Readerquestions:familystrain,andwhetherhelpingtheafflictedcanharmyou

About this page: not every letter sent to a raqi is about jinn. These two — the answers given are adapted from an experienced raqi's consultations — show a raqi handling an ordinary family conflict with ordinary fiqh and counsel, and answering a subtle question about the cost of helping others.

"My husband or my parents — whose side do I take?"

A newly married, pregnant woman described a painful triangle: her father had humiliated her husband over money and the trousseau after an early financial setback; she refused to break the engagement, fearing Allah's displeasure at rejecting a poor man; the husband quietly absorbed the insults for her sake. Later her parents equipped her for marriage far below their means while sparing nothing for her brother's wedding two months on, and now her mother-in-law taunts her about it. Her husband — who otherwise "treats me in a way that pleases Allah" — is working off the debts of the wedding alongside her, and has forbidden her to attend her brother's wedding celebration, wanting her family to feel the weight of what they did. Her parents know nothing of any of this and will be furious if she stays away. "I do not want to anger my husband, and I do not want to lose my parents — what do I do?"

The answer given: your husband comes before your parents — in what is right — and he does have the right to keep you from attending. But the real answer is addressed to all of you: every party must let go of the past. He wrote in Sha'bān and pressed the point: this is the month in which deeds are raised to Allah, and the mid-Sha'bān forgiveness passes over the one harbouring enmity — so end the quarrel and the estrangement so that forgiveness can reach you. The dunyā and its furniture pass away; nothing remains but the good you left behind. May Allah set your affairs right — and ask Allah of His bounty.

Our note: notice what he did not say — no talk of sihr, no 'ayn, no jinn. A family wound with a visible worldly history gets counsel, fiqh and du'ā, not a spiritual diagnosis. That restraint is itself a lesson in how honest ruqyah works.

"I advised a sister to do ruqyah — and my own state got worse. Was I harmed for helping her?"

A woman carrying hasad and sihr of her own wrote that after she advised another afflicted sister — urging her to practise ruqyah and to guard the adhkār and daily protections — she herself slid backwards: sudden laziness in her own ruqyah and adhkār, her condition worse than before. "Is it possible I was harmed because I advised her?"

The answer given ran to three points, all kept here because each is worth having:

• Yes, that kind of harm happens — it is a form of retaliation. But it must never stop anyone advising a brother or sister; if helping the afflicted meant abandoning them for fear of harm, the raqis would have left this field long ago. The one who advises is doing the work of the prophets, and carries its costs.
• Sometimes it is a lesson, not an attack: the adviser may feel a quiet self-admiration — "I am the one who remembers Allah and guards her adhkār" — and Allah lets a slip through to remind her that protection is His gift, not her achievement.
• And sometimes it is simply the old affliction: a person already carrying something may find the intruder in her provoked by the encounter with another case — the worsening was in her, not caused by her good deed.

Our note: the practical summary — keep advising and helping, keep your own daily adhkār fortress in good repair especially when you engage with the afflicted, and if you notice yourself slipping, renew intention and istighfār rather than fearing that goodness itself wounded you.