Bilal Philips – My Writings – The Possession of Izzan

			Samadhi rahmatullahi wa barakato
		

			my writings from the 1990s among the writings is a book called the possession of Amazon. While I was
doing research on exorcism and possession, etc. As I mentioned before, my PhD thesis, which I
completed in 1993, was on the topic of The Exorcist tradition in Islam.
		

			So, I had traveled to different countries among them stir Lanka, to check out information concerning
exorcism and possession etc, etc. While in Sri Lanka, I came across a case which had caught the
attention of the nation, a little boy, some three years old, from a Muslim family had
		

			begun to speak
		

			in the language of the Hindus offering worship the way that Hindus did, and it became a focal point,
people believe that he was a reincarnation and people from all over India, were coming to Sri Lanka
to visit this boy bringing gifts etcetera, etcetera. While I was there, you know, people were asking
me what to do, do we believe this what to throw I told them you know,
		

			we don't believe in reincarnation. So, definitely it is not reincarnation, but we should try to see
the boy and find out more before making judgments or making statements in this regard and
Alhamdulillah you know, one amongst the Muslim Brothers there had read my book on the fundamentals
of Tawheed in which I talked about cases of people, children, you know, claiming to have had
previous lives and people talking to them and them explaining things which only people from that
area or that time
		

			would have known.
		

			So, this gave credence to the idea of reincarnation and this is why it became very popular, his
case, the case of the boy whose name was Zhan became very popular in Sri Lanka. And even the
President himself spoke on it and praised and showed how, you know, this was a good sign for the
people he was from Muslim family at his Hindu and this and that, the other anyway, I did research on
it, gathered information, interviewed the mother and all this, collected it all up. And, you know,
gave advice to brothers there, you know how to handle the situation.
		

			And after gathering up all the information, etc, going back to Riyadh, then on to the UAE.
		

			I put the whole material together with all the newspaper clippings and everything else into a
research, which outlined all that had taken place.
		

			And then one of the brothers, his wife, is a writer, she's a creative writer, has written fictional
stories and stuff like this. So I spoke to her about collaborating with me on doing the book on this
child. So she brought the research to life. And the book we call the possession of Zan, which is
really the Djinn possession of exam and it's based on body of facts, but how these facts are
interpreted and
		

			how one should look at what was said done, etcetera, requires proper knowledge, Islamic knowledge,
etc. And it needs to be
		

			assessed
		

			and determined what really took place here. Was this okay?
		

			is a reincarnation which, in fact, it wasn't. Was it a case of possession could have been issues of
possession there. And in the end, the child did revert back to his normal Muslim state and lost the
ability to speak in the language of the Hindus. So, mashallah the book, the possession of ZAN? It's
been republished by Dawa Corner Bookstore in Malaysia, and it's available from them. Mashallah, this
is somewhat we could call it historical fiction because
		

			my co author sister Halima Jordan,
		

			filled in the gaps, you know, creatively.
		

			So, there is a network of facts and then the gaps have been filled in to make it you know, I
		

			good reading
		

			a lot of people who have gotten the copies and read it said, you know, scared them. So, if you would
like a scare, then Insha Allah,
		

			this book would be for you.
		

			Baraka Luffy comm Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh