Introduction to Hijamah

The word cupping was derived from the Arabic word al hajm, which means “sucking.” Also, hijamah is an Arabic word that means “wet cupping” or “medicinal bleeding.” In Arabic, they say that a certain person diminished the problem; they meant that he returned the problem to its original size. Thus he who performed the cupping operation made diseases refrain from attacking him. The increase of spoiled blood (the old red blood cells, toxins, viruses) in the body rendered its cessation from growing when the person became twenty-two years old, and it accumulated in the back area of the person. With advance in age, these accumulations of spoiled blood hindered the circulation of the whole blood, eventually paralyzed the work of the young red corpuscles, and then the body became weak and exposed to various kinds of diseases. When one performed cupping, the blood returned to its original condition and the stagnant blood went away (that blood which contained the maximum rate of senile red corpuscles and their cells, ghosts and abnormal shapes of red blood cells, and other impurities). The pressure on the blood circulation was lessened, and the pure blood formed from young red corpuscles rushed to feed the cells and the body organs and released them from harmful residues, damages, and unwanted materials.