With only his hands and feet, a dose of Koranic verses or ingredients like honey or amber, Abu Sajad goes to work on the bodily pain and the metaphysical kinks of his patients.
"I inherited this profession from my ancestors. I heal people from backaches, migraines and skin diseases. I also use the holy Koran and my spiritual powers to expel jinn [spirits]," said the 48-year-old traditional healer at his clinic, tucked away among an army of squatters in the devastated military compound.
Arabic graffiti covers several walls of the compound with arrows pointing the way to Abu Sajad's clinic.
"Healing. Abu Sajad clinic. Headaches, muscle contractions, skin disease," said one of the crude advertisements.
Abu Sajad's profession has mushroomed since dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in March 2003. Under his former regime such healers were considered shams and many were either thrown in jail or fled the country.
"I never stayed in one place in Iraq more than a month. I was arrested several times by Saddam's police. But whenever they released me I would go on with my work, knowing that I would be captured again," he said.
He treats his patients in a sparse room with only a plastic mattress on the floor.
Rows of jars filled with colored substances and scraps of papers or stray pens are scattered on the floor, while Shia Muslim clerics stare down from pictures decorating the pale walls like spiritual overseers of the treatments taking place below.
Abu Sajad's personal belongings - a television, a heater, mattress and wooden armoire - also crowd the room.
In the uncertainty that gripped Iraq following Saddam's ouster, many women turned to Abu Sajad and his spiritual guidance, he said.
"I have many customers, especially women who come asking me to perform magic or give them prescriptions to heal them spiritually," he said.
"Many of them fear for the future and a lot of them come asking my help in cases like love, marriage, pregnancy and jealousy."
One of the healer's rituals involves writing special verses of the Koran with a mixture of musk, amber, saffron and rose water on a piece of paper.
The patient submerges the paper in water and drinks some before washing with the rest.
"I have prescription for each [ailment]. It should take 21 days to heal. But if it does not work, then it is God's wish and I cannot change what is written," Abu Sajad said.
The healer says he can only follow what God has permitted.
"Once a married man came to me and asked my help to divorce a woman from her husband so he could marry her. I refused although he offered me a big sum of money," he said.
"I have the ability to do it, but it is against the will of God," he said.
© 2004 Agence France-Presse