Assaulting with Words

This book presents an extensive and witty analysis of the metaphors inherent in the practice of "sahir" among the Muslim Arab Rubatab of the Sudan. "Sahir" is the use of humorous but ominous metaphors dismissed as jokes by their inventors but taken quite seriously by their victims; commonly found in a speech event involving the speaker of the metaphor, the victim, and an audience, it is intricately bound to belief in the evil eye. Drawing on his extensive fieldwork among the Rubatab, the author details the sociopoetics of discourse and delineates the polemics of "sahir" in its living social contexts. "Assaulting with Words" examines Muslim folklore as a counter-discourse to orthodox Islamic tenets and, at the same time, breaks down the false dichotomy between folk and official culture.