Cairo: Four months ago, Mike Feghali, a Lebanese fortune-teller hosted by the private anti-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian channel CBC, predicted that then president Mohammad Mursi will not complete his tenure.
“Mursi will step down or be assassinated,” the fortune-teller said.
Amid a nationwide anger at the time against Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails, viewers might consider that prophecy logical.
Sooner the Brotherhood-owned channel Misr 25 reacted with another prophecy.
In a phone-in conversation a woman seemingly supporting Mursi said she saw him in a dream with eight doves on his shoulders, one black and seven white.
An interpreter of dreams said it means that Mursi will remain as President for eight years. The black dove means that one year would be very difficult, while the rest will be good years.
In another phone conversation a man said he saw Mursi in a dream sitting on a rocking chair. Then a handsome man appeared. He was the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). He put his hand on the chair stopping its continuous movement. He said to Mursi “stay stable in your place”.
A few days before June 30 mass demonstrations which toppled Mursi, Dr Abdul Rahman Al Barr, a cleric for the Muslim Brotherhood, said at a public conference in Beni Suef, Upper Egypt, that a Jewish rabbi during the Nasser regime predicted that a man named Mohammad, the third Mohammad to lead Egypt in modern times, would liberate Jerusalem and destroy Israel.
Al Barr concluded that Mursi is that man. Mohammad Anwar Sadat was the first “Mohammad” and Mohammad Hosni Mubarak the second.
The cleric didn’t give a word on who this alleged rabbi was and his audience wasn’t the type to demand corroboration for bizarre statements.
But there was a brief kerfuffle. A Salafi leader criticised him for believing the words of a magician who makes predictions outside of Islamic belief.
The Brotherhood cleric partly retracted, claiming that of course he does not believe the statements of the rabbi and was surprised people would think so, apparently he just was mentioning it in the context of calling for Egyptians to rise up against Israel, but not referring to it as a prophecy.
Now after the ouster of Mursi the turmoil in Egyptian politics went to unprecedented limits that prominent psychiatrists consider it as a hallucinatory state.
On the podium set up by the Brotherhood at Cairo’s Rabaa Al Adaweya Mosque, where pro-Mursi protests have been protesting for more than three weeks, Ahmad Abdul Hadi, a preacher linked to the Brotherhood, told the Islamist demonstrators about dreams that people have seen recently.
One said that the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was sitting amid Mursi supporters. When prayer time came, the Prophet refused to lead the prayers and told Mursi to lead them. The Prophet himself stood praying behind Mursi.
Another dreamer said that the Archangel Gabriel was hovering above Rabaa Al Adawiya square. A third person said that the Virgin Mary appeared in the place to bless Mursi supporters.
Another preacher repeated the dream of the eight Doves on Mursi’s shoulders. But this time they were green. He interpreted the dream saying that Mursi will continue his first tenure and win a second one.
Safwat Hegazy, a self proclaimed television preacher told Mursi supporters that a Muslim Brotherhood “sister” saw in a dream Abdul Fattah Al Sisi, the defence minister who helped topple Mursi, swimming in a pool filled with blood.
She asked him “when Mursi will return to his post”. Al Sisi responded “After I get some blood that I need”. She asked him “How much of blood you want?” Then the blood covered Al Sisi.
Dr Manal Omar, a professor of Psychiatry in Ain Shams University, said that the dreams suggesting “a legitimacy of the ousted President”, reflect the psychological state of the people in Raba’ Al Adaweya.
They were subjected to a high level of tension, fear and stress that pushed them into a hallucinatory state which makes a patient see or hear fantasies that have nothing to do with the reality.
“While the attendees suffer from a state of disturbance, the preachers are trying to inspire them to believe that the ousted Mursi represents their religious beliefs,” she added.
Dr Amr Mohsin, a professor of psychiatry, finds such dreams normal in the light of “obedience” principle on which the Brotherhood’s supporters were brought up, without review or debate.
“The patient uses untrue and illogical means to express his feelings,” he added.
Mohsin pointed out that the ordinary people in Raba’ Al Adaweya are isolated from the outside world and suffer from a lack of information and facts. That gives the preachers a chance to use lies addressing emotions of the fools and simpletons to get out from the inevitable impasse in which they live.
Dr Mohammad Abdul Fattah, a professor of psychiatry at Al Azhar University, said that Brotherhood leaders know that their end is outside this sit-in.
They would be sentenced to life imprisonment or death penalty. So they’re trying to get out of this end by all means, even telling untrue stories about dreams of the Prophet, Archangel Gabriel or the Virgin Mary.
