Hijama

They are spread all over the city — in dinghy lanes, tiny corner shops, upstairs in narrow alleys, inside four-foot cubicles. Not known by many and often a target of scepticism, but they claim to provide the best medical treatment. In alternate medicine it is known as the cupping therapy; local practitioners call it Hijama.
Inside a Hijama clinic, opposite the Special Investigative Unit of the Sindh police, a patient sits quietly. A cup is inverted over his head, blood collects into the cup. He sits stationary and refuses to move. It is hard to gauge if he is in pain or not.
This is how the treatment works. A glass cup is inverted over an incision made on the body. Blood is sucked into the cup. Once a session is over, the glass cup is broken and discarded.
On the first floor of a building on MA Jinnah Road is situated a clinic which claims to be the pioneer of Hijama in Karachi. It is a modest, three-room office, which comprises a waiting room, a consultation room and a clinic where Hijama is practised.
“It is painless, leaves no marks and has no side effect,” said Tajuddin, the owner who has been practising Hijama for the past 15 years.
He shows a booklet, where pressure points for each illness are marked on a human figure; points for men and women are different. “If you read this book you can become a Hijama practitioner yourself, but it is advisable to practise with an experienced person for a few years before starting one’s own practice.”
The idea behind the treatment is that illness is caused because of infected blood. Sometimes blood collects between the layer of skin and flesh. This blood has to be taken out.
“The problem with anti-biotech and pain killers is that it makes the virus inactive. But the virus inside the body may become active later on. Hijama takes out bad blood, and with it the virus. Hence chances of the disease recurring are very low,” explains Tajuddin.
The man who taught all of Karachi Hijama is not Madrassa-educated. In fact, he is an MBBS doctor and former dean faculty of medicine at the Liaquat National Hospital. Dr Amjad Ahsan Ali has been a staunch believer in Hijama or cupping therapy. His research on the topic has been published internationally.
Now he is often found at Madrassa Ayesha, where he teaches his disciples the art.
Practitioners of Hijama claim to cure acute illnesses, such as cancer, sciatica and problems of the backbone. Several practitioners opt for this particular branch of medicine after personally witnessing its benefits.
“I had terrible pain in my knees. I took treatment for a few months. The pain is gone,” said Ahliya Alees, a woman practitioner.
And people who have benefited from the treatment are not just common people but renowned doctors as well. In fact, some doctors refer patients to the Hijama clinic.
Dr Nadeemullah Khan, an associate professor at a leading medical university hospital in the private sector, in January 2005, wrote that after seeking various orthopedic and rheumatologist, and physiotherapy he sought Hijama. “I underwent the procedure thrice. I got substantial relief the first time, and after three times I got completely cured.”
A cup costs around Rs200 and a session is charged according to the number of cups used.
However, Dr Samrina Hashmi, who heads the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association, remains sceptical. “Never in medical history have I heard about this phenomenon. There is so much blood in the body. How can one be sure which is bad, and remove it from one small incision in the body?”