The internet is making faith healers more popular than ever. Is this deterring people from seeking professional mental health treatment?

When Raqi Abu Tharr goes live on Facebook, comments from his followers — there are more than 50,000 of them — start pouring in immediately. Bearded and bespectacled, Abu Tharr has the easy manner of a radio show host — he kind of looks like one too, with his elaborate audio set-up — one that elicits a certain sense of community. He introduces himself, updates viewers on how previous clients are faring, and thanks everyone for their duas. 

On Abu Tharr’s page, there are three types of videos. The first, answering viewers’ questions in real-time, shed light — if only fleetingly — on the inner lives and private anxieties of the men and women who form Abu Tharr’s clientele, many of whom appear to be South Asian. A relative is suffering from serious depression; his parents think he is possessed through black cumin. Can a jinn enter our body and make us aggressive and beat someone? Every time I go to the bathroom, I hear a voice in Urdu saying “come with me;” this has been happening to me for 10 years. The second genre — the informational ones where Abu Tharr scrutinizes signs of black magic — are the ones that send you down rabbit holes. In one, Abu Tharr dons gloves, picks up a shovel, and goes digging in a client’s garden. His efforts yield an earthen pot filled with black lentils, split lemons pricked with needles, and a jar with strands of knotted hair. These are all signs of sihr, black magic, he tells the camera. Other signs: red powder under pillows, resembling dried blood, unexplained scratches or bruises on your body. 

The category of videos you can’t tear your eyes — or ears — away from are the ones where he performs live exorcisms. “This is making my heart uneasy,” says one commentator, as the U.K.-based Abu Tharr recites Quranic verses against a backdrop of piercing screams; “I’m scared,” says another. In more recent videos, you can’t see the people on whom the exorcisms are being performed — you can only hear them — but earlier videos feature bodies twitching, writhing, fainting. His most popular video, with over 7.8 million views, features the exorcism of a ‘Jewish jinn.’

Abu Tharr is a raqi: he performs ruqyah, a form of faith healing that summons jinns — spirits — by reciting verses from the Quran, then commands them to stop wreaking mischief. Many Muslims believe in jinns: they are considered invisible entities of a separate, parallel world. A jinn can take over our mind or body for a number of reasons: it may be evil or infatuated, or simply bored. In a typical exorcism, you lie down, while the raqi places their palm on your head and recites verses. If the jinn is being especially frisky, Abu Tharr sometimes sprays the client with water from a squirt bottle. These days, he charges £70 ($96) for each of these sessions. 

No expert worth their salt will make a diagnosis on the basis of Facebook comments, but the general sense you get from Abu Tharr’s page is that it attracts people struggling to cope. Definitive data is hard to come by, but research suggests South Asian countries have a higher prevalence of common mental disorders — including depression, anxiety, and various forms of psychosis — than the global average. South Asian immigrants also appear unusually susceptible: one study from the U.K. reported significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety in middle-aged Pakistani men and older Indian and Pakistani women. South Asian immigrant women are more prone to self-harm. 

Statistics on religion are even more elusive. According to a 2018 survey, though, 32% of young British Muslims have suffered suicidal thoughts at some point, 52% have suffered from depression, and 63% have struggled with anxiety. (In contrast, only 16% of people in the U.K. as a whole report experiencing a “common mental disorder,” such as depression or anxiety, in any given week.) What we do know — from research and anecdotal evidence — is that Muslim communities are particularly leery of seeking clinical help for psychological distress. For many, faith healers like Abu Tharr — who initially agreed to be interviewed for this story but later demurred — are their first and only port of call. 

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