Sihr(magicandwitchcraft)

What sihr is

Sihr is the Arabic word for magic or witchcraft. In the language of the scholars it refers to spells, knots, incantations and rituals by which a magician (sāhir) seeks help from the shayāṭīn among the jinn in order to harm someone, control them, or turn their heart. It is real, it can affect the body and the mind, and Allah has told us about it in His Book so that we neither deny it nor become obsessed by it.

Sihr is real, but it is not independent. Nothing happens except by the permission and decree of Allah:

وَمَا هُم بِضَارِّينَ بِهِ مِنْ أَحَدٍ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ

Wa mā hum bi-ḍārrīna bihī min aḥadin illā bi-idhnillāh

But they do not harm anyone through it except by permission of Allah.

This is the foundation of everything else on this page. The magician does not hold your fate. Allah does.

Its ruling in Islam

Learning, practising or paying for sihr is among the greatest of sins. The Prophet ﷺ listed it among the seven destructive sins, immediately after associating partners with Allah (Bukhari and Muslim). The reason is that sihr does not work through skill or "energy": it works because the magician draws close to the shayāṭīn by disbelief and disobedience, and the jinn then act on his behalf. That is why the scholars of the Sunnah, including Ibn Baz and Ibn Uthaymeen, consider the sihr that involves invoking the jinn to be kufr, and why the ruling of the magician in an Islamic state is so severe.

For an ordinary Muslim the practical rulings are simple:

• Never go to a magician, fortune-teller or "spiritual healer" who works with the jinn, even to undo sihr. The Prophet ﷺ said that whoever goes to a soothsayer and asks him about anything, his prayer is not accepted for forty days (Muslim), and whoever believes him has disbelieved in what was revealed to Muhammad ﷺ (Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi and others).
• Never wear or hang talismans, amulets or ta‘wīdh, whatever they contain. Protection is sought from Allah alone through what He legislated.
• Do not seek to "break sihr with sihr". This is what the scholars call nushrah of the forbidden kind, and it only exchanges one harm for a greater one.

Main types of sihr

The books of the scholars describe many kinds. The categories below are the ones raqis meet most often. They overlap, and one person may be affected by more than one.

• Sihr of separation (tafrīq): aimed at breaking a marriage, or splitting family members, business partners or friends. This is the type mentioned in Al-Baqarah 2:102: "that by which they cause separation between a man and his wife."
• Sihr of love or infatuation (maḥabbah / tiwalah): an attempt to make someone unnaturally attached to another, or to control a spouse. The Prophet ﷺ counted tiwalah among the forms of shirk (Abu Dawud, Ahmad).
• Sihr of illness: aimed at a particular part of the body, so that the person has real pain, weakness, paralysis, bleeding or infertility that doctors cannot explain after full testing.
• Sihr of impeding (ta‘ṭīl): blocking marriage proposals, work, study or business, so that things repeatedly fall through at the last moment without any visible reason.
• Sihr of hallucination and madness (takhyīl / junūn): the person sees, hears or believes things that are not there, or their behaviour changes suddenly and severely.
• Sihr that behaves like the evil eye: the person suffers wasting, weakness and low mood similar to ‘ayn, but the cause is a spell.

Raqis also describe sihr by the way it is placed:

• Eaten or drunk: something impure or bewitched is put into food or drink. It often shows as digestive complaints, a knot in the stomach or chest, and nausea during recitation.
• Buried, tied or hidden: knots, papers or objects hidden in a house, a grave, a well, a tree, or given to a person as a "gift".
• Sent by the jinn (marṣūd / mursal): the magician sends a jinn to attach itself to the person without any object being consumed.

How it is done, in general terms only

We do not describe methods, and no one on this path should. What a reader needs to know is this: the magician obtains something connected to the target (a name, a photograph, a hair, a piece of clothing), performs acts of disbelief and impurity to please the shayāṭīn, and then ties knots or writes symbols while reciting incantations and blowing on them, as Allah described in Al-Falaq:

وَمِن شَرِّ النَّفَّاثَاتِ فِي الْعُقَدِ

Wa min sharrin-naffāthāti fil-‘uqad

And from the evil of the blowers in knots.

Every step of that process is shirk and filth. That alone should be enough to make a Muslim run from it, whether as a client or as a victim seeking a "cure".

Common symptoms and effects

None of these symptoms proves sihr on its own. Most of them are more often caused by illness, stress, grief or ordinary marital difficulty. They only become meaningful when they cluster together, appear suddenly without a medical explanation, and react to the Quran being recited.

• Sudden, unexplained aversion between spouses, or intense hatred of one's home, family or religion.
• Constant headaches, tightness in the chest or stomach, or a moving pain that medical tests cannot account for.
• Nightmares of snakes, black dogs, falling, graves, or being chased; waking in fear at the same hour.
• Extreme lethargy, forgetfulness, or an inability to concentrate on the Quran or prayer.
• Repeated obstacles in marriage, work or study that always collapse at the same stage.
• Reactions when the Quran is recited: yawning, tears, shaking, heat, cold, drowsiness, nausea, or the feeling of something moving in the body.

How it is diagnosed

There is no laboratory test for sihr, and no righteous raqi claims to "see" it. The approach of the scholars is patient and cautious:

1. Medicine first. Rule out physical and psychological causes properly with qualified professionals. Many people who believed they were bewitched were in fact anaemic, depressed, or suffering from a treatable condition.
2. Ruqyah as diagnosis. Recite the Quran, especially the verses that mention sihr (Al-Baqarah 2:102, Al-A‘rāf 7:117-122, Yunus 10:79-82, Ta-Ha 20:65-69) along with Al-Fātiḥah, Āyat al-Kursī and the last three surahs, over several sessions. A pattern of clear, repeated reactions during recitation, together with the history, is what leads an experienced raqi to suspect sihr.
3. No dreams, no "revelations", no jinn testimony. A raqi who says a jinn "told him" who did it, or who names a relative as the culprit, is not following the Sunnah. Accusing people on the word of a shaytan is slander and destroys families.

How it is cured

The cure is entirely from Allah, and He has made it easy through what He revealed:

وَأَلْقِ مَا فِي يَمِينِكَ تَلْقَفْ مَا صَنَعُوا ۖ إِنَّمَا صَنَعُوا كَيْدُ سَاحِرٍ ۖ وَلَا يُفْلِحُ السَّاحِرُ حَيْثُ أَتَىٰ

Wa alqi mā fī yamīnika talqaf mā ṣana‘ū, innamā ṣana‘ū kaydu sāḥir, wa lā yufliḥus-sāḥiru ḥaythu atā

And throw what is in your right hand; it will swallow up what they have crafted. What they have crafted is but the trick of a magician, and the magician will not succeed wherever he is.

• Ruqyah with the Quran. Reciting over the person, and the person reciting over themselves, with Al-Fātiḥah, Āyat al-Kursī, the last two verses of Al-Baqarah, the sihr verses, and Al-Ikhlāṣ, Al-Falaq and An-Nās. It is done with sincerity, certainty, and repetition over days and weeks. Water and olive oil recited upon may be drunk and applied.
• The Sunnah cures. Seven ‘ajwah dates in the morning, which the Prophet ﷺ said protect from poison and sihr that day (Bukhari and Muslim); black seed; honey; sidr leaves in water for bathing, which the scholars including Ibn Baz recommend, especially for the sihr that prevents a man from approaching his wife; cupping (ḥijāmah) where appropriate.
• Finding and destroying the object. When the Prophet ﷺ was bewitched by Labid ibn al-A‘sam, Allah informed him where the sihr had been placed. It was retrieved from a well and undone, and he recovered (Bukhari and Muslim). If the object is found, it is destroyed after reciting the sihr verses and Al-Falaq and An-Nās over it, and the knots are untied. But one does not go searching on the word of a jinn, and most people are cured without ever finding anything.
• Istighfār, prayer and dhikr. Guarding the five prayers, the morning and evening adhkār, reciting Al-Baqarah in the home, and keeping the house free of images and music. This shrinks the space in which the jinn can operate.
• Patience. Sihr can take time to lift. Some people are freed in a session; others need months of steady ruqyah. Do not lose heart, and do not let impatience push you towards a magician.

What not to do

• Do not go to magicians, fortune-tellers, "sheikhs" who ask for your mother's name, or anyone who works with the jinn.
• Do not try to break sihr with sihr.
• Do not hang or wear talismans, amulets, blue eyes, or ta‘wīdh, even ones with Quran written inside; the sound position of the scholars is to avoid them entirely.
• Do not accuse anyone. You are not obliged to know who did it, only to turn to Allah for the cure.
• Do not stop medical treatment.

Sihr is one of the trials of this world. For the believer who responds with the Quran, prayer and trust in Allah, it becomes an expiation of sins and a means of drawing closer to Him. That is a better ending than the magician ever intended.