PROPHET’S MEDICINE AMONG THE CONTEMPORARY INDONESIAN SALAFI GROUPS

The old-centuries medical forms claimed to have been exemplified by the Prophet Muhammad, called Prophet’s medicine, have been reinvented by the contemporary Indonesian Salafis. This invention is parts of their attempts to return all aspects of life to the authoritative resources. In doing so, the Salafis use modern packaging to attract non-Salafi Muslims. As a result, Prophet’s medicine has been popular among certain Muslim groups. The presence of Prophet’s medicine, to some extent, challenges conventional medicine which is hardly affordable by the average people. This is made possible by an open political climate which occurs in Indonesia over the last two decades. It eventually leads to the diversity of medicinal knowledge in the country. [Bentuk pengobatan yang telah berusia berabad-abad yang diklaim dipraktikkan oleh Nabi Muhammad, yang disebut pengobatan Nabi, diketemukan kembali oleh kelompok Salafi kontemporer. Penemuan ini bagian dari upaya mereka untuk mengembalikan seluruh aspek kehidupan ke sumber yang otoritatif. Walhasil, pengobatan Nabi menjadi populer di kalangan kelompok Muslim tertentu. Kehadiran pengobatan ini, dalam beberapa hal, menantang kehadiran pengobatan konvensional yang nyaris tidak terjangkau oleh masyarakat umum. Upaya ini dapat terjadi berkat keterbukaan politik yang terjadi di Indonesia beberapa dekade terakhir. Ini menimbulkan keragaman pengobatan di tanah air.]


Introduction
Prophet's medicine has been recently remarkable in Indonesia. It suddenly became parts of public life which attracts many researchers to study about. 123 Previously it was almost invisible laying at hands of traditional healers who were unable to compete with modern medicine. As the Indonesian Salafi movement became bigger, Prophet's medicine which is parts of its interest also became more visible. It is sufficient to say that the Salafis have been credited for revitalizing this old-century medical treatment. Nowadays, Prophet's medicine not only become the Salafi issues, non-Salafi Muslims as well as non-Muslims also take this.
This article seeks to explain the sociological backgrounds where Prophet's medicine is developed and reinvented in contemporary Indonesia. It is important to say that knowledge about Prophet's medicine is previously limited. 4 An ample of its knowledge was circulated among santri, literally meaning someone who studies in tne pesantren (Islamic boarding school). 56 scholar Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya . 18 The rediscovery of the Prophet's medicine by the Salafis was made possible due to the Indonesian changing political structures, which had profound implications to the social and political landscapes of the country. 1920 As a different current of medicine, the Prophet's medicine started to flourish and became more publicly known, offering its superiority over conventional medicine, while at the same time creating financial benefits to its practitioners. Furthermore, Salafis and other Muslim groups in general have long suspected that conventional medicine contains dangerous chemical elements and impure elements such as pig gelatin. 2122 These issues were a wake-up call to perceived threats to the identities of Muslims and other consumers who have every right to be protected.

When Doctors Can't Do Anything
Hasyim was one of the most prominent raqi (exorcist) in Makassar, South Sulawesi, one of the fastest growing cities in the eastern Indonesian. Many people in the city knew him as he hosted various programs on local radio stations about Islamic medicine. He was the Secretary of Wahdah Islamiyah, the largest Salafi organization in the Eastern part of Indonesia. In the mid-1980s, he married a member of the halaqa (Islamic study circle) and not long after his marriage he experienced one of the most defining moments that changed his entire life. His wife was extremely ill. As usual, 18 Alina Kokoschka, Birgit Krawietz, & Georges Tamer, Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013 he took her to the doctor and after some time she was getting better. But then she fell ill again. A traditionalist Muslim teacher told him that his wife might have been struck by black magic. At that moment he had only sighed. After a while he wondered why he had not listened to this traditional teacher and he started to read about black magic. Initially, he read al-Tibb. After having finished reading the book, he concluded that black magic (Ar. sihr) indeed exists and he discovered that the Prophet Muhammad practiced exorcism to drive out evil spirits. He learned ruqya (exorcism) himself with the intention to cure his wife. He carefully read the hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad practiced exorcism as well as the manual and instructions other Salafi ulama had written. At first, he was not quite sure whether his experiment would succeed but after some time he saw the impact of the Qur'an's spiritual power. His wife started to recover.
In the mid-1990s, when Wahdah cadres returned from their studies at Saudi Arabian universities, his inclination toward exorcism found justification. Many of them brought books that dealt with Salafi scholarship on exorcism 23 and he started to study exorcism more seriously as well as to promote it as a part of Salafi da'wah. He even wrote about exorcism for his master degree at the local university. In the late 1990s, his career as a professional healer took off when a local radio station invited him to give regular talks on exorcism and black magic. Initially, he was not quite sure whether the public would be interested in his talks, but to his surprise, his talks continued for four 23 Al-Tibb al-Nabawi (Prophet's Medicine) is the name of a chapter that can be found in many hadith books. It explains various hadith regarding the medical treatment of the Prophet Muhammad. The presence of these hadith has encouraged many Muslim scholars to develop a literary genre on Islamic medicine. Various Muslim scholars have written works on medicine, including, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziya, Medicine of the Prophet, trans. Penelope Johnstone (Cambridge: The Islamic Text Society, 1998); Jalal al-Din 'Abd-Rahman ibn Abu Bakar al-Suyuti, Traditional Medicine of the Prophet, trans. Cyril Elgood (Istanbul: Dar al-Fikr, 1999). These works have become main references for the Salafis in their development of present-day Islamic medicine. years as the public loved them. At the same time, he began to open his clinic in downtown Makassar.

The "Prophet's Medicine"
Two important points need to be explained in relation to the term "Prophet's medicine." First, not all Muslim scholars, as we will see soon, have the same understanding of it. Their definitions vary greatly from one scholar to another. 242526 One group argues that socalled Islamic medicine consists of the methods and the practices of the Prophet Muhammad as embedded in a number of books of the al-Tibb al-Nabawi genre. 27 This opinion was held by Muslim scholars, among others, al-Jawziyya.
The second group argues that Islam had added various rational and ethical foundations to the medical practice. 28 According to Fazlur Rahman 29 , one of the most noted neo-modernist thinkers, Islam added ethical and philosophical foundations to the medicine practice, which contributed to the development of Islamic medicine. These foundations encouraged Muslim scholars to develop medical methods and technics and to incorporate the legacies of pre-Islamic civilizations, particularly from Greece and Persia. This opinion is held by, among others, the 24 Cyril Elgood, "The Medicine of the Prophet," Medical History, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1962. pp. 146-53. 25 Muh} ammad ibn Abī Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Healing with the Medicine of the Prophet (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2003 Muslim sociologist Ibn al-Khaldun. 30 Based on my observation, Islamic medicine in Indonesia, as Salafi practice, comprises of three elements: (1) herbal, (2) cupping, and (3) ruqya. Herbal refers to the use of natural ingredients believed to be beneficial to human health. The use of olive oil, honey, and milk for cures, for instance, has been shared widely among many great civilizations. 31 These natural ingredients have been spiritually endorsed by the Sharia as many verses in the Qur'an and the hadith explain their effectiveness. Meanwhile cupping has been widely known as a curing method. Thus, Islamic medicine was not necessarily invented by the Prophet; rather it is a collection of human knowledge on medicine taken from different sources, passed down in Prophetic scriptures, and further justified by Islamic ethics.
As a civilization heavily influenced by Babylonian and Mesopotamian elements, where astronomy and astrology were deemed the most valuable sciences, Islam inherited these two sciences and developed them for its own purposes. 32 While Islam uses astronomy for practical purposes such as the determination of the direction of the ka'aba and prayer times, astrology (called ilmu nujum) has been used for forecasting (ilmu ramal). This science was combined with other forms of magic, charms, and divination. 3334 Vol. 9, No. 1, 2015, p. 45-63. magic in the Muslim world. 35 It is widely used in Indonesia and Southeast Asia in general and has been translated into a locally simple version called mujarrabat (a collection of prayers believed to be endowed with spiritual power). 363738

Medicine, Jamu, and Herbal Potions
To understand the discussion on Islamic herbal potions in contemporary Indonesia, three terms need to be explained: medicine, jamu, and herbal. 3940 In most cases, the term medicine refers to Western medicine, which uses chemical compounds in its production. Medicine is translated into the Indonesian language as obat even though the term may include all forms of medicine. The use of modern medicine started in the early twentieth century. 41 However, the campaign for the use of modern medicine only attracted a specific segment of the population, particularly people attached to the colonial bureaucracy. The majority of the population did not use modern medicine but used local ingredients for remedies or the people visited traditional healers called dukun. The introduction of public schools and the establishment of health institutions such as hospitals and faculties of medicine made medicine more popular and marginalized the "heterodox" heirloom of the ancestors. As a part of this indigenous cultural repertoire, the use of jamu (traditional or folk medicine) gradually declined and it only lived on as a rudimentary leftover in the lives of the indigenous population.
Jamu survives thanks to the royal courts, ordinary families and merchants. Jamu is believed to be made following indigenous recipes whose origin can be traced back to the royal literati. 42 Jamu belongs not only to the Javanese ethnic group, the largest ethnic group who successfully developed a large variety of jamu products in the current Indonesian market. It also belongs to many other ethnic groups in Indonesia. A great deal of knowledge about jamu is shared among various Indonesian ethnic groups and it is public knowledge among the respective communities. Its main ingredients are roots, tree trunk, leaves, and flowers of certain plants believed to have therapeutic qualities to cure a variety of human diseases. The abundant use of these natural ingredients makes the jamu extremely bitter and its color murky and thus children and youths do not particularly like it. To attract consumers especially youths and children, the jamu manufacturers add materials such as honey to improve the taste.
The use of herbals in Indonesia and Southeast Asia is extensive. 434445 and it is part of folk medicine. 46 Indonesian health practitioners who had previously studied abroad such as doctors, nurses, and pharmacists were the first persons to popularize the term. problematic, they refrained from using the terms "jamu" or "obat" to indicate natural ingredients that were beneficial to people's health. 47 While jamu was associated with the local and traditional packages, obat, as I said above, is associated with chemical elements. Instead, they used the term "herbal" which is neutral and modern at one go.

Afiafit, a Yogyakarta-Based Herbal Brand
Wirokerten is a Salafi enclave. It is a part of the Banguntapan subdistrict (kecamatan). The Salafi community in Wirokerten is concentrated in many villages. The origin of this enclave goes back to the 1980s when a number of Salafi people were looking to create their own settlement. This village was selected because the local population had already for generations grown all kinds of herbal plants such as turmeric and ginger, the two main ingredients of jamu and they sold them in the local markets. Due to conventional technics and lack of financial support, this business did not offer them any financial benefits.
The Salafis came to this village with the intention of reviving this agricultural business, working side by side with the local population, which happily supported the idea. They even rented their land to the Salafis and received their payments after harvests. The cooperation between the Salafis and the local population was very positive and boosted the business. Because the prospects of this herbal industry were promising, in the early 2000s, some Salafi investors were ready to expand the business. They erected a factory not far from the Glondongan enclave. Realizing that they would be unable to compete with traditional jamu, they decided to create their own brand as an Islamic herbal industry, one of the first companies to explicitly do so.
Unlike jamu, which mostly uses traditional Javanese names, Islamic herbal understandably uses Islamic terms. Offering medicine believed to be rooted in the Islamic tradition, Islamic herbal should assure its consumers that it is indeed Islamic and meets all Islamic regulations. Information regarding its ingredients, its means of production, as well as its effectiveness is written on each package and includes various quotes from Qur'anic verses and the hadith. The messages on these packages are so important that eventually the people were willing to purchase these products. Many consumers I met in various Islamic herbal outlets said that they bought the products because of their Islamic qualities. They were convinced that the products would cure them from their ailments. Furthermore it is clearly stated that the products are made in accordance with the halal regulation of the MUI (Majlis Ulama Indonesia -Indonesian Council of the Ulama), an institution that authorizes halal labeling in Indonesia.
Afiafit consists of two words: afia (Ar. meaning 'healthy') and fit (Eng. likewise meaning healthy). While demonstrating its Islamic qualities, Afiafit seeks to grab a new segment of the market that is different from jamu consumers who are mostly ordinary Indonesian people. Islamic herbal seems not to compete with jamu, which has an extremely good reputation among Indonesian consumers but it also does not want to compete with Western medicine which controls most of the medicine market in Indonesia.
Afiafit is a private company and its owners are members of the Salafi community. They established the company for two reasons: because of the availability of skilled workers and experts within the community and for economic gain. It is worth noting that many Salafi members have degrees in pharmacy and medicine. 48 They combine their modern knowledge with that of the Islamic tradition. Most of the workers are Salafis who live around Glondongan. It is worth noting also that finding a new job is extremely difficult, especially for Salafis because of various constraints. For instance, Salafis attempt to pray on time and they want to apply gender segregation, two things that can hardly ever be achieved in a non-Salafi environment. For this reason, Salafis tend to create their own businesses to guarantee their own privacy. It therefore makes sense that Afiafit rather employs workers from its own internal Salafi circles. 49 Apart from helping friends and colleagues, Afiafit is determined to empower local communities, especially farmers. Local farmers supply most of the herbal ingredients and they benefit greatly from Afiafit's presence. In the 1970s, most of the farmers in the neighborhood planted rice once or twice a year depending upon the volume of rainfall. In the late 1980s, because of poor agriculture infrastructure and due to urbanization, many farmers abandoned their rice fields and went to the cities to improve their economic situation. 50 Those who stayed behind in the village sought to survive by planting rice, potatoes and yams for their own consumption. Due to poverty, some of them even sold their land and migrated to the cities. 51 Since Afiafit's establishment in the late 1990s, however, changes occurred. In the post-harvest season, the villagers can now use their land by planting the various herbs Afiafit needs and thus they gain extra income.
Afiafit never fails to accept the crops of the local farmers as long as they are organic. Instead of using chemical fertilizers, Afiafit warns the farmers only to use natural or organic fertilizers, which are also cheaper. 52 Initially, it was difficult to teach the farmers not to use chemical fertilizers because they had been heavily dependent upon them for so long. During the New Order, the farmers were politically mobilized to create food 49 Adis Duderija, "Constructing the Religious Self and the Other: Neo-Traditional Salafi Manhaj," Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2010, pp. 75-93. 50 Alden Speare, and John Harris, "Education, Earnings, and Migration in Indonesia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 34, No. 2, 1986, pp. 223-244. 51 Asep Suryahadi, Gracia Hadiwidjaja, and Sudarno Sumarto, "Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Indonesia Before and After the Asian Financial Crisis," Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, 2012, pp. 209-227. 52 "Pupuk Organik Kurang Diminati Petani," Media Indonesia, February, 28, 2019, https: //mediaindonesia.com/read/detail/219967-pupuk-organik-kurang-diminati-petani. p, accessed September, 13, 2020. independency (Ind. swasembada pangan), and they used chemical fertilizers to have better harvests 53 . After some training by Afiafit officials, working with the university and local authorities, the farmers began to notice the benefits of organic fertilizers. The harvests became bigger, the land did not deteriorate as quickly as before. Because of these good results, Afiafit and the farmers started a campaign to use organic fertilizers not only among the farmers in the neighborhood by also among the local communities in general.
Because of this cooperation, the Salafi group in Glondongan does not have any problem promoting its teachings. Many local farmers have now turned into Salafi members and they regularly attend the religious lectures the Salafis offer. This can be seen in the Salafi Friday congregations and during other religious public lectures where villagers also participate. In neighborhood forums such as Posyandu (Pos Pelayanan Terpadu-Integrated Health Service Post), a government-community health service, many Salafi women are active and also many ordinary women participated. The cooperation between the Salafis and the local populations has made the intrusion of Salafi da'wah even more profound. Many farmers support Salafi programs especially those on education and social activities. Many farmers give crops during harvest season to the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) such as rice, potatoes, yams, and bananas. At the same time, they offer free labor for mosque and madrasa constructions, to which they eventually will send their children.
In 2012, Afiafit so far had 30 workers. It paid all the workers in accordance with the provincial minimum payment regulation (UMR), which was around IDR 1.250.000 (US$ 85) per month. Apart from this, the company also provides its worker with various other benefits (education aids, childbirth insurance).

The Efficacy of Black Caraway
Black caraway (Ar. al-habbat al-sawdaa; Ind. jinten hitam; Latin Nigella sativa) is the most important ingredient in Islamic herbal medicine. Some hadith narrates that the Prophet used this ingredient to cure his illness. 54 Prior to the coming of Islam, the efficacy of black caraway had already been widely recognized. It had been used particularly in the Middle East and in the Southeast Asian countries to treat ailments. It is used for inflammatory diseases, to increase milk production in nursing mothers, to promote digestion, and to fight parasitic infections. 55 In traditional societies, it is used to cure non-acute diseases such as fever, flu, headache and asthma. 56 Black caraway has also been known in Indonesia. It was called jintan hitam. However, its use for therapeutic remedies has been relatively limited until recently, which might be related to its scarcity as it is not a plant native to Indonesia. 5758 Black caraway sparked Indonesian public attention at the end of the 1990s when many Salafi groups used it for their herbal medicinal products. Containing amino, calcium, sodium, and iron, it has become a major ingredient for Islamic medicine. So far, Afiafit has imported this plant from Pakistan and Nigeria, two countries that have become black caraway's main producers. If regularly consumed, it can improve the workings of the kidneys, blood circulation and reduce blood sugar levels. women, it cures menstruation disorders and reduces cancer risks 59 . Using this ingredient, Afiafit produces various capsules, pills, and powders and the prices of each product (packaged in a bottle containing 50 capsules) range between IDR 40.000 (US$ 35) to IDR 80.000 (US$ 7) (the total produce per month is 10.000 bottles).
What is more interesting for our discussion is that Afiafit promotes its products not simply based on the Islamic tradition. Its products are also made in accordance with the Javanese jamu prescription. On each package is written: "Dibuat sesuai dengan konsep kesehatan Nabi dengan ramuan asli tradisional Indonesia" (It is based on the Prophet's concept of health combined with the indigenous Indonesian tradition). This announcement conveys the message that Afiafit does not only want to grab the Muslim consumers but also seeks to promote its products beyond religious boundaries.
Afiafit's promotion of Islamic medicine is an attempt to proof that such a thing really exists. People need to know that Islam has developed its own medical tradition, which differs from other traditions. Islamic medicine, the Afiafit management argues, need not to be confronted with Western or Chinese medicine. All medical traditions have their own merits, strengths and weaknesses. In the context of globalization, each tradition moves to the centre and this process leads to the diversity of medicine. The Afiafit management further asserts that this is only the beginning. It should not end with the mere introduction of black caraway capsules. This diversity can only be achieved if Afiafit is able to enter into cooperation with other companies.

Hujama and Ruqya
It is almost impossible to discuss Islamic herbal medicine without also mentioning hujama and ruqya. Although they are separate entities, many herbal outlets offer hujama, and many hujama clinics offer ruqya in order to cleanse their patients' souls before they are cupped and given herbal prescriptions for their treatment. Herbal medicine, cupping, and exorcism are thus one-package products which are important from the point of view of marketing strategies. An exorcist or cupper who works individually and get his orders by telephone, would automatically recommend the closest herbal outlets where his patients can purchase the best herbal medicine in town.
Cupping is the detoxification of the blood by removing it from of the patient's body with the use of a cup-like device. 6061 This method is believed to be able to cure various diseases such as high cholesterol, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, and kidney disorders. The blood that is removed from the body is believed to be dirty and to contain a residue of dead cells that may interfere and even endanger the body's metabolism and its organs. In former times, cupping was performed by traditional healers or native doctors (Ind. dukun) who combined their medicinal knowledge with spiritual power. They used very modest devices such as knives, bandages, and they used betel leaves as an antibiotic. Nowadays, cupping is a profession anybody can do who has gone through the necessary training and education and who has the proper knowledge of medicine. The cupping instruments are now made in a sophisticated way and consist of small needles, knives, cups, pumps, antibiotics, olive oil, cotton, tissues, and sphygmometers. While some are made at home, most of the cupping instruments are imported from China, which has successfully developed its traditional medicine. 62 60 Marzia Ahmedi, and Muhammed R. Siddiqui, "The Value of Wet Cupping as a Therapy in Modern Medicine-an Islamic Perspective," Alternative Medicine, Vol. 5, No. 12, 2014. 61 Naseem Akhtar Qureshi et al, "History of Cupping (Hijama): A Narrative Review of Literature," Journal of Integrative Medicine, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2017, pp. 172-181. 62 Huijuan Cao (et.al.), "Clinical Research Evidence of Cupping Therapy in China: A Systematic Literature Review," BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2010, pp. 70. Before cupping begins, the cupper and the cuppee pray to God to seek His protection, at least they read the basmalah. Some cuppers even offer ruqya to their patients to purify their souls and to evict evil spirits that might interfere with the cupping process. The cupper then measures the patient's blood pressure and heart beat. If they are normal, the cupping will be continued. The cupper may also ask whether the patient has a headache or if he is nauseous. If yes, the cupping will not be continued because it may have a negative impact. The cupping begins by sterilizing the surface of the skin where the cupping is going to take place. Some cuppers prefer to use olive oil rather than regular antibiotics. The reason for this is clear, antibiotics contain alcohol, while the use of olive oil has spiritual connotations as the Qur'an mentions its efficacy (QS 95:1). The cup is then put on the sterilized areas and the cupper will decompress the cup. Because of this decompression, the cuppee will feel that his blood pressure moves to that area. The decompression lasts 5 to 10 minutes to ensure that all the dirty blood is concentrated under the cupping spot. Afterwards, the cupper will prick the surface of the skin with a small needle, and the dirty blood will come out. It is said that the quantity of the blood indicates the acuteness of the disease. The more blood, the more acute the disease. When everything is done, the shooting areas will be cleaned with antibiotics or olive oil and the entire process takes about one hour. Some patients reportedly feel drowsy and weak after the cupping. It is therefore recommended that they should sit for a while and have a sweet drink to recover. After cupping, driving a car and operating machines are strictly prohibited. The aftereffects of the cupping will clear up after a few days. The body will be relieved, pain and fatigue will have disappeared. Within weeks or months, however, they came back. It is said that life style, food consumption, and exercise affected metabolism. Human's body can be compared with a car that needs a regular change of oil after having been used for hundreds of miles. For this reason, it is recommended to take cupping regularly. For healthy people, cupping may be taken every two months. For the ill, it can be done every two weeks. During one cupping session, one may be cupped in several spots, between 6 to 12, depending on the disease and the patient's complaints. All parts of the body can be cupped but people usually take cupping on the neck, back, waist, pelvis, buttocks, up to the coccyx. Other places may include the feet, thigh, shank, heel, waist, and hands. Some people take cupping for health reasons, while others want to enhance their sexual drive and fertility.
The phenomenon of cupping attracts many segments of the population. Men and women, old and young, rural and urban people came for cupping. Various patients I met in Bengkel Rohani, one of the largest cupping clinics in Ciputat, Tangerang, said that they eventually came to the clinic after having tried various other medicine treatments. The holistic approach towards illness and wellness has become the most important reason for many people to be cupped. In this philosophy, health not only concerns the body, the worldly material, but it is also about kehidupan rohani, spiritual life.
While cupping has been well-known in Indonesia long before the coming of the Salafi groups, the Salafis claim that their cupping has been authenticated according to the Sharia. Apart from Muslim consumers, non-Muslims also take cupping. Data on this issue are scarce but based on some information, non-Muslims visit cupping clinics to cure the diseases they suffer from much like Muslims. Concerning this, it is interesting how cupping as a method initially developed by Salafis has gradually attracted larger segments of the population regardless of their religious, social, and economic backgrounds.
Although public enthusiasm about cupping is relatively high, there are still many problems to solve. The biggest problem is that as a profession, cupping has yet to attain legal status from the authorities. 63 This aspect is extremely important as to give a sense of security not only to the cuppers themselves but also to their patients. In the long run, having legal status will provide cuppers with a good career, much like other careers like doctors and nurses. To this end, cuppers, most of whom belong to Salafi groups, established ABI (Asosiasi Bekam Indonesia-Indonesian Cupper Association) in 2007. The goal of this association is to standardize cupping and to upgrade the cupper's bargaining position in relation to government's policies. At the same time, it was also established to share information and knowledge with other cuppers. Nevertheless, the road to success is not an easy one.

Ruqya Shar'iyya
Ruqya means magical words, spells, or charms to control-and usually dispel or contain-supernatural spirit. The practice of ruqya is almost universal. Many societies believe that diseases are caused by jin, evil spirits, and black magic. 64 Many diseases or ailments can be cured by ruqya especially evil possession (Ar. al-shar'u, Ind. kesurupan) and mental disorders. Spiritual and mental disorders usually start when a person starts dreaming of encountering a wild animal, a black jackal or meeting a man with an ugly face. The dream is followed by convulsion, hysteria, and extreme anxiety. These phenomena can hardly be explained by modern medical science. Jin harm people by entering their brain and thus disturb their consciousness. This kind of illness cannot be cured by conventional doctors, but by native medicine men or traditional healers. In pre-modern society, magicians enjoyed a high reputation in society and they had a great 63  deal of prestige. 65 After the arrival of modernity, their roles gradually declined and magic was replaced by science and technology.
Notwithstanding the domination of science within modern societies, magic has not entirely disappeared. In the early of Islamic history, the Prophet Muhammad prohibited all kinds of ruqya as they potentially caused shirk (poltytheism). The Prophet was concerned with safeguarding the Muslim community's faith and he did not want the ummah to return to pre-Islamic traditions. However, when the faith of the ummah had been firmly established, he allowed ruqya. The main reason for this was that the Qur'an itself contains passages concerned with magical power. The Prophet's Companion, Auf ibn Malik, once asked the Prophet Muhammad about ruqya. The Prophet replied: "Show me your ruqya. There is nothing wrong with ruqya as long as it does not contain polytheism" (narrated by Bukhari and Muslim). In the course of history, the Muslim population has practiced ruqya aimed at spiritual healing and evicting evil spirits.
Ruqya made its comeback in Indonesian religious discourse thanks to the Salafi groups who promote it. The Salafis revived ruqya as a form of medical treatment for the ill. As I argued earlier, this method is often combined with herbal medicine and cupping. As far as Salafis are concerned, ruqya is the invocation of Qur'anic verses in front of sick people in order to cure them. "And, we send down from the Qur'an that which is healing and provides mercy for the believers, but it does not increase the wrongdoers except in loss" (QS 17:82).
According to Hasyim, Salafis are really concerned with ruqya as it is part of Islamic teachings. For this reason, they have been trying to re-enter ruqya into the Sharia. Ruqya shar'iyya can be characterized as follows: The ruqya specialist is committed to uphold the Sharia and he or she performs his religious obligations such as performing prayers and 65 Nicholas Herriman, "Fear and Uncertainty: Local Perceptions of the Sorcerer and the State in an Indonesian Witch-Hunt," Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2006, pp. 360-387. fasting. Furthermore, ruqya should be stated in clear and understandable language, most preferably Arabic but using a vernacular language with a clear meaning is justifiable. 66 Bearing this in mind, vague words like spells or charms are prohibited as they may invoke the involvement of the jin and thus polytheistic powers. 67 Moreover, it is said explains that the use of certain media such as incense, offerings, and daggers, are strictly prohibited. Their presence may interfere with the consciousness of both the exorcist and the exorcee aimed to request the help of God and God alone. The only justified means, it is argued, is water through which the spiritual power of the prayers is transferred, and subsequently scrubbed on or drunk by the sick.
Along with the growing popularity of ruqya, some ruqya entrepreneurs offer spiritual healing to the public. The way they market their services is rather provocative and some of them have an eccentric physical appearance such as wearing black clothes, sporting long hair, and a wearing a canine necklace, to convince their patients that they have spiritual power. They charge prime airtime on TV stations to attract customers and claim that they are able to cure any kind of disease. Many people come to them to be cured although they have to pay a huge amount of money. Even though they practice ruqya and use various prayers taken from the Qur'an, their ruqya is totally against the Sharia. Instead of requesting God's help, they in fact invoke the jin's assistance. According to Hasyim, seeking help from the jin is very common as the latter attempt to lead the former astray from the right path of God. This phenomenon is in fact a form of modern magic practice (Ind. perdukunan modern), which Islam strictly prohibits.
Although Hasyim has practiced ruqya for the last two decades, he never has a fixed price. He told me many stories that in earlier times, many pious ulama practiced ruqya without accepting any payment from their patients. They simply did it to help people and not to look for money. Local patrons or the community where they lived usually took care of a raqi's needs. He further said that there is a hadith that clearly prohibits accepting money for ruqya as it would prejudice the good intentions of the raqi. This does not mean that he never accepts anything from his patients. Instead, he would be happy to accept gifts, donations, or even money. He just did not want to have to state a fixed price in advance. In this way, not only could he guarantee the effectiveness of his treatment, having to fix his price would disturb his concentration and profane his intention. He just put a box in his clinic in Makassar where patients can donate their money, usually anonymous, in sealed envelopes. Despite this anonymity, he is hardly ever underpaid. In general, patients know the payment he deserves. Apart from this, when patients have fully recovered he usually gets extra payment and gifts including food and fruits.
People's appreciation of a healer is sometimes beyond modern calculation. In Tangerang, about fifty kilometers to the West of Jakarta, where a native doctor named Abah Atma opened his clinic, a former patient gave him a new permanent building designed with Javanese architecture. It was told that the patient, a Javanese businessman, was extremely grateful when he was fully recovered after having been treated in his clinic. As a result, he dedicated this building to his healer so that the latter could treat more patients. Like Hasyim, Abah Atma never fixed his rates. He just put a big box inside his room where patient leave their envelopes before leaving so that they can give the amount of money they can afford to spend. A thyroid patient from Ciputat told me that he put one million rupiah (around US$ 90) inside the envelope.
Hasyim was silent when I asked him how he could survive as a healer without fixed prices. He just shook his head. "That's commercialization," he said. He said that while payment is inevitable in all human business, commercialization might jeopardize his business. He said that if people measure everything from the aspect of money, baraka (blessing) will get lost. He was not sure whether his profession will survive. He was just concerned with the fact that he can help others. In addition, when they know that they were helped and well treated, they will give something in return. That is how his profession will survive. At the end of the interview, he quoted the Qur'anic verse (36:21): "Follow those who do not ask [payment] and they are rightly guided." He said that this verse deals with the Messengers of God, from Adam to Muhammad. They never asked for payment from their people as God will reward them in the Hereafter.

Conclusion
Over the last two decades, the Salafis have developed and popularized a narrative about "Prophet's Medicine" which is based on methods and practices claimed to have been developed by the Prophet Muhammad. The definition of Prophet's Medicine varies widely among Muslim scholars, so that in Indonesia Salafis have had the latitude to re-frame local forms of herbal medicine and curative ritual as "Islamic medicine" even when the practices are still exactly the same as those rooted in other Indonesian traditions.
Salafi promotion of Prophet Medicine cannot be separated from the poor public health services in Indonesia where only wealthy people can afford proper health treatment. Many people even suspect that conventional drugs contain dangerous elements for human health and impure ingredients such as the pig gelatin. These aspects have become the reason for Salafis to promote their brand of medicine.
Prophet medicine attracts a particular segment of the Muslim community who believes that this form of medicine is healthy and pure. Equally important is that, the practice of Prophet Medicine also opens new economic prospects. It gives jobs for Salafi members as well as other Muslim people who get involved in this activity.
The conceptualization of Prophet's Medicine among Salafis demonstrates that this medical knowledge is open and able to absorb elements from different medical backgrounds as long as they are compatible with Islamic ethics. It is evident that Prophet's Medicine is a mixture of traditional Javanese jamu and Chinese and Western traditions.
Salafis also enter into cooperation with other institutions such as universities to make their products fully accepted by the wider Indonesian community. This fact, once again, proves that Indonesian Salafi groups actively participate in shaping the existing religious and social discourses in the country, even as the knowledge they spread as "Islamic" also is shaped by these discourses.
The phenomenon of the Prophet medicine is extremely interesting and yet largely neglected by scholars. Many scholars still focus on the political dimension of Salafi groups and seem to overlook these critical aspects of their cultural reproduction of themselves as Salafi. As a result, studies on Salafism have not been able to look beyond the bitterly contested dichotomies as apoliticism vs jihadism, muslim vs kafir, etc. which Salafis utilize in their polemics, but which actually conceal a more complex underlying reality.