Thesixkindsofmass—includingthetwothatarenotpossessionatall

This classification has been passed among practitioners, one adding to another’s work. It is one of the most useful classifications in the source material: of the six kinds of “mass”, one is an everyday whisper every human experiences, and two are not possession at all, one psychosomatic and one faked.

1. 1The passing touchal-mass aṭ-ṭāʾif — the everyday whisper
2. 2Intermittent massal-mass al-ʿāriḍ — and permanent attachment
3. 3External massAttacks from outside without entering
4. 4Transferred massal-mass al-mutaʿaddī
5. 5Imagined massNot possession — al-mass al-wahmī
6. 6Faked massNot possession — al-mass at-tamthīlī

1. The passing touch (al-mass aṭ-ṭā’if)

The fleeting brush of the shayṭān that every person knows: the sudden dark impulse, the flare of anger, the whispered suggestion. The Quran describes it and prescribes its treatment in the same breath:

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّقَوْا۟ إِذَا مَسَّهُمْ طَٰٓئِفٌۭ مِّنَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ تَذَكَّرُوا۟ فَإِذَا هُم مُّبْصِرُونَ

Inna-lladhīna-ttaqaw idhā massahum ṭā'ifun mina-sh-shayṭāni tadhakkarū fa-idhā hum mubṣirūn

"Indeed, those who fear Allah — when an impulse touches them from Satan, they remember [Him] and at once they have insight."

Together with it: “And if an evil suggestion comes to you from Satan, then seek refuge in Allah” (al-A’rāf 7:200), “Repel evil by that which is better… And say: My Lord, I seek refuge in You from the incitements of the devils, and I seek refuge in You, my Lord, lest they be present with me” (al-Mu’minūn 23:96–98), and the same pairing in Fuṣṣilat 41:34–36. Ibn Kathir comments that the people of taqwā, when this touch reaches them, “remember Allah’s punishment and abundant reward, repent, and return to Him — and at once they see clearly.” This kind needs no raqi. It is treated in the moment, by remembrance and isti‘ādhah.

2. Intermittent mass (al-mass al-‘āriḍ) — and permanent attachment

A real but episodic possession: the jinnī enters the body for hours of the day or night, leaves, then returns after a day, a week, a month, a year, or never. Practitioners note that some patients feel it leave: a strong wind out of the mouth, or a violent tremor in one leg, especially when the shayṭān senses that ruqyah is coming, and flees.

Its heavier form is permanent attachment: the jinnī settles in one organ (the belly, the head, a leg, the womb, the spine) or spreads through the whole body, and stays night and day like one of the person’s own limbs.

3. External mass

The shayṭān attacks from outside the body, persistently or occasionally, without entering it. The anchor text is the hadith of Hudhayfah in Sahih Muslim (2017): the Companions never began a meal before the Prophet ﷺ. Once a young girl came as if pushed, and reached for the food; he ﷺ took her hand. Then a Bedouin came as if pushed, and he took his hand, and said: “The shayṭān considers food lawful for himself when Allah’s name is not mentioned over it. He brought this girl to make the food lawful through her, so I took her hand; then he brought this Bedouin, so I took his hand. By the One in Whose Hand is my soul, his hand is in my hand along with hers.” Then he mentioned Allah’s name and ate.

Under this heading the source lists the shayṭān appearing in the form of a person or animal; sitting on a person’s shoulders so he feels heaviness, chest-tightness, whispering and irritability; a small creature moving between clothes and skin; frightening a person so he cannot sleep; a jinniyyah appearing as a beautiful woman seeking intercourse, or the reverse; and the night-time paralysis called al-jāthūm: the pressure on a sleeper who wakes unable to move, speak or cry out, which the source explains as the shayṭān pressing on the motor area of the brain.

A medical note we have added: what the source calls al-jāthūm is described by medicine as sleep paralysis. On that account, the body paralyses its own muscles during dreaming sleep so that a sleeper does not act out what he dreams; occasionally the timing slips and the mind wakes while the body is still held, which is offered as the explanation for the immobility, for the weight on the chest, and for the sense of a presence, which is a well-documented feature of the state. It is common, occurs among people of every religion and none, and is more likely with irregular hours, broken sleep, sleeping on the back and stress.

We report both accounts. They are not competitors in the way they are usually made to be: one describes what is happening in the body, the other describes what may be acting upon it; and our whole position on cause and effect holds that a mechanism being describable does not mean nothing else is involved. A sleeper whose muscles are still held is not thereby proved to be alone in the room, and a person who finds that a regular bedtime helps has not thereby disproved anything.

Practitioners report that it eases with the adhkār and with Āyat al-Kursī kept before sleep, and a person who finds that is reporting something the classical account would expect.

Be careful of what gets built on the experience, not the experience. It is common enough that on its own it does not tell a person which account applies to them, and one night is not a diagnosis, the same caution this site carries about every other sign. Keep the adhkār, note how often it happens, look honestly at your sleep, and see a doctor if it is wearing you down; none of which concedes anything either way. Ruqyah for this third kind, where a raqi judges it real, is recited with the intention of expulsion and protection: the jinnī is outside, not inside.

4. Transferred mass (al-mass al-muta‘addī)

A shayṭān attached to one person extends its harm to someone connected to him: a spouse, a relative, someone in the same house. It is not necessarily the same jinnī: it may act through its followers. And it may afflict a person from outside without ever entering. One case in a family can therefore ripple outward, which is why practitioners ask about the whole household.

5. Imagined mass (al-mass al-wahmī)

This kind is real suffering, but its cause is the mind, not a jinnī. It typically arises from living with or repeatedly watching possessed people, or, worse, from a healer telling a healthy person that he has mass. An idea takes root, waswasa waters it, and conviction follows: the person now believes he is possessed. Devils may then exploit the illusion, so that the moment a raqi begins reciting, he collapses, screams, and mimics a possessed person perfectly, leaving even the experienced observer bewildered. The source names the culprits plainly: group ruqyah sessions, wrong diagnosis, and fear of the jinn.

The author of aṭ-Ṭuruq al-Ḥisān observes that imagined illness is more dangerous than real illness: mass departs, by Allah’s grace, before the ruqyah of the Quran, but the victim of illusion is in an endless spiral. Modern psychology, the source notes, calls this auto-suggestion: the conviction alone can disturb thought, upset the glands, and produce convulsions or fainting that look like mass or sihr.

Ibn al-Qayyim gave the cure centuries before psychology named the problem: cut the chain at its first link. “Know that passing thoughts and whispers feed into reflection; reflection feeds into remembrance; remembrance feeds into desire; desire feeds into the limbs and action — and then it hardens into habit. Repelling them at their beginnings is far easier than breaking them after they have grown strong… Do not let the shayṭān into the house of your thoughts, for he will corrupt it in ways hard to repair.”

6. Faked mass (al-mass at-tamthīlī)

Some patients perform possession. During ruqyah the person cries out “I am the jinnī so-and-so, I serve the sihr, and I will not leave until such-and-such”, but it is the human speaking, acting the part. The usual motives: to be treated as special and gather the attention of everyone around; to have demands met; emotional shock or trauma; or to blame shameful behaviour on the devils. The source adds a sober warning: such play-acting is dangerous, because the jinn regard it as mockery of their world, and the pretender exposes himself to real, vengeful possession.

A classical story shows how old the phenomenon is. Ibn al-Jawzi (in al-Adhkiyā’, from al-Jahiz) relates that a bride “became possessed” on the night she was to be taken to her husband. A shrewd healer was brought, spoke to her alone, and promised her his help if she told the truth; she confessed there was no jinnī: she was not a virgin, and feared the scandal.

So he went out to her family and announced that the jinnī had agreed to leave, but that whichever limb it left through would be ruined: the eye meant blindness, the ear deafness, the tongue muteness… Her family chose the one loss that could be explained. He pretended to expel it accordingly, and the bride entered her marriage with her secret intact. The story is told among the practitioners not as a model but as a lesson: some “possessions” are human problems wearing a jinn’s mask, and a wise healer looks for the human problem.

Telling them apart

How does a raqi distinguish real possession from the imagined and the faked? The source’s answer is experience, not formulas. The pretender cannot reproduce the jinn’s characteristic movements and manner: the way of falling, the flicker of the eyes, the body’s trembling, the style of speech, the speed of answers, the manner of the claimed “exit”. Diagnosis is built from acquired insight (firāsah), sharp observation, and careful questioning about what the patient suffers and why he came. And the source adds an important caution in the other direction: some afflicted patients cannot describe what they are going through (the affliction itself muddles their ability to report it), so a raqi must be as slow to dismiss as he is to confirm.

Keep the medical door open. Every kind on this list except the passing touch overlaps with conditions doctors treat: epilepsy, sleep disorders, anxiety, dissociative and psychotic conditions. A good raqi, and a wise patient, uses doctors and ruqyah together, never one against the other.