In this article
In short
- 01This piece is included for understanding, not for use. Several herbs it mentions are toxic, and some can end a pregnancy.
- 02The patient’s safety outweighs any effect on the jinn — that is the author’s own rule, and it rules out the poison herb and the harsh fumigation alike.
- 03Anything taken internally should be an identifiable, labelled preparation, within its stated dose, cleared with your doctor.
Principle 1 — What affects the soul may affect the attached spirit
The author, a raqi of long experience, starts from this observation: treatment does not land only on the body. Whatever acts on a person’s rūh (ruqyah, herbs, drugs, radiation, even electricity) may also act on a spirit attached to or surrounding that person. He reports jinn that fear injections or scans, patients who feel the mass react to electricity, and, his most startling claim, that in some epilepsy and psychosis cases treated with electroconvulsive therapy, the shocks “destroy the jinnī in the body”, though the harm falls on both the patient’s spirit and the intruding one. (We record this as his opinion. ECT is a regulated medical treatment for specific psychiatric conditions; it is not a jinn treatment, and no one should seek or fear it on that basis.)
Principle 2 — Not everything that hurts the jinn may be used
This is the heart of the piece, and it is a warning to raqis. He describes an unnamed herb some raqis use because it torments the jinn: the whole plant is poison. The person who takes it suffers bulging eyes, redness, dryness, palpitations and a racing heart: a state, he notes, that mimics the presentation of possession. It harms patient and jinnī both, “but its harm to the patient is greater — he may die.” He refuses to use it, and refuses to name it. The rule: the patient’s safety outweighs any effect on the jinn.
Principle 3 — Fumigation in excess harms the patient more than the jinn
Even good fumigants (black seed, frankincense, musk) become harmful past measure. He condemns a healer who fumigates patients with fierce red pepper until they cough violently, weep, their eyes bulge and their chests and airways inflame. Same rule as above: nothing that torments the jinn at the cost of the patient’s body.
Our note: what is above is a practitioner’s working caution about dose: it describes what some raqis do and how they limit it. It is not a ruling that the practice has a basis, and the scholars asked about fumigation in ruqyah hold that it does not: Ibn Bāz answered that there is no basis in the Sharī‘ah for fumigating a patient and that the obligation is to leave it, being among the superstitions with no root, and the Permanent Committee places its use among the rituals of the charlatans. Their argument is from silence, of the strong kind: ruqyah is among the best-documented practices there is, the Companions treated the sick at length, and not one of them is reported to have burned anything for it. Our own rule decides which way this falls, and it is already in the Raqi Course: experience is worth having, and it is never a ruling. So read Principle 3 as a description of a practice, with the scholars’ position standing over it. A practice that requires a particular substance burned in a particular way is also one a patient cannot do at home, and whether a patient can do a thing at home for nothing is the test this site applies everywhere.
Principle 4 — Herbs that act on the nerves or immunity are the useful ones
His working rule: any herb or medicine with a clear effect on the nervous system or the immune system shows a clear effect in the spiritual afflictions: honey, black seed, asafoetida, olive oil, senna. He gives a practitioner’s example: a woman whose menses the jinn has “held back” may be given, alongside ruqyah, an emmenagogue (harmal, rue or myrrh), choosing what she can tolerate (myrrh or fenugreek where harmal’s bitterness is unbearable). (Reported, not endorsed: see the safety note above. Harmal and rue are toxic and can cause miscarriage; a missed period needs a doctor first, always.)
Principle 5 — Prophetic remedies first
The Prophetic medicines come before all others, and he chides doctors and even herbalists for underrating them. On black seed he contrasts the popular “no more than seven seeds” caution with herbal manuals giving about 4 g and immunity studies administering 2 g daily, his point being that timidity about the Prophetic remedies has no basis; the hadith calls black seed “a healing from every disease except death”. He points readers to Ibn al-Qayyim’s al-Tibb al-Nabawī for the gathered evidence.
Principle 6 — Preparations: the honest and the lazy
A raqi’s work, he says, sometimes calls for laxatives or emetics (for sihr that was eaten or drunk), sternutatories (for sihr that was smelled), steam inhalations, baths, or sprays for a house where sihr was scattered. And here he turns on his own field: some raqis “mix anything with honey or water” and hand it over, and if the patient improves, it is only psychological, because he believes he is taking a treatment. Others found one herb that once worked and now give it to every patient regardless. Both practices he rejects.
Pharmacy-grade extracts are fine
His practical closing point: there is no need for mystery powders. Standardised preparations from the pharmacy — senna tablets, black-seed capsules, royal jelly, ginseng, khella, asafoetida preparations, rhubarb — may be used per their printed directions, and the raqi or the patient may recite over them. (He also lists scammony, a violent purgative long abandoned by safe practice: another reminder that even his lists still need a doctor or pharmacist before anything is swallowed.)
Every substance this page names
HoneySafe as given
Named among the remedies with a clear effect on the nervous system and immunity.
Read the pageBlack seedSafe as given
The hadith calls it “a healing from every disease except death”. The author contrasts the popular “no more than seven seeds” caution with herbal manuals giving about 4 g and immunity studies administering 2 g daily.
Read the pageOlive oilSafe as given
Among the Prophetic remedies the author places before all others.
Read the pageSennaCaution
A laxative, for sihr that was eaten or drunk. Standardised tablets from the pharmacy, used per their printed directions.
Our warning: a purgative, not a routine, and anything involving purging belongs in front of a doctor first.
Read the pageAsafoetida (ḥiltīt)Caution
Listed among the herbs acting on the nerves and immunity, and available as a pharmacy preparation.
Our warning: do not take it internally except under medical advice.
Royal jelly, ginseng, khella and rhubarbCaution
Standardised preparations from the pharmacy, used per their printed directions; the raqi or the patient may recite over them.
Rhubarb root is a purgative. Check any of these against medicines you already take.
Myrrh and fenugreekCaution
Offered as the gentler alternative where harmal’s bitterness is unbearable.
Our warning: an emmenagogue is not a treatment for a missed period. A missed period needs a doctor first, always.
Fumigation with black seed, frankincense or muskCaution
Recorded as practice, kept within measure.
Even good fumigants become harmful past measure. Ibn Bāz answered that there is no basis in the Sharī‘ah for fumigating a patient and that the obligation is to leave it, and the Permanent Committee places its use among the rituals of the charlatans.
Read the pageHarmal (Syrian rue) and rueNever
Given in the source as emmenagogues to be taken alongside ruqyah.
Our warning: both are toxic and both can end a pregnancy. No one should take, give, or fumigate with them on the strength of this or any article.
ScammonyNever
Listed among the author’s own preparations.
Our warning: a violent purgative long abandoned by safe practice. Do not use it.
The unnamed herb some raqis use because it torments the jinnNever
The whole plant is poison. It produces bulging eyes, redness, dryness, palpitations and a racing heart — a state that mimics the presentation of possession.
The author refuses to use it and refuses to name it: it harms patient and jinnī both, “but its harm to the patient is greater — he may die.”
Fumigation with fierce red pepperNever
Condemned in the source: patients cough violently, weep, their eyes bulge, and their chests and airways inflame.
Our warning: nothing that torments the jinn at the cost of the patient’s body. Do not do this.
Electroconvulsive therapy used as a jinn treatmentNever
The author reports that in some epilepsy and psychosis cases the shocks “destroy the jinnī in the body”.
Our warning: ECT is a regulated medical treatment for specific psychiatric conditions. It is not a jinn treatment, and no one should seek it or fear it on that basis.
The checklist this gives you
0 of 4
The fumigation question is treated in full in incense and bukhūr in ruqyah. On counts, see is there a number?
Medical first, alongside ruqyah — nothing here replaces a doctor’s care.
Sources
- Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Tibb al-Nabawī — the gathered evidence on the Prophetic remedies
- Classical and practitioner sources — see Methodology → Our sources
A true story: the healer whose 'Muslim jinn' captured him
A raqi of long experience relates this as one of several real cases he knew personally, in detail — a story that shows where the road of “jinn help” ends, even for a good man.
Read