Thesorcerer'spactwithShaytan—whatthetradereallycosts

The relationship is a contract

The bond between sorcerer and devil is not friendship and not mastery — it is a contract, and its currency is kufr and shirk. The sorcerer performs acts of disbelief, secretly or openly; in exchange the devil serves him and puts lesser jinn at his disposal. Every detail of the trade follows from this one fact.

Sheikh 'Abdullah ibn Jibrin describes how a person "reaches the rank" of sorcerer: he agrees with a devil to commit forbidden and shirk acts in return for the devil's help and obedience. Some sorcerers wear the mushaf on their feet and take it into the toilet; some write verses of the Quran in filth, or in menstrual blood; some write verses on the soles of their feet; some write al-Fātihah reversed; some pray without wudū' or remain deliberately in a state of janābah; some slaughter to the devil without pronouncing Allah's name and throw the carcass where the devil directs; some address the stars and prostrate to them; some commit incest. "The more extreme the sorcerer's disbelief, the more obedient his devil and the quicker to his command — and if the sorcerer falls short in the kufr demanded of him, the devil withholds his service and disobeys him. The sorcerer and the devil are two companions who met upon disobedience to Allah" (from a manuscript in Ibn Jibrin's hand, p. 53).

Dr Muhammad Mahmud 'Abdullah of al-Azhar sets out the same bargain as a sequence: a pact of mutual secrecy and obedience; devotions offered to the devil — fasting for his pleasure, slaughtering in his name; Quran written in impurity or reversed; deliberate, permanent ritual filthiness of body and clothing; tearing the mushaf, or treading it into the lavatory in a sandal; and appointed meeting places of a specified kind. "These and similar acts take the sorcerer out of the religion of Islam… sihr is kufr and the sorcerer is a disbeliever" (I'jāz al-Qur'ān fī 'ilāj al-sihr wa-l-hasad wa-mass al-shaytān, pp. 22–24).

Dr 'Abd al-Salām al-Sukkarī adds the profile: sorcery aimed at a specific person requires continuous contact with the devils and long practice; the trade selects for filth of soul, cunning, enmity to all religion, and readiness to commit the ugliest crimes to please "his master" — while the devil imposes conditions of extreme degradation (al-Sihr bayna l-haqīqa wa-l-wahm, pp. 20–21). The sorcerer, the compilation adds, is attended by chiefs from the tribes of the jinn, each commanding numbers of lesser devils — usually headed by a rebellious, powerful one. It is an organised system; and that, the source notes, is exactly why fighting it requires every lawful means, and why the careless practitioner exposes himself, his family and his wealth to danger.

How a sihr is actually made

Al-Sādiq ibn al-Hājj al-Tūm describes the standard procedure: the sorcerer obtains something of the victim — a piece of clothing, hair, nail parings — or, failing that, asks the mother's name as the "link". He ties knots over the item and recites his devilish invocations, calling the rebel devils he worships to bind an unclean spirit to the victim's body. That assigned devil is called khādim al-sihr — the keeper (servant) of the sihr; it shadows the victim, seeking its opening, and does not leave until the sihr is annulled and the knots undone. The knotted bundle, with papers of talismans, is hidden — buried, sunk, or concealed — so it cannot be found and destroyed. Sometimes filthy substances are dried, ground and slipped into the victim's food or drink to draw the keeper into the body. Once lodged, the devils perform the commission: for separation, they make each spouse repulsive to the other — a foul smell that will not leave, a suffocating anxiety whenever the man is home, nerves rubbed raw so he cannot bear a single word; for harm, violent headaches, back and joint pain, chest tightness, stomach pains; for blocking a person's studies or trade, scattered thoughts, insomnia and nightmares (al-Īdāh al-mubīn, pp. 15–18). The authors of Af'āl shaytāniyya (p. 38) confirm the same: the executing jinni is "the keeper of the sihr", and the sihr is built on the victim's hair, clippings from his clothes, or anything he used.

The eleven ways sorcerers summon the devils

The compilation then documents how the summoning itself is done — kept here so that these practices are recognised for what they are: pure kufr, whatever "spiritual" branding they wear.

1. Oath-swearing (iqsām): a dark room, a specific incense, and an incantation in which the sorcerer swears by the devils' "lord" and appeals to their great ones — veneration, istighāthah and shirk — until a form appears or a voice is heard, and he issues his commands. Ibn Taymiyyah explains the mechanism: the jinn answer the conjurer because he swears by those they venerate, and his abasement before them gives them the standing of great men served by the small (al-Bayān al-mubīn, p. 58).
2. Slaughter: a black animal or bird killed without Allah's name — sometimes the client himself is made to kill it, or smear himself with its blood, to drag him into the kufr — then thrown in ruins, refuse-heaps or graveyards, the dwelling-places of devils, before the incantation is recited.
3. The "lower path" (sufliyya): the deepest degradation — treading the mushaf into the lavatory as the entry fee for commanding many devils at once. Sorcerers of this path, the study notes, sink to every enormity: incest, zinā (especially with women patients), cursing the religions.
4. Impurity: writing surahs and verses in menstrual blood or filth, then reciting the summons. Ibn Taymiyyah: "Many of these write the words of Allah in impurity, or write the letters of al-Fātihah or al-Ikhlās in blood or other filth… and when they say or write what pleases the devils, the devils help them to some of their aims" (al-Bayān al-mubīn, p. 59).
5. Reversal (tankīs): writing a surah or verse backwards, end to beginning. Sheikh Sālih Āl al-Shaykh notes this mark: amulets in which verses are written inverted, dissolved and drunk (Majallat al-Da'wah 1683, 1419 AH).
6. Fragmented letters: Quranic text written broken apart, letter from letter, before the incantation.
7. Tampering: verses written with letters or words missing or altered — then the summons.
8. Squares, ciphers and numbers: talismans of unknown names, geometric grids of squares and rectangles, numbers, letters, images, angels' names — sometimes with Quranic text, sometimes inverted. Āl al-Shaykh again: unknown letters, triangles and squares filled with unintelligible names and numbers are among the instruments of shirk — their users seek aid from the devils.
9. Astral rites (tanjīm): watching for a chosen star, addressing it with incantations, performing rites "to bring down its spirituality" — in truth, worship of the star. Ibn Taymiyyah describes those who venerate sun, moon and stars with the dress, incense and formulas they think appropriate: devils descend upon them — called "the spirituality of the star" — and may grant some requests, killing an enemy or fetching wealth, "but the harm they reap is many times the benefit" (al-Bayān al-mubīn, p. 67). Al-Ghazālī defines this sihr precisely: knowledge of the properties of substances and of astronomical timings, an effigy of the victim, a watched hour, and words of kufr and obscenity — through which the help of the devils is obtained, and Allah, by His custom, brings about strange effects in the victim (Ihyā' 'ulūm al-dīn 1/29). Al-Kashnawī — himself an author in the occult tradition — concurs: rites and fumigations at chosen times, effigies, images, knots blown upon, writings buried or sunk or hung or burned, and invocations of "the spirits of the spheres" (al-Durr al-manzūm 1/27–29). Ibn al-'Arabī al-Mālikī defines sihr as "composed speech that venerates other than Allah and attributes to it the decrees and events" (ʿĀridat al-ahwadhī 6/246–247). One modern writer, Ibrāhīm al-Jamal, adds a dry observation: this astral variety demands such mastery of astronomy and number-lore that today's sorcerers — "ignorant men, all of them" — can scarcely attempt it (al-Sihr, pp. 51–52).
10. The mandal: a boy below puberty, a verse written on his forehead — "We have removed your veil, so your sight today is sharp" (Qāf 50:22) — a cup of oil or ink in his hands, and an incantation of (reportedly Syriac) words. The boy "sees" figures in the cup, is made to command them, and answers questions about lost property and thieves, the "servants of the mandal" spelling out names letter by letter. The source material treats this fully under "seeking help from the jinn" — it is divination by devils, nothing else.
11. The trace (athar): the victim's turban, cap, kerchief or shirt — anything carrying the smell of his sweat — over which the sorcerer first recites some Quran and then his kufr incantations. (Note the camouflage: a little Quran on top of the shirk beneath. Ibn Jibrin has a fatwa rejecting this entire practice root and branch.)

What follows from all this

1. Sihr is kufr by its very structure. No one reaches the devils' service except over the wreckage of his own religion: the pact, the desecration, the slaughter to other than Allah. "They followed what the devils recited… and Sulayman did not disbelieve, but the devils disbelieved, teaching people sihr" (al-Baqarah 2:102).
2. Therefore "the sheikh who solves problems" and the sorcerer are the same person. Whoever asks your mother's name, works with traces of clothing and hair, writes squares and unknown words, or reports the unseen, is operating this system — whatever is printed on his signboard.
3. The classical ruling is severe. The compilation records the position it holds strongest among the people of knowledge: that the sorcerer's crime, in a land governed by Islamic law, carries the death penalty without being asked to repent first — a matter exclusively for legitimate courts, cited here to convey how gravely the Shari'ah weighs this crime, and in no sense a licence for any individual anywhere.
4. The answer is exposure and education. The study closes with a call the source makes its own: scholars and students of knowledge must lay these realities before the public — in mosques and schools, in print and online — because most people simply do not know what sorcery involves; and no Muslim who saw the contract's terms written out would ever knowingly knock on that door. What drives people there is fear, haste and weak faith — and the protection is the old one: sound tawhīd, the daily adhkār, and ruqyah from the Book and the Sunnah when affliction comes.