“Charlatanism is the clever manipulation of people’s hopes and desires.” With these words from the Egyptian film Al-Bayda wa Al-Hagar (The Egg and the Stone), the character Mostaṭa’a, played by Ahmed Zaki, decodes the phenomenon of superstition and exposes its masterminds—those who practice their “divine game” by preying on human fears, anxieties, and defeats.
Unlike the cinematic portrayal, it is difficult—without a full (real, not dramatic) picture—to determine whether the Egyptian doctor, Dr. Hossam Mowafi, consciously chose to merge religion with science and the Quran with medicine, or whether he was compelled to do so.
Understanding the drastic personal inclinations of this professor of critical care medicine at Qasr Al-Aini is not essential. He transitioned from being a guest on journalist Mahmoud Saad’s show, where he discussed medical topics and answered patients’ questions—occasionally slipping in subtle religious undertones—to hosting his own program, Rabbi Zidni ‘Ilma (My Lord, Increase Me in Knowledge).
The difference is that the fabricated and magical blending of medicine with the Quran—or more precisely, the link between religious faith and physical well-being—is no longer subtle or quietly implied, used cautiously to test its effects in the public sphere. Rather, it has become overt and blatant.
This crude blend now carries the chaotic noise of dogmatic faith, with a sectarian and rigid undertone, asserting absolute knowledge and unchallengeable truth without room for debate or alternative perspectives.
Mowafi had previously dismissed his critics, when he claimed that “mental illness does not afflict a true believer” and that “a religious person does not suffer from anxiety or depression,” by labeling them as people who “break out in hives when religion is mentioned.”
The role played by the Egyptian doctor intersects with a broader scene, where the allure of fabricating an imagined status accumulates by exploiting an excess of sanctities and religious fluidity—this time employed clinically.
In his “television clinic,” addressing his virtual audience, he exerts authority through an easy, flexible, and populist discourse, yet one rooted in suppression and coercion.
It seems there is a deliberate attempt to recreate a figure similar to the late Egyptian physician Mostafa Mahmoud, whose Science and Faith TV program gained massive popularity in the late 1970s. Mahmoud’s show significantly shaped the consciousness of many educated Egyptians during the rise of religious movements and the expansion of political Islam.
The objective here is to present a personality that offers simplistic, reassuring certainty, discouraging deep thought, questioning, or skepticism. Despite differences in historical and social contexts, both Mahmoud and Mowafi follow similar methodologies and discuss similar topics, ultimately serving the same purpose: patching the growing fractures caused by various crises and their impact on identity and self-perception.
Ironically and irritatingly, Mowafi did not attack communism as his earlier counterparts did amid popular conflicts with political Islam and the Soviet Union’s presence. Instead, he took things further, invoking the Prophet’s uncle, Abu Lahab, labeling him “the dumbest person in the world” for rejecting Prophet Muhammad’s message and strongly resisting Islam.
Regardless of any historical reassessment of Abu Lahab’s character—or Mowafi’s characterization of his critics as “suffering from hives”—his rhetoric perpetuates extreme sectarian polarization. It mirrors the ideological framework of Islamist groups that divide the world into two opposing camps, even if he does not explicitly use terms like “Dar al-Islam” (House of Islam) and “Dar al-Harb” (House of War).
Mowafi casts doubt on scientific studies by claiming that “there are no accurate medical or scientific studies on fasting because science in the Arab world is derived from Europe.”
He stated: “Unfortunately, all our medical knowledge comes from Europe and America, and there are no studies on fasting and its effects on the heart, lungs, liver, and brain.” He firmly rejected the notion that fasting could have any harmful effects on human health, simply because “God would never impose anything on humans that could harm them.”
The suspicious approach to scientific studies, simply because their sources or epistemological frameworks originate in a seemingly “hostile” environment, according to the professor of critical care at Qasr Al-Aini, despite the abundance of medical and scientific research on fasting conducted in the West, aims to place science on the shelf of “Halal foods.”
Disease, by definition, is a bodily ailment that can be temporary or chronic, with causes ranging from genetic factors to external infections. However, in Mowafi’s discourse, illness becomes a mechanism to ensure social conformity—enforced through discipline and fear.
Likewise, sudden illnesses in the Egyptian doctor’s discourse, which supposedly occur precisely at “8 AM,” according to alleged studies, specifically referring to a stroke or heart attack, and whose prevention requires “waking up and going back to sleep again, or standing, moving, then returning to bed,” might seem like a distasteful joke.
In reality, however, this indicates the underlying nature of his discourse, subtly employing hidden methods to ensure obedience and manipulate instinctive fears to the highest degree.
Mowafi recounts: “I was at a medical conference, and when I heard this information, I left the hall and prayed two rak’ahs in gratitude to God. This teaches us that the Fajr prayer protects us from many things. Truly, prayer is better than sleep, for Fajr prayer is a source of protection for all of us.”
Mowafi claimed that many medical scientists also agreed on this point, citing Dr. Magdi Yacoub. The mention of Yacoub, in this context, regardless of its accuracy, carries sectarian implications. Its forced inclusion in this setting exposes its functional role, much like how some Salafi clerics have attempted to assert that the “Bible acknowledges or foretells the prophecy of Muhammad.”
Mowafi’s discourse transforms illness into a social stigma, linking it to religious non-compliance. This is not accidental but part of a sophisticated disciplinary system that invisibly penetrates societal structures.
The body haunted by obsessions and pain—whether in a mental institution, a clinic, or a prison—has endured a relentless and arduous history. It has remained a violent ritual exercised by authority, any authority, with the aim of stripping it of freedom and enforcing the expected social discipline—one that poses no threat to any historical or political power.
Through similar narratives propagated by Mowafi, fragile identities, weak selves, and pliable bodies take shape. A body stripped of its freedom—coerced into confessions or interrogations, whether through traditional punitive measures or subtler, indirect techniques—is subjected to marginalization and degradation. It is placed at the mercy of illness, pain, death, and annihilation, becoming an object of political and ideological exploitation. In this process, it is molded for the manufacture of suffering, discipline, and the imposition of obedience and the will to power.
The suicidal psychiatric patient, the one who abandons their prayers, or the individual who suffers a stroke or heart attack—as the Egyptian doctor propagates—are merely clinical ploys designed to spread suffering and craft scenes of public torture with calculated cruelty and precision. These narratives serve to fuel and inject fear into the very veins of the social body.
Mowafi, who previously claimed that “mental illness does not afflict a believer, that the religious do not experience anxiety and therefore do not suffer from depression, and that a devout person—whether Muslim or Christian—is less likely to develop mental illness,” systematically accumulates bodies that are stigmatized with degradation and deviance or placed under perpetual guardianship and the threat of exclusion from the public sphere. This exclusion serves to privilege other bodies that fall within his sphere of influence—bodies that are easily reclaimed, possessed, or owned, and that ultimately reflect his values and discourse. Here, the body becomes a social memory, carrying divergent influences and embodying varied political and historical narratives.
Among the deceptive tactics employed by Dr. Hossam Mowafi is his anecdote in one of his episodes about a book he purchased—”400 pages long, expensive, and priced in dollars.” The book’s title? Water. Despite taking him nearly a month to read, he claims that a mosque preacher summarized its entire essence in just four words while reciting a Quranic verse during the dawn prayer—the same prayer, he insists, that protects against strokes.
According to the Egyptian doctor, the book discusses the issue of “water dilution of blood components. If it exceeds the required limit, it could be fatal to humans. When water enters the body, four organs—the heart, liver, kidneys, and brain—rush to expel the excess water, as a healthy body does not retain it.”
He continued: “I finished the book and prostrated in gratitude to God for understanding it. Then, I went down to pray and found that the imam of the mosque summed up the entire book in just four words,” referring to the Quranic verse: “And We send the fertilizing winds, then cause water to descend from the sky, and We give it to you to drink, though you are not its keepers.” (Surah Al-Hijr 15:22)
The claim of the Quran’s precedence in knowledge—whether scientific and medical, astronomical, legal, human rights-related, or even in the fields of social sciences and anthropology—has long been echoed by others before, most notably Mustafa Mahmoud and Zaghloul El-Naggar. It is as if history, in its cyclical nature, never tires of repeating itself—”once as tragedy, and many times as farce,” to borrow the words of the German philosopher Karl Marx.
These statements are no different from what the same doctor previously mentioned about his striking (and supposedly remarkable?!) observations on the streets of Paris, meant to illustrate how Islam is more prevalent in the West than among Muslims themselves—echoing the familiar refrain: “I found Islam, but I did not find Muslims.”
Mawafi stated that he had observed the percentage of frowning faces in France during a visit 15 years ago. He claimed that approximately 96 percent of people in the streets of France were smiling, while only 4% appeared sullen. He then referenced a hadith attributed to the Prophet: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Shall I tell you something that, if you do, will cause you to love one another? Spread peace among yourselves.” Mawafi commented, “I swear to God, as you walk through France, you see this hadith in action.”
He also warned against “rushing” to the mosque for prayer, claiming that it could lead to high blood pressure. Instead, he advised his audience, in the same program, to adhere to the prophetic tradition as stated in another hadith: “When the prayer is established, do not come running to it. Rather, approach it calmly and with dignity. Whatever you catch, pray, and whatever you miss, complete it later.”
This inability to break free from a cyclical, repetitive historical narrative seems akin to a “childhood fixation,” which, as sociologist Gérard Mendel describes, leads to “the child’s tendency to idolize the adult (tradition/religion), attributing to them absolute and magical authority.”
