Oct 31

Oct 31 A Guide to Spooky Stories in the MENA

In the spirit of Halloween, we asked our colleagues in Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan to share with us some spooky stories, legends, films, and novels from the region!

Morocco

Movies:

Silence of the Night (صمت اللي) is a Moroccan film from the 90s about a family who buys a new house at a low price, and then later finds out the house is haunted. The family hires a “faqih” or faith healer/exorcist to come in and cleanse the house, but this just makes the ‘inhuman creatures’ who inhabit the house angry, and they start to defend themselves and their house. It is available to watch in full on YouTube.
Midnight Obsessions (هواجس بعد منتصف الليل) is a Moroccan film about a young man who is haunted by the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. He broke up with her to go study abroad, and while he was gone, she died. When he comes back, he is betrothed to a woman his family approves of and goes to live and work in Ifrane – a city known to be cold and dark. When he moves there, strange things start to happen to him and those around him.

Stories and Legends:

“Aicha Kandicha” is a popular female mythological figure in Moroccan stories. She is rumored to be a beautiful woman who seduces men and kills them. In many stories, she has hooves instead of legs and lives near bodies of water. As children, Moroccans hear about this myth of an evil woman, but often, educated Moroccans, as they grow up, also hear that she was based on an anti-colonial fighter who used her seductive powers to fight against the occupiers, in general.
Boukhancha (literally ‘owner of the bag/sack’) is a mythical figure, perhaps based on real occurrences, who walks around with a sack on his back and uses this sack to catch and kidnap children (and maybe kill them – this detail is not always added). Usually, parents use this myth to scare their children into staying home at night.
Boujloud (literally ‘owner of skins/leather’) is a festival/tradition at the end of Eid Kbir where young men in the villages – especially around Marrakech and other Tashelheet-speaking areas – dress up in goat skins and go around the village chasing children (and sometimes adults) with thin reeds. They usually ask for 1-5 dirhams in order not to hit you with the reed. In some bigger towns, there is a boujloud parade and people dress up in other costumes or host musical events or concerts.

Tunisia

Legends:

This is a legend that almost everyone knows about in Tunisia: It is said that a handsome young man fell in love with his cousin, who was so beautiful everyone in the village wanted to be with her. A love story arose between them, so the young man asked for the girl's hand, and he received the blessing of her family.

On the day of the wedding, the girl and her female friends and family went to the Moorish bath to bathe and get her dressed in preparation for her wedding day (an ancient custom that has become an integral part of wedding ceremonies in Tunisia today). The future bride entered the bath before the other women to soak in hot water. But when the rest of her family and friends followed her, they were surprised that the bath was empty, and that the bride had completely disappeared.

Upon hearing the news, the lover ran to the Moorish bath, and when he called upon his fiancée’s name, her voice echoed clearly between the walls even though she was nowhere to be found. The voice of the bride to-be told her lover that the Jinn had kidnapped her and locked her between the Moorish bath walls and that she was unable to move. The groom and other men brought axes and tried to break the cement walls of the bath, but the walls were not breaking, and with each attempt to demolish the walls, the voice of his lover fainted little by little until it stopped completely.

A few months after this incident, the owner of the Moorish bath was terrified after thick black hair started to grow from the walls. So, he secretly cut the copious hair and set it on fire for fear of provoking the lovers’ story again and ruining the reputation of his Moorish bath forever. This process was repeated for some time until the hair stopped growing out, which is said to mean that the girl had actually died between the walls.

But despite the Moorish bath owner's attempts to hide what happened, the legend of the Jinn kidnapping single women and locking them within its walls spread. The legend says that every year on the anniversary of that fateful day, the Moorish bath walls swallow a girl who goes to it to bathe. Until the Bey (the ruler) at the time, ordered women to abstain from entering that Moorish bath for fear of losing more young women to the Jinn.

“Bila’ al-Sabbaya” or the “Maiden swallower” became an important part of Tunisian folklore, and since that time, women have refrained from going to this particular Moorish bath. In fact, it became restricted to males 400 years ago and remains so today because of the popular memory attached to these miraculous and frightening stories. Most likely, the story has realistic roots associated with an incomprehensible disappearance that quickly merged with myth and legend.

Stories:

This is a well-known ghost story that supposedly happened in Tunisia (As told by Mohamed Marwen Meddah): This guy was out for a night walk in downtown Tunis and as he passed by one of the Belvedere Park’s gates, he saw this good-looking girl all alone and feeling cold.

So, he walks up to her and gives her his jacket and starts talking to her, trying to get to know her. They ended up spending the night together, and then he took her home to her parents’ place.

The following morning, he remembers he never got his jacket back from her, so he passes by her parent's place to get it, and her mom tells him that it is impossible because her daughter has been dead for years. So, he asks where she was buried, and goes to her grave. And there, lying on the girl’s grave, was his jacket.

Movies:

Black magic, the evil eye, demons, and evil Jinn are all topics that are embedded in the Islamic culture and Muslim communities throughout the world. Here, I present you with a couple of movies that touch on a few of those topics:

Dachra (2021): a Tunisian horror movie that tells the story of a young journalism student and her friends who become trapped in an isolated village while trying to solve a gruesome criminal case that is over 25 years old. (The movie is available in English subtitles on Netflix).
Siccin (2014): a Turkish horror movie that tells the story of Öznur, a young and beautiful woman. She has been in love since childhood to Kudret, her cousin. Kudret, however, is married to a woman named Nisa and is very happy. Jealous, Öznur uses terrible black magic to change this so that she and Kudret will be together. However, she is not prepared for the evil that this spell unleashes.

Books:

Hammam d’hab (The Moorish Bath of Gold) by Mohamed Issa Meddeb: The Tunisian novelist used the story of the Moorish bath to talk about the reality of the Jewish minority in the old city. The novel begins with the mystery of the Moorish bath and the attempt of the main character, Helen, to discover her lost roots in the old city.