Part 12

them fall asleep. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him

and grant him peace, took a handful of dust and threw it in their

faces and said, "The faces are disfigured." But none of them

moved and none of them was aware that the Messenger of Allah

had gone between them on his way to the cave.

Such was the Divine miracle which constituted the real chal­

lenge to the unbelievers. If the Messenger of Allah, may Allah

bless him and grant him peace, had been concealed in a place they

did not know, they could have said, "If we had found him, we

would have killed him." If he had left his house before the unbe­

lievers who were ready to kill him had arrived, they could have

said, "If we had reached him while he was in his house, we would

have killed him." They knew where he was and he was asleep in is

bed but they were still unable to kill him and he, may Allah bless

him and grant him peace. Ieft safe and sound.

The same is also true of magic. If they had not sought the help

of magic and the jinn, they would have said, "If we,had sought the

help of magic, we would have defeated him." If Allah Almighty

had nullified magic before that occurred, they could have said, "If

magic had not been nullified, it would have been a different story."

But Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - willed

that they should seek the help of sorcery and the jinn and that the

eyes of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant

him peace, should be bewitched, just as the eyes of Musa were

bewitched before him. Then Allah Almighty guided him to the

place where the magic was to bring it to naught and showed him

the one who carried out the magic so that all the Muslims would

see it and know what had transpired.

So it can be seen that this question, far from being to thedetri­

ment of the Messenger 'of Allah, in fact serves to confirm him. It

confirms for us that the jinn took up the challenge against the

noble Messenger and that Allah Almighty helped him against

However. the magic to which our noble Messenger, may Allah

bless him and grant him peace, was exposed, was in itself the same

kind of magic as that to which Musa was exposed. It is the magic

of creating an appearance which only affects the eye and does not

affect the intellect or the heart or the rest of the limbs of the body:

in other words, it was an illusion.

Hopefully this will have served to bring about correct under­

standing of the story of the sorcery used against the Messenger of

Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

After that we come to what Allah Almighty says about the

"They do not harm anyone by it, except with the permis­

We can see by this that Allah Almighty has been merciful to

His slaves, and that even if He gives some of His creation the.

power to seek the. help of the shaytans' in their attempt to cause

people harm, He has reserved for Himself the permission to actual­

ly cause harm. He asks us to seek refuge with Him from magic.

We have formulated a supplication incorporating the text of the

ayat which mentions it as protection against magic and envy.

A Supplication for Protection against Magic and

"0 Allah, You have given some of Your creatures the

power to use magic and do evil, but You have reserved for

Yourself the permission to harm. I seek refuge with You

from the harm whose infliction You have reserved for

Yourself, by Your words, 'They do not.harm anyone by it,

except with the permission ofAllah."'" •

If people ask how it is possible for magic to be ineffective, we

reply that examples of this happen all the time in normal life. Let

us suppose that a man wants to kill me. Allah may have enabled

him to purchase the gun to kill me with and to learn how to shoot.

He may even have put me together with him in a deserted place

where there are no witnesses. However even with ali these.means

athis disposal, does that give him the power to kill me? No, it

does not. His hand might shake at the moment he shoots and the

bullet miss me. I might move to the right or left by Allah's inspir­

ing me, and the bullet miss. He might tum suddenly or suddenly

jump, or a dog suddenly bark and frighten him. Any of these or a

thousand other things might happen to prevent my death taking

There are many examples of this kind of thing happening. Do

we not hear about murderers who go to kill someone and then err

in the darkness and kill someone else by mistake? Or they try to

strike a certain person and another person comes in between

because of the quarrel between them, and the blow does not reach

the one for whom it was intended at all.

From this we should understand quite clearly that the mere fact

that the means for something to happen is in place does not neces­

sarily mean that the thing will happen because above all causes is

the will of the Causer. It is that and that alone which makes the

thing occur or not occur, however comprehensive the means.

A ship might sink and the means be there for every passenger

to drown, but Allah may will that one or two persons find a barrel

which takes them to the shore. A house might collapse and kill

everyone in it, but a beam of wood protects the life of a man sleep­

ing under it. A house might collapse on a group of inhabitants and

some rescue men arrive and bring out some of them alive and

some of them dead although they all lived in the same house and

they were exposed to the same circumstances.

Thousands of other examples attest to the fact that Allah is the

Doer when the means are apparent, just as He is the Doer when the

A man might be in the furthest possible place from danger.

Then a stray bullet comes from no one knows where and kills him.

He might enter a place, such as a cave or basement, to protect him­

self from a possible danger such as someone attacking him and

injuring him. In that place he finds a snake or a wild animal which

kills him. Or perhaps the owner of the basement where he has

taken refuge thinks he is a thief and therefore shoots him. So he

sought refuge from a possible danger but came face to face with a

A believer must always remember that his power is limited and

that it is only the power of Allah which has no limits. He should

not be subject to the illusion that any man or shay tan has the

power to inflict harm on him or injure him apart from the power of

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

Allah Almighty calls our attention to the fact that magic or lack

of magic will not harm anyone except with the permission of

"They have learned what will harm them and bring

them no benefit. They know that anyone who deals in it

will have no share in the Next World. How evil the thing

that they have sold themselves/or, if they did but know!"

We have discussed the fact that magic harms both the magician

and the bewitched. We made it clear how the magician is afflicted

by disasters and dies humiliated, filled with bitterness, sorrow,

alienation, poverty, and complete disappointment. The two angels

who taught people magic told any who desired to learn from them,

"We are a trial, so do not disbelieve."

But unjust, ignorant man insisted on learning magic, thinking

that he was getting something from which much wealth could be

gained. He did not know that he had sold himself for an evil price

and that he had taken on harm and lost this world and the Next.

Magic does not increase man's opportunities. Rather it ieads to

disbelief and leads to the loss of this world and the Next. That is

why Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - calls our

attention to the fact that those who practise magic have purchased

the vilest thing in this world and sold themselves in order to

receive rejection, poverty and the punishment of the Next World.

We have discussed the example of sorcery to which the

Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,

was exposed and made it clear that Musa, peace be upon him, was

also bewitched when he confronted Pharaoh's magicians and that

Allah Almighty supported him; and that the question of our

Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, being

exposed to magic was part of the fullness of the challenge of this

deen in respect of the jinn. Allah showed His Messenger who had

carried out the magic and the place where it was, and that this con­

firms the Messenger rather than disparaging him in any way.

We have made it clear that Allah Almighty has reserved the

permission to harm by magic for Himself alone and therefore that

no harm occurs from the magician to the bewitched except by the

It remains for us to discuss one other unseen force which is hid­

den from us but about which Allah - glory be to Him and may He

be exalted! - has cautioned us: and that is envy.

We have discussed magic, and before we, finish the discussion

we must also speak about envy. That is because envy, like magic,

is one of the hidden forces in existence. If it had not been that

Allah Almighty has mentioned envy to us in the Noble Quran, we

would know nothing about it. It is hidden from us in all its forms.

Envy is wishing for a blessing to be removed from someone

without the envier benefiting from it. You might hope that a bless­

ing will leave someone so that you can have it or act to remove a

blessing from a man so that you can have it for yourself. But that

is not truly speaking envy. Envy is to wish a blessing to leave

someone without the envier gaining any benefit at all.

Envy is a fact and a reality whose existence is confirmed by the