The Saudi government should introduce legislation to regulate the practice of reciting Qur’anic verses to help cure people, a sheikh said recently.

Sheikh Salih Al-Zahrani, who practices this method of healing, was responding to a video circulating on social networking sites showing a Sudanese man reciting verses from the Holy Book to cure people.

The man recited Qur’anic verses in a room filled with people. After he had done so, some of the people who were seemingly possessed stood up and then fell to the ground.

Al-Zahrani said this practice should be regulated because “religious incantations has proved useful in treating many incurable diseases, especially cancer.”

Yassir Al-Harbi, a blogger, slammed the man in the video. “Would this would-be sorcerer want his wife to undress herself in front of other people as part of his collective method of curing by incantation?” he wrote.

Faisal Abdullah, another blogger, said most people appearing to be possessed were simply hallucinating.

Muhammad Jiddawi wrote: “These people are charlatans. They are a mixed bag of fraudsters and psychos. Some of the sorcerers simply get people to act as if they are possessed people. It’s all staged.”

Afaf Sayeeed said these sessions do take place. “These things happen, even in Saudi Arabia. There are collective incantation sessions, but they do not allow them to be filmed,” she wrote.

Several people said that hospitals should have special sections, overseen by government, where Qur’anic recitation to provide healing could be practiced.

They also said that many of these fraudsters use this practice to dupe women into having sex with them.

However, they said Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did approve of using incantations to help heal people.