Signsandsymptomsofsihr—before,duringandaftertreatment

See a doctor first. The source itself is clear on this point: the signs of sihr overlap with the signs of ‘ayn, hasad and mass — and with ordinary physical and psychological illness. Bleeding, chronic pain, vomiting, insomnia and mood changes all have medical causes far more often than spiritual ones. Have them assessed medically before, or at the very least alongside, any ruqyah. Nothing on this page replaces a doctor.

How these signs work

The signs of sihr are many, and they differ from person to person. Some afflicted people show no symptoms at all, or almost none — practitioners note this especially of the devout and the students of knowledge, because the sihr’s effect is weakened, unable to take hold of someone who is close to Allah.

Because the symptoms overlap so much with other conditions, the decisive test in the raqi’s craft is ruqyah itself — how the person responds when the Quran is recited. The signs below are grouped the way the source groups them: before treatment, during the ruqyah session, during the course of treatment, and after it.

Before treatment — while awake

1. The person’s own complaint: aversion to the spouse, inability to consummate the marriage, or feelings of hatred at home.
2. Marriage repeatedly failing to happen despite every means being in place.
3. Sihr having already struck the person’s family or household.
4. Finding sihr objects in the home or car: talismans, amulets, beads, strangely shaped stones, scattered dust or powder such as flour, needles and pins pushed into furniture, personal clothes with pieces cut out or gone missing — or found stained with what looks like blood and hidden in a bathroom — symbols scratched on walls inside or outside, someone seen circling the house and burying things, water or liquid splashed at the doorway, a raw egg broken at the door, a slaughtered cat left on the doorstep, a nail hammered in at the entrance — and any number of similar disturbing finds.
5. Instability: swinging moods and opinions, violent anger, weeping over trivial things.
6. Drifting from the religion: slackness in prayer, abandoning the Quran, inclining towards sins.
7. Some are recognised by their gaze and the glint of the eyes (a sign shared with mass).
8. Vomiting, the constant urge to vomit, or blood coming from the mouth with no medical cause found.
9. Continuous bleeding in women, and repeated miscarriage.
10. Serial divorce with no real cause — a person who marries again and again and each marriage collapses.
11. Receiving a threat — from a relative or anyone else — that he will never marry, never work, will lose his job, or that his children will be harmed; and then events unfolding exactly as threatened.
12. Having gone to sorcerers in the past for help: drinking their water, using their incense and the like.
13. Constant headache, and pains that flare in particular places — at the sea, when the wind blows, or when passing graves: stomach pain and nausea, or pain in the feet or body.

Before treatment — in sleep

1. Dreaming that he is bewitched, or seeing people like sorcerers blowing on him, feeding him, striking him, or inserting things into his body — and feeling the pain of it on waking.
2. Seeing the person who placed the sihr, or hearing in the dream that so-and-so — a relative or acquaintance — has bewitched him; and it turning out that those named really do deal in sihr, profit from it, or have a quarrel with him.
3. Constantly seeing jinn in dreams and fighting them, in whatever form they take — human or animal.
4. A pregnant woman seeing someone strike her belly in a dream and miscarrying the next day — with some women this repeats, the attacker appearing as a shadow, a snake or the like.
5. Seeing symbols, writings, knots and numbers.

During the ruqyah session

1. First, the raqi’s own assessment after putting questions to the person.
2. Trembling, shivering, screaming, weeping, agitation, convulsion, vomiting of the sihr material or the urge to vomit, waves of cold or heat anywhere in the body — especially when the verses about sihr are recited.
3. Sometimes the jinn assigned to the sihr speaks outright: declares the person bewitched, points to where the sihr is hidden, and names who did it. This is rare — and the source warns that it is usually a lie of the devils. Only rarely is it confirmed, by questioning the patient: that those named are indeed known to deal with sorcerers, bear open enmity, and have done suspicious things — serving strange drinks, or being seen scattering something in the house during a visit.
4. The raqi’s du‘a can expose the type of sihr. When he prays, “O Allah, nullify every sihr eaten, drunk, written, sprinkled, smelled, scattered or knotted…”, the patient may react at one phrase — the feet shaking violently at “sprinkled”, or vomiting at “eaten and drunk”. Some people dismiss this as the devil toying with the session; the source insists it is genuine, and that with such du‘a there has come out — in its words — blood, threads, nails, pictures, stones and much else.

During the course of treatment — in sleep

1. A flood of dreams.
2. Restlessness: tossing, turning and groaning through the night.
3. Seeing the one who bewitched him.
4. Seeing the jinn assigned to the sihr trying to hurt him, or threatening him to make him stop the treatment.
5. Dreaming that the sihr is being renewed — a juice or milk poured into his mouth — and finding its taste in his mouth on waking, and a real trace of it. This, the source says, happens when the sihr is strong.

After treatment begins to bite

There may be no reaction at the first recitations beyond a slight chill, warmth or pulsing. But as the ruqyah continues and concentrates on the verses of sihr, the signs surface:

1. Increased pain through the body.
2. Severe insomnia — sleeplessness that can last days, even months.
3. Foul-smelling wind and stool.
4. Worsening headache and joint pain.
5. The appearance of the mass symptoms of the jinn — one or more — assigned to the sihr.
6. In women: black, foul-smelling blood, or heavy white and yellow discharge, and wind from the front passage.
7. Bruise-like marks — blue, brown or dark red — especially on the inner thighs and the forearms (a sign shared with ‘ayn and hasad).
8. Seeing thread-like strands, hairs or knots — some their natural colour, some golden — while awake.
9. Red heat-rash-like spots on the body.
10. Some or all of the sihr material coming out: a person vomiting the very drink he was last served in the house of the one he suspects — or food he once ate, coming out fresh-tasting and unspoiled — and feeling relief afterwards; or hair, nails, or small white balls passing with the stool, or blood.
11. The monthly cycle stopping, severe constipation — or the opposite.

Two cautions in closing. First: no single item on these lists proves sihr; it is the pattern, weighed by a qualified, trustworthy raqi, together with the response to recitation. Second: several of these signs — bleeding, vomiting blood, bruising, discharge — are exactly the signs doctors need to see urgently. Going to the doctor does not weaken your reliance on Allah; the Prophet ﷺ commanded us to seek treatment.