Religious scholars treat Baku ritual beating as obscurantism

The beating with the aim of "exorcising ghosts" for healing sick patients, in particular, Murad Soltanov, an Azerbaijani resident, who died during the ritual, has nothing to do with religion, theologians have stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the body of the 25-year-old Murad Soltanov, a Baku resident, was found on November 10 in an apartment in the city of Shabran. The suspects of beating him up to death told that Soltanov was beaten up with pomegranate sticks in order "to drive ghosts out of him."

"This has nothing to do with Islam, the religion which has recognition of the priority of the science. Beating ghosts out is ignorance and obscurantism," said Shakhin Gasanli, a Shiite theologian and the head of the community of the Baku mosque "Meshadi Dadash".

In Islam, there is no such notion like "jinn exorcising," said Elshad Miri, an expert of the "Irshpad" Non-Governmental Centre for Islamic Studies. "These are charlatans' inventions; they are using them for personal enrichment," he has stressed.

Islam rejects occultism and fortune-telling, including for healing, Tofiq Turkel, a columnist of the "Turan" News Agency, has noted.

According to his story, beating up with the aim of "ghost exorcising" cannot be compared with self-torture on the occasion of the Ashura Day marked by Shiites. "On Ashura, Muslims deliberately hurt themselves in order to survive what the saints had experienced," Mr Turkel has explained.

Azad Isazade, an Azerbaijani psychologist, has acknowledged that the folk medicine has efficient methods of treating diseases, but they should be practiced by experts.