Zār

In the cultures of the Horn of Africa and adjacient regions of the Middle East,Zār (Arabic زار , Ethiopic ዛር) is the term for a demon or spirit assumed to possess individuals, mostly women, and to cause discomfort or illness. The so-called zār ritual or zār cult is the practice of exorcising such spirits from the possessed individual.

Zār exorcism has become popular in the contemporary urban culture of Cairo and other major cities of the Islamic world as a form of women-only entertainment. Zār gatherings involve food and musical performances, and they culminate in ecstatic dancing, lasting between three and seven nights. The tanbura, a six-string lyre (6-stringed "bowl-lyre"), is often used in the ritual. Other instruments include the mangour, a leather belt sewn with many goat hooves, and various percussion instruments.

Scholarship in the early 20th century attributed Abyssinian (Ethiopian) origin to the custom, although there were also proposals suggesting Persian or other origins. Thus, Frobenius suggested that zār and bori, a comparable cult in Hausa culture, were ultimately derived from a Persian source. Modarressi (1986) suggests a Persian etymology for the term.

The origin of the word is unclear; Walker (1935) suggested the name of the city of in northern Iran, or alternatively the Arabic root "to visit" (for the possessing spirit "visiting" the victim). The Encyclopedia of Islam of 1934 favoured an Ethiopian origin of the word.

The spread beyond the Horn of Africa likely dates to the 18th or early 19th century, presumably introduced by Ethiopian slaves brought to the harems of the Ottoman Egypt Eyalet. Messing (1958) states that the cult was particularly well-developed in Northern Ethiopia (Amhara), with its center in the town of Gondar. One late 19th-century traveler describes the Abyssinian "Sár" cultists sacrificing a hen or goat and mixing the blood with grease and butter, in the hopes of eliminating someone's sickness. The concoction was then hidden in an alley, in the belief that all who pass through the alley would take away the patient's ailment.

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