There seem to be a couple of us here, so I thought I would shed some light on a long estableshed problem that has existed between the two communities.
It has been well known in the
Pagan communty for a while that
Muslims seem to have a major problem with
Witches, but it hasn't always been clear. This is mostly due to a lack of
communication between the two groups, but I've managed to break into a little bit of what the problem is. I was talking to a friend of mine, who is a very
devout Muslim, and asked her what the problem is. Her thought was that a lot of it stems from the
Arabic word for Witch. Being a much
older language, there are a lot of
connotations carried with it. The best explanation of exactly what the word
embodies is someone with
supernatural powers, granted to them by some being, usually a
demon, who, and this is the important part, uses these powers for
self-serving purposes, in the process using and
manipulating others with no thought of
consequence towards the manipulated parties.
With that understanding of what many Muslims think of when someone labels themselves as a Witch or a
Wiccan, it's kind of easy to understand why they have such a huge problem with those who identify themselves in that way.