Taming the nafs: Unbounded spirits and mental illness in militarized Pakistan

Abstract

In Pakistan, jinn afflictions reveal the maddening effects of displacement, economic inequality, and household conflicts. In this article, I consider how healers treat conditions of the nafs (soul), specifically its impurity and corruption through material desires, as enhancing the susceptibility of clients to jinn affliction where healers prescribe engagement in pietistic activities and active remembrance of God (ẕikr) as a means of keeping the effects of spirits and the symptoms caused by them at bay. Healing also involves domesticating spirits and making them habitable with their human counterparts, as antagonistic relations between the two are seen as causes of acute symptoms (dauray). This process requires a range of negotiations with jinns, including efforts to convert them to Islam. The condition of the nafs and its continual purification are seen as necessary to ensure a peaceful relation between the jinn and the client, which is possible mainly by drawing upon the authority of Sufi lineages. Nafs and its relationship with spirits provide an opportunity to think about illness through relations between mind and the heart as well as the self and the other.