JEDDAH, 7 March 2006 — After more than ten years of fortune-telling and selling antidotes to magic spells from her villa near Hera Street, Hamda has chained up her gates to the public for good.

A local Jeddah legend, she was reputed to have the cure for everything from a pesky Jinn to infertility. In many Jeddah gatherings when her name is brought up in conversation, oftentimes someone else will have heard of her.

Her name comes up from time to time in conversations about magic and fortune telling. She is reputed to have an uncanny ability of telling the future and consorting with the Jinn.

The simple fact that despite her popularity she managed to stay in business for over a decade without being arrested for sorcery made some believe that she truly had powers and was under the protection of the Jinn.

Last week, Arab News paid a visit to Hamda’s home only to be told that she had gone into retirement. According to her daughter, Hamda’s health had been deteriorating for quite some time and she was not expected to return to work.

In her modest villa, Hamda used to welcome visitors just after Asr prayers. Her minimum consultation fee was SR100, as was the case when this journalist visited her early last year.

I had heard about Hamda from a friend who had heard of her during a discussion at a café with other friends one night.

Curious to see her for ourselves, we paid her a visit to investigate.

When we arrived at her modest villa and knocked, a heavy-set black woman answered.

“What do you want here?” she asked almost rudely.

“We want to see Hamda,” was the reply.

“Come in, sit down”, the woman said as she directed us to a wooden bench in the yard.

Hamda could be seen sitting cross-legged on a mat a few meters away. She was covered in an abaya with only her gnarled, aged hands and feet and eyes showing. Her wrists and ankles were almost concealed from view by numerous gold bracelets. There was a woman seated in front of her.

Hamda was in a trance-like state, reciting a verse from the Qur’an and rubbing the woman’s hands and chest. This went on for a few minutes with the session ending with Hamda exhaling a lungful of air around her visitor.

“This should help you also,” Hamda told her visitor as SR600 and a bottle containing a brown liquid exchanged hands. “Wash your right foot with this everyday for three days,” Hamda told the woman as she departed.

As our turn came, and we sat with Hamda, we were somewhat apprehensive, not knowing what to expect. She took my hands in hers and began rubbing them whilst rocking gently back and forth.

“You are from here, but you came from some place far. You still need to learn our ways,” Hamda told me.

“Don’t admire the ways of the West, they will corrupt you,” she told my friend who had come along, only to watch.

Considering we were dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts, we were not surprised at the greeting we got from this elderly Bedouin woman.

“Before the end of the year, you will be betrayed by a friend, and in four months, I see you surrounded by soldiers in a far away place,” she said, again focusing her attention on me.

“You don’t like to create problems but problems always seem to find you. Be careful whom you allow near,” she said.

Hamda then recited a prayer from the Holy Qur’an, and blew a lungful of air at me.

The whole session had ended in less than five minutes and had cost Arab News SR100.

As we were standing to leave, Hamda offered me a vial of what smelled like rosewater.

“Sprinkle this on yourself everyday, it will ward away the evil-eye,” she said. At SR600 a bottle, I opted against the purchase.

In the car driving away, my friend and I could not help but feel that I had just paid SR100 to listen to a clever sales pitch forecasting tales of misfortune and misery to come — the rosewater, supposedly, my only protection.

Hamda proved to be a fake as none of her gloomy predictions came true in the months that followed. To others however, she provided hope by offering alternatives to resolving mental, physical and spiritual dilemmas. Sometimes for something to work, all one has to do is believe.