Islam and magic

Sixty-six Quranic verses reportedly relate to the subject of magic. In Verse Q.10:2 Muhammad is falsely accused of being a magician by his opponents ('Yet the disbelievers said, "Indeed, this ˹man˺ is clearly a magician!"'). Not all verses make negative references to supernatural powers or those that use them. Surah al-Isra suggests that the Quran itself bestows barakah (magical blessings) upon hearers and heals them. In An-Naml (Surah 27), Solomon is described as having the power to speak with animals and jinn, and command birds and devils. Aside from what the text of the Quran says about magic, it is thought to have supernatural properties and is used as a source of supernatural protection and healing. Surah Al-Falaq (Surah 113) is used as a prayer to God to ward off black magic, and according to hadith-literature, was revealed to Muhammad to protect him against Jann, the ancestor of the jinn. Surahs Al-Fatiha (Surah 1) and An-Nas (Surah 114) are also thought to have the ability to generate barakah. There are also individual verses claimed to have power (such as the healing verses 9:15, 19:57, 16:69, 26:80, 41:44). == Talismanic magic ==

, and prayers, with views of Mecca and Medina; 17th century Turkey, Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage The use of symbols, letters, and numbers for magical purpose are deeply embedded in Islamic tradition. They are not only used for means of protection against the evil eye, misfortune, jinn, and demons, but also to bring good fortune, increase fertility, therapeutic means, and to preserve attractiveness. ==Black magic (Siḥr)==

The word usually translated as "magic" in the Quran is siḥr. According to Adam Silverstein, the "Arabic word for 'magic' is siḥr, ... in the Qur'an Siḥr means ... 'black magic,' but in modern Arabic the same word is used for 'entertaining magic. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic defines siḥr as "bewitchment, beguilement, enchantment, fascination"; and the plural form (ashar) as "sorcery, witchcraft, magic". Emilie Savage-Smith gives a very broad definition including "anything wondrous, including elegant and subtle poetry, ... sleight-of-hand tricks, ... the healing properties of plants, ... invocations to God for assistance, ... invocations to jinn or demons or the spirits of the planets, and on occasion even to the divinatory art of astrology." Toufic Fahd in the Brill Encyclopedia of Islam usually uses "magic as the translation of sihr", but "occasionally uses sorcery or witchcraft". Fahd himself first defines sihr as that which leads its subject to "believe that what he sees is real when it is not", but also includes "everything that is known as 'white' or 'natural magic. According to Fahd, magic (siḥr) is part of ʿUlūm al-Ghayb, "the occult sciences"; Theurgy (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ wa ṭ-ṭalāsim), which Radcliff Edmonds describes as the practice of rituals to invoke action or the divine presence, especially to achieve henosis (unity with the divine) and perfecting oneself); White or natural magic (ʿilm al-ḥiyal wa-ash-shaʾwadhah); and Black magic or sorcery (ʿilm as-siḥr). Michael Dols note that siḥr is mostly referring to sorcery evoking demons, and thus forbidden. According to 2:102 siḥr is then taught by the fallen angels Hārūt and Mārūt:They ˹instead˺ followed the magic promoted by the devils during the reign of Solomon. Never did Solomon disbelieve, rather the devils disbelieved. They taught magic to the people, along with what had been revealed to the two angels, Hârût and Mârût, in Babylon. The two angels never taught anyone without saying, "We are only a test ˹for you˺, so do not abandon ˹your˺ faith." Yet people learned ˹magic˺ that caused a rift ˹even˺ between husband and wife; although their magic could not harm anyone except by Allah's Will. They learned what harmed them and did not benefit them—although they already knew that whoever buys into magic would have no share in the Hereafter. Miserable indeed was the price for which they sold their souls, if only they knew!The description of black magic (siḥr) in the Quran as revealed by the fallen angels/devils suggests it is (in the words of Toufic Fahd), a "fragment of a celestial knowledge ..." and not forming a separate party among the Jahiliyyah (pagan Arabs). In hadith, siḥr develops into a more hostile concept. In an examination of hadith on magic and witchcraft, Irmeli Perho writes that "magic is seen as a power distinct from God, whereas in the Qurʾān magic is a power that is ultimately subject to God's will". In prophetic biographies and hadith, where Muhammad becomes ill because of a magicical charm which is hidden "in a well"; the Prophet suffered from the magic but receives a dream or a visit from Gabriel to tell him how to be cured. One scholar, Irmeli Perho, notes that all versions of the hadith (and all hadith dealing with witchcraft) signify Islamic belief in the power of magic to harm even so great a man as the Prophet of Islam, but the many different variants of the hadith include different solutions to the curse of the charm—in some God's power against the charm is so great Muhammad does not bother to take the magic object(s) out of the well; in others he is asked if he took them out, if he burned them, if he made a counter spell against the charm. In many hadith he answers "God, He is powerful and great, has already cured me", but in one version that statement is absent and Muhammad is only cured after the charm (a knot) is taken and disassembled—these variants representing to Perho how Muslims don't all believe magic has the same level of power. In the hadith where Muhammad says "God has already cured me", God's power is described as "sufficient to counter the power of magic" and only an outsider/enemy is involved in magic, whereas in the latter hadith "human action" was required to counter the magic. Believers in human action against harmful witchcraft will indicate support for use of "protective spells" and counter spells. ==Religious permissibility==

Classical period According to Tobias Nünlist, rather than condemning magic and occultism as whole, Muslim writers on the subject usually distinguished between licit and illicit magical practises. According to Henrik Bogdan, Gordan Djurdjevic, contrary to Western esotericism and occultism, there is no clear conflict between orthodoxy and occultism in Islam. Traditionally, Islam distinguishes between magical miracles bestowed by God as a blessing, and demonic magic. Whether or not sorcery/magic is accessed by acts of piety or disobedience is often seen as an indicator whether sorcery/magic is licit or illicit. Hadith allows the usage of magic for the purpose of healing as long as they do not contain acts of shirk (lit. associating something [with God]; i.e. polytheism). Tabasi (d. 1089) offered a wide range of rituals to perform sorcery, but also agreed that only magic in accordance with sharia is permissible. Ibn al-Nadim (932-995) -- a "bookish" pious Muslim, concedes the permissibility of white magic and but condemns the practice of black magic. He traces licit magic back to King Solomon (the prophet Sulaimān ibn Dāwūd in Islam) and illicit to Iblis (leader of the devils in Islam). The licit magicians included exorcists. They obeyed Islamic law and invoked God's name. Illicit magicians or sorcerers, controlled by or controlling demons by deeds or offerings that were displeasing to God. According to Ibn Khaldūn, Miracles (karāmāt), belong to licit magic and are considered gifts of God and distinct from illicit magic (siḥr): The difference between miracles and magic is this: a miracle is a divine power that arouses in the soul [the ability] to exercise influence. The [worker of miracles] is supported in his activity by the spirit of God. The sorcerer, on the other hand, does his work by himself and with the help of his own psychic power, and, under certain conditions, with the support of devils. The difference between the two concerns the idea, reality, and essence of the matter. Since the early stages of Islam, Muslim scholars from "multiple theological and legal schools" who disapproved of magic and sorcery did not necessarily considered magic to be evil or sinful, but rather nonsensical or deceptive. Hanafi jurist Abu Bakr al-Jaṣṣās, argued that if magic was actually real, it's practitioners would be rich and powerful rather than impoverished hustlers of common people in the marketplace. The Mu'tazilite rationalists held that magic and sorcery is mere image-making without reality. Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037) and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149 or 1150–1209), describe magic as merely a tool with the outcome of an act of magic determining whether it is legitimate or not. Contemporary period Criticism on the supernatural was adopted in modern times. Salafi scholars, such as Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida, Muhammad Asad, and Sayyid Qutb, reject magic and associated traditions, interpretating references to sorcery and witchcraft in a metaphorical way. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), founder of Wahhabism, considered sorcery as one of the few sins where killing was a "divinely sanctioned punishment". 20th century scholar Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani stated that those who have "the conviction that sorcery has effect of its own accord, and not because of God's decision and will", will not enter paradise. According to Ahmed Ferky Ibrahim, (professor of Islamic law at McGill University), while "capital punishment for magic is rooted in Islamic history", it was seldom applied historically. "When you read 16th- through 19th-century Ottoman court records, for instance, you realize there was no inquisition of magicians, no witch hunts, as was the case in Christian Europe ...The frequent persecution of magicians is indeed a recent phenomenon". Modern Asharites and Maturidites usually argue against the rejection of magic and a distinction between the natural and supernatural in general. Adhering to Occasionalism, there would be no restriction on God designing the natural law. God could deviate from the generally assumed order and bestow magical abilities on someone anytime and changing natural laws. Asserting that only God's will exists, they reject the dichotomy of supernatural and natural. In contemporary Shia Islam, the cleric Sayyid Abdul Husayn Dastghaib Shirazi, considers the ability to perform licit magic to happen because of great "piety and abstinence". The miracle worker must "invoking the name of God", is "the most righteous and knowledgeable person of his time", and "does not claim to be a prophet". == Divination ==

In the early and classical Islamic world divination (gaining information about future events or things unseen by occult methods) encompassed a range of techniques, "grouped roughly" into those "largely intuitive" (for example, water diviners observed the behaviour of animals, such as the hoopoe, to discover "the presence of underground water") and those employing "numerical or mechanical methods". "Few details remain of the specific methods" used in these intuitive techniques. Historian Emilie Savage-Smith Physiognomy does not try to align "physical characteristics with character traits" but to use them to read the future. Twitching eyelids, for example, would not indicate a nervous personality but might foretell "the success or failure of an enterprise". It has several sub categories: • the relatively simple "non-horoscopic astrology" that involves "the prediction of events based upon the rising or setting of certain star groups"; • "judicial astrology" involving "calculating the positions of planets and the mathematical production of horoscopes" • to determine the fate of individuals, countries, or dynasties, • of "auspicious and inauspicious days"; and • to answer specific questions—the location of lost objects, buried treasure, or "the diagnosis and prognosis of disease". However, only the prophets could perceive the celestial angels. According to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa ordinary humans could only perceive the terrestrial angels and even this is disputed. While casting lots was "considered legitimate" in Islam, according to Savage-Smith, two practices involving chance are prohibited by the Quran: • istiqsam—a pre-Islamic "use of rods to settle disputes or give simple omens"; More complicated techniques involved combining the letters of one of the 99 names of God "with those of the name of the desired object" (jafr). An "even more" complicated form involved creating an "intricate circular chart ... concentric circles, letters of the alphabet, elements of astrology, and poetry" and calculating "the degree of the ecliptic on the eastern horizon".—i.e specific Quranic verses (and dua) (see notes below) and prolonging the treatment "if no progress is observed". Though based on revealed scripture and religious belief, parts of the treatment also have "obvious psychotherapeutic value"—recitation of scripture the patient believes to be divine, emphasis on the patient talking about their problems, "repetition of simple rituals within a well-defined time schedule over a certain period of time"—and as of 2005, was "highly fashionable" even among the Muslim elite in places like Cairo. == Works about magic ==

Ibn al-Nadim, Muslim scholar of his Kitāb al-Fihrist, describes a book that lists 70 ʿafārīt led by Fuqṭus (), including several ʿafārīt appointed over each day of the week. A collection of late 14th- or early 15th-century magico-medical manuscripts from Ocaña, Spain describes a different set of 72 jinn (termed "Tayaliq") again under Fuqtus (here named "Fayqayțūš" or Fiqitush), blaming them for various ailments. According to these manuscripts, each jinni was brought before King Solomon and ordered to divulge their "corruption" and "residence" while the jinn-king Fiqitush gave Solomon a recipe for curing the ailments associated with each jinni as they confessed their transgressions. As a "good representative" of the kind of literature attacking the practice of magic, Kruk cites a popular, widely available book (al-Sarim al-Battar fi tasaddi li-l-sahara al-ashrar), on "how to deal with sorcery and its evil effects", written from a Wahhabi viewpoint, by Saudi shaykh Wahid 'Abd al-Salam (or Ibn al-Salam) Bali. The book calls for • treating sihr al-junan (madness-sorcery), sihr al-khumul (apathy-sorcery), various sexual afflictions, by incantations to drive out the jinn that is occupying the victim's brain or other parts of his body; or • treating inability to have intercourse with your wife by urinating on the heated blade of a sharp axe. • treating a stomach ache by drinking water "over which Qur'anic passages have been recited". • treating the evil eye (which is not caused by jinn) with "ritual bathing" and "pious incantations". • "foremost" among the ruqa (spells and incantations) allowed to be recited into the ear of the afflicted by Islamic healers is the ruqya; an incantation made up of 41 "Quranic verses, formulas and short chapters". Shia cleric Sayyid Abdul Husayn Dastghaib Shirazi, who states on his webpage on Al-Islam that "a Muslim who indulges in magic and does not repent is punished by death", goes on to affirm that "many" Islamic jurists are of the opinion that "countering one magic spell by another is permitted", and gives examples of how • 'ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (the first Shia Imam and fourth Rashidun caliph) told a victim of witchcraft to carry a prayer of invocation/supplication written "on the skin of deer" and always keep it with him; • how Abbas the Safawid compelled a Christian to convert to Islam using tasbih (prayer beads) "made of dust from Imam Husain (a.s.)'s grave", (both sounding very much like magic charms). ==In Muslim society==

—However, less than 20% of those surveyed thought that making offerings to jinn was an "acceptable part of Islamic tradition". Belief in talismans, witchcraft and spiritual healers, was not as widespread, ranging from one half to a quarter of Muslims in these regions. More religious Muslims are more likely to believe in the existence of jinn (spirits), talismans and other supernatural entities such as angels. A study by Boris Gershman based on surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center (PRC) between 2008 and 2017 of 95 countries (predominantly in the Muslim world, Europe and the Western Hemisphere) found that more than half of Muslims believed in witchcraft (a higher rate than Christians and even higher than religiously unaffiliated respondents), and that the more religious the person surveyed was the more likely they were to believe in witchcraft. According to Dawn Perlmutter, writing in 2013, "an entire industry of professional exorcists" has arisen in "the Middle East and among Western Muslims", performing Qur'anic healing, posting on YouTube and advertising on Facebook and Twitter. In Islamic literature there are detailed treatises that include "entire exorcism rites and purification rituals for the destruction of amulets and other magical items" to neutralize black magic. • ʿIlm al-Limiya or "the knowledge of subjugation of the spirits"—uses the psyche to bring "higher and stronger spirits" (such as "the spirits of the stars") under the control of the magician. The practice of many Islamic healers who claim to talk to jinn for the purpose of curing and preventing the evil eye and exorcism of possession by jinn, is believed to be the extremely serious sin of shirk by some conservative Muslims. Kruk points out how fine the differences between approved and disapproved practices can be—it is acceptable to get in touch with jinn "in exorcisms" to threaten them, but it is shirk to ask their help in a healing; dissolving Quranic texts written on paper in water is forbidden, but "writing in bowls with ink that is washed off by the water poured into the bowl", is recommended by the well known conservative, Wahabbi-oriented cleric Wahid 'Abd al-Salam Bali. Kruk worries that the rise of stricter forms of Islam has led to an attack on healing "practices that used to be well integrated into Islamic life". Practitioners of black magic are said to rely upon evil spirits to cast sorcery, whereas the cleric use shamanistic rites in order to combat evil. It relies on Islamic purity rituals such as Islamic chanting (dhikr), the Quran, and mastery of the soul. or the devils of the Islamic religion (shayāṭīn). In 2009, a special "Anti-Witchcraft Unit" was "created and formalized", not only to investigate and pursue alleged witches, but to "neutralize their cursed paraphernalia, and disarm their spells". In that year, in just one region (Makkah) alone, "at least 118 people were charged with 'practicing magic' or 'using the book of Allah in a derogatory manner. In 2008, police went to the trouble of luring a well-known Lebanese television psychic, Ali Hussain Sibat, into a sting operation while he was in Saudi on hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). He was sentenced to death but had his sentenced reduced to 15 years in prison In September 2011 a Sudanese man was beheaded, having been caught in another sting operation "set in motion by the religious police". Ahmadinejad met with him "at least twice" (Ahmadinejad denies the charges), and was just one among "dozens" of high Iranian government officials" who consult him on "matters of national security". The "top" sorcerer (claims to) regularly contact Jinn who "work for Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, and for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency", and has had 'a long battle to infiltrate the Israeli jinn and find out what they know. The sorcerer also claimed that not only did jinn work for the U.S. and Israel, but that some were being used by him "to infiltrate" Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies. Pakistan In Pakistan it is common to slaughter an animal to ward off evil and bad luck, it is especially efficacious is sacrificing a black goat. In December 2016, after 48 people died in the crash of a propeller-driven Pakistan International Airlines plane, a group of airline staff were seen slaughtering a black goat on the tarmac of Islamabad's airport. This practice is not restricted to the lower echelon of Pakistani society. When he was President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari had a black goat sacrificed at his house every day to ward off black magic and the evil eye. (61% of Pakistani Muslim surveyed believe in the evil eye according to a 2012 Pew report.) Zardari was also known to seek the advice of a spiritual healer on when and where it was auspicious to travel. ==See also==