Bosnia and Herzegovina | Raif Esmerovic

DAIRA –
EXORCISM
 DAIRA – exorcism

In the past of Bosnia and Herzegovina there was an exorcist ritual named daira; used for
treating mentally ill persons by releasing them from ghost possession.
Daira is the Arabic word, and it means circle. In this case, it is a magic circle which mullah
(hodža) droves with knife around himself and a child before the ritual start. In his book
"Zapisi i Hamajlije" from 1940yr. Muhamed Garcevic mentioned unusual manuscript from
year 1303yr.written in Arabic language, in which the world of demons, number, places where
they dwell and ways and modes of attacking human beings, is described. As a result of their
attacks people get following symptoms/diseases; epilepsy, partial or complete paralysis,
headache, nigh mares, hallucinations and so on…
In Bosnia, demon attack is called “ograma”. Mullas with amulets through the ritual of daira
treats the patient.
Daira represents dangerous ritual that requires a vegetarian nutrition,
great devotion, purity of the body and spirit, and a blue-eyed medium boy or girl, under 12
years of age. Ritual is performed in clean and isolated room. Mullah draws circle on the floor
with a knife around himself and medium, then burn tamjan (incense), place a cup filled with
black ink to what the child will gaze constantly during the ritual.
Then mullah begins with chanting prayers from the Koran’s selected citations.
When the child reports seeing small figures/silhouettes of dwarfs appearing in a long line on
the surface of the ink, that’s a sign of ritual on its way in right direction.
The moment when a child sees the monarch of dwarfs’; usually demon that is dressed
differently from other dwarfs, child will let mullah know about that so that he could stand up
and show respect to the king.
When the monarch of the demons sits down, hodza sits down too. Then is the time for
conversation to begin with hodza intending to convince the master of the demons to order his
servants to leave the body of the victim/patient.
If the ritual succeeds patient faints for a moment and wake up well and healthy.
Daira is, as already mentioned, very dangerous ritual that can be performed only by spiritually
strong individuals.
In some ethnological records, there are cases with no happy ending; when some hodzas
became obsessed by the demon remaining paralyzed or mentally sick. Ethnological records
say that during the ritual of daira strong winds used to blow, sometimes uprooting trees from
the ground and blowing away roofs from the houses.
There are over 10 ways/techniques daira is performed, as follows; using cup of coffee, palm,
mirror, water, nail, and other...

Raif Esmerovic
Page 2