Part 1

What is Unseen for Us 3

There are Signs in the Universe 6

The Perception of Existence 7

The Forces of Existence are Many 8

The Magic of the Eyes 16

The Magicians and the Miracle 17

Pharaoh and the Magicians 19

The Use of Terror 20

The Power of Magic or the Help of the Shaytans 21

The Shaytans Take on Forms 22

The Law of Shape-Shifting 23

The Kingdom of Saba' and the Jinn 23

The Capabilities of Jinn and the

Being Tested by Good and Evil 30

Why were there Two Angels? 30

The Shaytans TaughtPeople Magic 35

The Shaytans Inspire their Friends 36

The Shaytans' Knowledgeof the Unseen 37

Magic and Control of this World 40

The Kingdomof Sulayman and People's Belief 42

Magic Harms and Does Not Benefit 45

Seeking the Help of the linn Does not Bring Good 47

Separating a Man from His Wife 48

"How" does not Exist in Matters of the Unseen 49

Magicians Do not Know the Unseen 51

The linn Do not Know the Unseen 52

The Messenger and Magic 57

The Hadith of Magic 60

The Challenge to Men and linn 62

Not an Indictment but a Challenge 63

The Miracle of the Hijra 63

A Supplicationfor Protection against Magic 66

Action Belongs to Allah Alone 67

Seeking Refuge with Allah 74 .

"The Womenwho Blow on Knots" 76

Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - created the

universe and established laws to govern it. Everything in existence

is subject to laws. Man has laws appropriate to his life in this

world. All that serves man is also subject to laws so that these

things give man the things he needs in life.

In this existence Allah has created things which act on your

behalf and other things which you have to do yourself. The things

which act on your behalf are those which are given to you cost­

free, like the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, and the rain. All

these things are given to you without any payment being asked of

you. As for the things which you have to do yourself, they are the .

secondary causes of Allah in the earth. If you do them, you will

get something. If you do not do them, you will not get anything;

For instance, if you cultivate the earth well and plant good

seeds in it, it will give you an abundant crop. If you do not culti­

vate it and leave it unplanted, it will not give you anything. If you

search for the minerals inside the mountains and dig mines to

extract them, they will give up their treasures. If you do not act,

they do not give you anything. It is like that with all the means of

life. You must activate them in order for them to give you some­

thing. You must make use of the means to reach the gifts that are

These are the laws which govern human beings but there are

other creatures which have different powers. For instance the jinn

have different laws, suitable to their fiery nature; They. can pene­

trate through solid walls by the nature of their being. They can

take on any shape they wish. They have different laws which

govern them; and the laws of things which are subject to them are

. those which were created for their sake.

The angels are created from light and they too have laws. They

ascend to heaven and descend to earth by the command of their

Lord. Allah - glory be to Him arid may He be exalted! - has creat­

ed laws of ascent and descent for them as well as laws governing

the taking on of different forms and all the things that enable them

In the case of empirical knowledge, the intellect can apply it as

it likes to the material things of' existence. Then the intellect can

also investigate the secrets which Allah has placed in the earth; the

way it does that is either by direct witnessing or in the laboratory.

However, the intellect has to stop at the outward forms of material

existence. Regarding what is beyond the physical, or in other

words unseen things, we can only take knowledge from those who

The unseen is a sphere which Allah did not create subject to the

human intellect. For instance the intellect cannot say anything

about the world of the angels or give us a sensory picture of an

angel. It cannot tell us what its form is or what its nature is or the

laws that govern it or how it lives or anything else of that sort.

That is also the case with the jinn, both the righteous among

them and the rebellious jinn who are the shaytans that revolt

against Allah's plan - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! The

human intellect cannot provide us with a picture of them. Indeed,

when Allah wants to give us a terrifying picture of the punishment

of Jahannam (Hell) - and we seek refuge with Allah from it! - He

says about the Tree of Zaqqum, which is the food of the people of

"It is a tree that emerges from the base of the Blazing

Fire. Itsfruit are like the heads of the shaytans."

Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - used the

image of the heads of the shaytans because none of us has seen

them. If you were to bring a number of artists and ask them to

draw a picture of a shaytan, each of them would come up with a

quite different picture from the others. He would draw the form

which he imagines a shaytan to have. The imagination of one will

not be the same as another in that respect but all will agree that the

form of shaytan is both repulsive and frightening. By using the

words, "the heads of shaytans" Allah paints for every m~ a pic­

ture which will make him terrified of the punishment of Jahannam.

It provokes alarm in the hearts of all who read it so that fear of the

punishment enters them. We seek refuge with Allah!

What is Unseen for Us

There are many things which are unseen for us, creatures and

secrets which Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! ­

has not acquainted us with nor made our intellects capable of

encompassing. With regard to these things we have no choice but

to take our knowledge of them from Allah Almighty who created

them. He alone knows their laws. Allah calls our attention to that

"I did not let them witness the creation of the heavens

and the earth nor the creation of themselves. ] would not

take as assistants any who lead astray." (18:51)

That is to say, both the creation of the, heavens and the earth

and also the creation of mankind were hidden from our intellects.

We should not, therefore, dispute anything which Allah Almighty

tells us about the creation and how it took place because otherwise

we would stray from the truth. When a man comes and tells us

something about the laws of jinn and angels, or the creation of

existence and man, which is contrary to what Allah Almighty has

told us, we ask him to produce his proof. If it is just a matter of

speculation or imagination, we completely ignore it. If he has

some sort of physical evidence, we.discuss it. The evidence in this

case is certainly spurious and intended to mislead.

Some years ago, for instance, the University of California in

America announced that it had found the "missing link" between

man and ape and that it had physical evidence that man was

descended from the apes. When asked for their evidence they said

that it was a skull which they had come across in excavations: the

skull of a man which had the jawbone of an ape. They said that

they had also discovered the skull of an ape with a human jaw­

bone. This was. the "missing link" which the world had been

searching for to support Darwin's theory that man is descended

It soon came to light that the university had purchased these

skulls from a archaeologist who had asked for ten million dollars

for this "major discovery". When the skulls were taken and sub­

jected to detailed scientific investigation at the highest levels with

the participation of a great number of scientists, they were discov­

ered to be frauds. It was clear that the archaeologist in question

had taken a human skull and the jawbone of an ape, and the skull

of an ape and a human jawbone, and stuck them together using a

very subtle technique which the, initial investigations undertaken

by the University of California did not expose.

. Such then was the physical evidence presented to prove a theo­

ry which is contrary to what Allah - glory be LV Him and may He

be exalted! - tells us about creation. It was spurious evidence man­

ufactured by a clever swindler in order to deceive humanity.

If only people's intellects would adhere to what Allah Almighty

has stated about things that are hidden from us, they would be

spared much research which in the end will only lead to what

Allah has told us anyway. All scientific research regarding what is

beyond the material universe is nothing but speculation. It is not

based on any real evidence and will not lead us to any real 'knowl­

When Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - created

the universe, He placed in it overt powers and hidden powers.

There are powers which we recognise and work with in the out­

ward world: physical things which we see before us every day. We

all share in sight and no one disagrees about the outward, percepti­

ble world. But there are also hidden powers in existence. Those

powers have their effects and have their role to play but we know

nothing about them except whatAllah wishes to show us.

To clarify what is meant by hidden powers we say that there is

a difference between the actual existence of a thing and our per­

ception of its existence. The thing might exist and might be around

us and affect our lives without our being able to perceive its exis­