2020) comes first, for how the many Moroccans who grew up with her tell her story, then Samira Douider's 2012 study, then the two Wikipedia articles for the rites. Westermarck's 1920 book comes last: it is the oldest record, but it is his account of what he was told, with no practitioner's voice.
Aisha Qandisha is a female spirit of Moroccan belief, described as a beautiful woman who may have a goat's or donkey's legs. Members of the Hamadsha and of zār groups seek possession by her in their rites.
Samira Douider, writing in Recherches & Travaux in 2012, ties Aisha Qandisha mainly to Morocco and at times to western Algeria. She notes that the story of Aisha Qandisha survives in several versions.
In The Belief in Spirits in Morocco (1920), Edward Westermarck recorded that she takes the shape of an adult woman with a lovely face, though some had seen her with a goat's or donkey's legs, or with a woman's legs on a she-goat's body. He wrote that she sets out to seduce good-looking young men. He was told of a Tangier man who met her in a street late at night and took her for an ordinary woman. When she called out to him, he gave no answer, walked to his lodging in a different street, shut his door, went to bed and put out the light.
Wikipedia says members of the Hamadsha and of zār groups hold rites in which members seek to be possessed by her and by other jinn. Its article on the Hamadsha adds that possession there is often tied to her, also called Lalla Aisha. Some treat her as a jinn and others firmly reject that, and some say there are four Aishas. She is said to ask the men she possesses for a blood sacrifice, given as ritual bloodletting. Red and black are her colours, and Egypt's zār knows her under the name Aisha al-Maghribiya.
For many Moroccans she is also a figure from childhood. A 2020 portrait by Zoubida Senoussi in Hespress FR, published for International Women's Day, calls her by turns an urban legend, a female demon and a resister. It says that for most people she is unreal, and it presents her as a feminist countess who fought and was cursed.
"She appears as a grown-up woman with a beautiful face, but she has also been seen with the legs. of a goat or an ass, or with the legs of a woman and the body of a she-goat with long pendant breasts. She is very libidinous. and tries to seduce handsome young men. I was told of a man in Tangier who once in the middle of the night met her in the. street, although he took her for a woman. She said to him, «O man, O man, come!» He did not answer but proceeded to: his room in another street, shut the door, went to bed, and extinguished the light."
- Deux mythes féminins du Maghreb : la Kahina et Aïcha Kandicha, Samira Douider, Recherches & Travaux 81 (2012)
- 8 mars : Portrait de Aïcha Kandicha, le mythe féminin, entre fascination et diabolisation, Zoubida Senoussi, Hespress FR (2020)
- Aisha Qandisha, Wikipedia
- Hamadsha, Wikipedia