Readerquestions:voices,possession,andwhathappensatdeath

About this page: real reader questions with the answers given (adapted from an experienced raqi's consultations), summarised faithfully. One of them concerns hearing a voice — please read our note there: experiences like that deserve a medical assessment first, whatever else may be true.

"Since childhood a voice has spoken to me — it even urges me to good. What is it?"

A 22-year-old wrote that since childhood he has preferred solitude and darkness, and has heard — always the same, unchanging adult male voice — telling him to do or not do things. He always disobeys it, he says, even though it sometimes urges good: give charity, go to prayer, kiss your mother's hand. He feels it is like a loyal, devoted friend; he has no fear of it at all. He loves long solitary night journeys. The voice fell silent four or five months ago. A religious teacher once insisted he see a sheikh, who recited over him in a group; all he noticed was his heart racing "as if I had been running".

The answer given: it may be a righteous jinni that points you to good — and it may have left you. If you have no complaint now, live your life normally and do not slip into waswasa about it. To check, listen to the recording "Advice to the jinn" and to the general ruqyah; if you feel reactions, see a known raqi who can assess your case in person and set you a programme.

Our note, added deliberately: a voice heard consistently since childhood is, before anything else, something to describe to a doctor or mental-health professional — such experiences have well-understood medical explanations and good treatments, and seeking that assessment does not contradict faith in the unseen. Do both: the medical assessment first, and the adhkār and listening in any case, since they only bring good.

"Does the jinni leave when the possessed person dies? And doesn't the hadith of the seventy thousand mean the ruqyah-treated lose that rank?"

A questioner asked two classics at once: does the jinni exit the body after the afflicted person dies — and what of the hadith that seventy thousand of this ummah enter Paradise without account, described as those who "do not seek ruqyah"?

The answer given: of course it leaves — possession ends at death. As for the seventy thousand, the matter carries detail and explanation, and its conclusion is that the hadith does not exclude a person who was treated with ruqyah. The raqi points to a treatise of his on exactly this — Yastarqūn wa 'alā Rabbihim yatawakkalūn ("They seek ruqyah and rely on their Lord") — where he gathers the scholars' answers: the praise in the hadith is for hearts that attach to Allah rather than to means, not a prohibition of the ruqyah the Prophet ﷺ himself practised and permitted.

"I hate my own home, I tremble from head to toe, and I speak words I don't understand — please help me."

A religious wife and mother described: an oppressive hatred of the house and endless conflict with her husband; swings between calm and agitation at everything around her, even her children; crying spells, sharp anger, constant distraction — in life and in prayer; love of isolation; tingling in the fingers of her left hand; uttering speech she does not understand and cannot explain; inner whispering; and episodes in which her whole body trembles from her toes to her head and no one can bring her out of it — episodes that recur especially when she wants to help someone. She added that many of her dreams come true and she senses harm before it reaches her; people around her say she has "three children of the jinn" and use a word — 'ajamī (foreign) — she does not even know. "I am so tired and so afraid. Why is this happening to me?"

The answer given: these are symptoms of mass. Listen to the recording "Advice to the jinn", to the verses recited against the jinn (the "burning" verses), and to the verses condemning indecency; hold to the limits of the Shari'ah; and say much istighfār and lā hawla wa-lā quwwata illā billāh. May Allah heal you.

Our note: whole-body shaking episodes that others cannot interrupt need a medical work-up — seizure disorders and dissociative conditions present exactly like this and are treatable. Take this letter to a neurologist as well as to your adhkār. The claim by neighbours about "jinn children" is exactly the kind of frightening folk diagnosis to ignore.