Skip to content
Sign in
Reader questions: family strain, and whether helping the afflicted can harm you

Library

Readerquestions:familystrain,andwhetherhelpingtheafflictedcanharmyou

Two reader letters: a painful family triangle answered with fiqh and counsel, and whether advising an afflicted sister can rebound on the adviser.

4 min readReviewed 2026-08-20

In this article

In short

  • 01Not every letter sent to a raqi is about jinn: a family wound with a visible worldly history gets counsel, fiqh and du‘ā, not a spiritual diagnosis.
  • 02A husband comes before parents in what is right — and the answer given is addressed to every party: let go of the past, so that forgiveness can reach you.
  • 03Helping an afflicted person can cost the helper, and that cost must never stop anyone advising a brother or sister.

About this page: not every letter sent to a raqi is about jinn. These two answers, 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.

The family triangle

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.

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. The raqi 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 is withheld from the one harbouring enmity, so end the quarrel and the estrangement so that forgiveness can reach you. The dunyā and everything in it passes away; nothing remains but the good you left behind. May Allah set your affairs right; and ask Allah of His bounty.

Our note: there is 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 how honest ruqyah works.

The cost of helping another

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.

The answer given

The answer ran to three points, all kept here:

  • Yes, that kind of harm happens: it is a form of retaliation. But it must never stop anyone advising a brother or sister; if fear of harm meant abandoning the afflicted, 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 the old affliction: a person already carrying something may find the jinn in her provoked by the encounter with another case: the worsening was in her, not caused by her good deed.

Our note: 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.

Medical first, alongside ruqyah — nothing here replaces a doctor’s care.

Sources

  • Adapted from an experienced raqi’s published consultations
  • Classical and practitioner sources — see Methodology → Our sources
Next

Reader questions: “Is this ‘ayn, sihr — or something else?”

Five real letters from 2016 — low mood, a stuck family, self-envy, weeping at al-Mā’idah, a long unravelling — with the raqi’s answers and our medical notes.

Read

Paused

0:000:00