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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Ayn al-Shir: The Evil Eye


Happy Tuesday! It’s a beautiful autumn day up here in New England. I hope to get out and enjoy it a little bit between running errands around campus!

Anyway, on top of leading my first class ever, and spending about two hours on one question of my civil engineering homework, I drank coffee way too late in the day and now I can’t seem to fall asleep. The idea of doing more work right now seems cruel and unusual, so I figure I’ll write a post on one of my favorite superstitions in Arabic culture…

The eye! Al-ayn!



Maybe you’ve seen it before, because it’s also in Greek and Turkish culture too. Anyway, the ayn is a fascinating phenomenon because it explains so much about the culture while it also has a dual-meaning of being both lucky and unlucky simultaneously.

If anyone would like to comment with their own opinion on the ayn, feel free, but here’s my understanding: the idea behind the ayn is that every person wants a lot of things that they don’t have yet. Which makes sense! I know I’m definitely in that boat. I want multiple degrees, a satisfying and challenging career, and a family, which is not easy to pull off. So, the idea expands on that theory to say that a person who wants what they don’t have will look to someone who already has that stuff and get jealous. Like, I might see a hydrogeologist and want their career! The theory behind the ayn continues to suggest that a person’s desire or jealousy can create bad luck for the person who already has it all.

Now, I would hate the idea of creating bad luck for someone who is five years ahead of me in terms of life goals, which is why this superstition is a little scary, to say the least. But there’s something incredibly endearing about the ayn for me, and I think it’s because I associate it so much with my mother-in-law. If I have car trouble or if I spill a whole cup of tea on me before I run out the door, mummy-in-law will say something like, “The ayn is on you, habibti.” And even if I’m upset at my mishap, I can’t help but laugh at her confident assertion that someone is giving me serious eye.

Even if they don’t believe in it, it’s rare to find an Arab family without an ayn somewhere in the house. Now, I don’t think everyone is as into the ayn theory as my mummy-in-law, but what does this possibly illuminate about Arabic culture? Well, I’ve noticed that people can be rather humble at times when I wonder how they aren’t proudly announcing their accomplishments. A friend might wait for a long time to announce their job promotion, or avoid telling people how well they did on a test, or be shy to show friends their new car. And then, when things like that happen, I wonder how much the underlying cultural assumptions that develop the ayn also play into that tendency towards conservatively discussing achievement.

Whether or not it’s real, I still keep the eye on the wall, because you never know!

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