WhethersihrandpossessionpauseinRamadan

The expectation

The hadith is well known: when Ramadan comes the gates of the Garden are opened, the gates of the Fire are shut, and the devils are chained. From which a great many people conclude that sihr stops working, that possession lifts, and that the whole thing goes quiet for a month.

Then Ramadan comes and it does not, and a person who was told it would is left with a worse question than the one they started with.

What the scholars say about the chaining

They differ about its scope. Some hold it specific to the marada, the most rebellious of them. Some hold it refers to those who eavesdrop. Some hold it applies to the nights of Ramadan and not its days. Some take it literally and generally.

And the chaining does not entail that no evil occurs. This is the decisive point, and the fatwas put it without qualification: evil has causes besides the devils — wicked souls, entrenched habits, and human devils. A person does not stop being what he was on the first of Ramadan, and neither does his neighbour; and sihr, once cast, already worked without anybody attending to it daily.

What is true

The sources do observe that evil and indecency occur less in Ramadan than in other months, which is real and worth having. Less is not none.

What is certainly true has nothing to do with devils at all. A person praying more, reciting more, fasting, keeping the adhkār and staying out of trouble is in a better state in Ramadan than out of it, and that state is the fortification the whole subject rests on. People often do feel better in Ramadan; the reason is not that something was switched off but that they changed.

Why the page matters

Because of the disappointment. Somebody who has struggled for a year is told to hold on until Ramadan. They hold on, Ramadan arrives, nothing lifts, and now they have a new and much worse thought — that their case is unusually severe, or that they are not among those Allah relieves.

Neither follows. The premise was wrong, not them.

What to do with the month instead

Treat it as what it plainly is, the easiest month of the year in which to build the habit that actually works. You are already up before dawn and already praying more; the adhkār are easier to keep, the Quran is already open, and the household is already awake at the right hours.

A person who comes out of Ramadan with a daily ruqyah that survives into Shawwāl has got far more from the month than anybody hoping the devils would do it for them.