[LCM Articles] Boom Market for Lebanon's Soothsayers

[Elias Muhanna]

January 30, 2007


  Boom Market for Lebanon’s Soothsayers

By HASSAN M. FATTAH 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/hassan_m_fattah/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

BEIRUT, Lebanon 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/lebanon/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> 
— In a land racked by sectarian tension and political instability, men 
like Michel Hayek have become Lebanon’s unlikely political players.

Mr. Hayek is neither a legislator nor a businessman. He is Lebanon’s 
foremost clairvoyant and is credited with predicting some of the more 
significant events in the nation’s recent history.

Anywhere else, he might be scoffed at or simply watched with amusement 
as he makes his predictions every New Year’s Eve. But in Lebanon, where 
fears of renewed civil strife are growing and where many people are 
terrified of what the future might hold, what Mr. Hayek had to say for 
the new year was taken very seriously indeed.

“I don’t create events, I only see them,” Mr. Hayek said in a recent 
interview. “And it’s clear people are really starting to believe in me.”

Dozens of Lebanese soothsayers — astrologers, clairvoyants and others 
who lay claim to predicting the future — now appear on Lebanese 
television, write books or columns or prepare horoscopes for newspapers, 
predicting everything from celebrations to calamities. The practice of 
soothsaying, strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia and most other countries 
in the Middle East that see it as contrary to Islam, has become a 
cottage industry here in Lebanon, which has a more freewheeling attitude.

Every New Year’s Eve, clairvoyants jostle for airtime, hoping to develop 
followings. Lebanese politicians consult them, and some seers say they 
have been sought out by Saudi princes and princesses — privately — or by 
other leaders in the region. Lebanon’s streets buzz with their 
predictions, though many religious leaders rail against them.

“If Michel Hayek says there will be an explosion, then the odds are very 
high there will be one,” said Ahmad el-Hajj, a 35-year-old Beirut 
resident who used to scoff at the idea of clairvoyants but is now a 
believer.

“With all the assassinations and explosions and, you know, the whole 
instability in the country, people are eager for predictions of the 
future, maybe for hope, maybe for reassurance,” Mr. Hajj said. “It is 
something we find ourselves doing more today than we did three years ago.”

The past year, especially, a series of social and political phenomena in 
Lebanon lent the clairvoyants and astrologers special weight, 
sociologists here say.

“The phenomenon of clairvoyants has been around for five years or so, 
but this year it has taken a life of its own,” said Saoud al-Mawla, a 
professor of sociology at Lebanese University, who has been conducting 
research on the impact of clairvoyants on public life.

Mr. Mawla said he sent his students to survey Lebanese of all walks of 
life about their belief in soothsayers, and was surprised to find that a 
vast majority said they believed them.

“People here have lost confidence in their politicians and want to know 
what the future has in store for them,” he said. The clairvoyants “are 
the natural place to go to.”

They have become especially popular with Lebanon’s Shiites, Mr. Mawla 
said, some of whom consider the war during the summer between Hezbollah 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hezbollah/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
and Israel as a sign of the coming of the Mahdi, the so-called 12th Imam 
who is to usher in the day of judgment, according to Shiite belief. 
Among Lebanese Christians, meanwhile, the sense of falling fortunes have 
left many grasping for some hope and for a window into the future, Mr. 
Mawla said.

Small wonder, then, that many soothsayers have begun to focus their 
predictions on politics rather than love and fortune.

Hundreds of thousands tuned in to watch Mr. Hayek make prophecies on the 
Lebanese satellite channel LBC on New Year’s Eve in an hour-long program 
that has been repeated numerous times in the weeks since. He cast a 
cloud over the Druse leader Walid Jumblatt; envisioned an attack on 
Ahmed Fatfat, the minister of youth and sports; and said that he had 
visions of a “vengeful act” against the son-in-law of Gen. Michel Aoun, 
the leader of a Christian group and a critic of the government, and 
several members of Parliament. After all the turbulence, however, life 
in Lebanon will flourish and people will be happy, he said.

Others are less sanguine. A parapsycholgist and astrologer, Samir Tombe, 
predicted tensions spreading across Lebanon as the country turns into a 
battlefield between Iran and the United States and as assassinations of 
prominent figures continue. An astrologer named Jad said that political 
instability would continue, but that national reconciliation talks would 
settle the crisis.

A clairvoyant, Abu Ali Sabbagh, has foretold the end of the crisis soon 
and the government remaining in power as it comes to an agreement with 
the Hezbollah-led opposition. He sees Lebanon starting to prosper 
starting in February. Sheik Nour al- Nourani, another clairvoyant, has 
predicted that a conflict with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah will be fought 
in southern Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley and in the Golan Heights, in 
addition to further assassinations and attempted assassinations.

Mr. Hayek scoffs at most of his competitors, whom he derides as 
opportunists and charlatans. He prides himself on having predicted 
events like the 1996 earthquakes in Turkey, the 1997 death of Princess 
Diana and the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former prime 
minister of Lebanon.

Already, it seems, life appears to have imitated his two of his most 
recent prophecies. He predicted “bloodshed at a university” like that in 
mid-January, when a brawl at a college cafeteria broke out into a 
sectarian battle on the streets of a neighborhood that is a Sunni 
stronghold. He also foresaw a “significant” event at Beirut’s airport, 
which happened earlier the same week, when the streets to the airport 
were blocked by protesters.

“People have called me the modern-day Nostradamus, but I prefer Michel 
Hayek,” he said.

He insisted that, unlike the other Lebanese soothsayers, he did not sell 
books or offer consultations. He earns a living in real estate and as a 
consultant for several companies, which pay him to make prophecies about 
their operations. Most important, he said, he cannot make predictions 
about those closest to him, nor can he predict the stock market. (He 
tried playing the national lottery but lost, he said.)

Instead, Mr. Hayek said, he regards his prophecies as something of a 
public service.

“The country is built on quicksand, and the people are nervous,” he 
said. “People are desperate to know what is in store for them, and I am 
trying to help them.”

Shortly after Mr. Hayek’s appearance on LBC on New Year’s Eve, Mr. 
Jumblatt issued a heated criticism of him and his predictions, Mr. Mawla 
said. Other politicians dismissed his statements as ludicrous; some 
accused him of being an intelligence agent seeking to make his 
predictions a reality.

Some other clairvoyants criticize Mr. Hayek’s focus on politics, 
insisting such predictions simply cause more angst or, worse, panic.

“I stopped doing politics after Hariri’s assassination,” said Carmen 
Chammas, better known as Carmen the Astrologer, who is the hostess of 
two astrology programs daily on the Future TV channel, owned by the 
Hariri family. She also writes daily horoscope columns and books on 
astrology.

Such predictions require a lot of responsibility to avoid scaring 
people, she said, and many soothsayers simply do not take the necessary 
care.

“The future has become so unclear and the people have developed many 
fears, and need help on which direction to go,” she said. “I give people 
hope so they can believe in themselves and their country so that they 
can work out their problems.”

Mr. Hayek said that something inside him compelled him to spread his 
prophecies, and that he could not simply turn it off. In 2005, he 
eschewed making serious predictions after many fake predictions were 
made in his name. But he said he came to regret not issuing warnings.

“I don’t ask anyone to believe me,” he said. “I don’t insist everything 
I say will come true. This is just something I have in me that allows me 
to open the otherworldly in the worldly.”

-- 
Elias I. Muhanna
Arabic & Islamic Studies
Harvard University
6 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge MA, 02138
emuhanna at fas.harvard.edu

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