Part 9

magic seek their livelihood from people who do not practisemagic

and do not work with jinn. In other words, the magicians constitute

the lower hand reaching out for money from other slaves of Allah

who do not practise any sort of magic. If those who practise magic

were to do what was good for them, they would not fmd them­

selves in need in the first place. Allah - glory be to Him and may

He be exalted! - wants to show us that those who practise magic,

and those whose help they seek by virtue of their greater strength,

show themselves to be inferior to those around them by seeking

No one can claim that seeking the help of the jinn contains ben­

efit. Using anything, whether magic or weapons or words, in other

than Allah's way, inevitably brings harm with it. In the same way

that people are harmed when they leave the Path of Allah for mate­

rial things, so they are also harmed by leaving it for unseen things.

True belief requires us to devote all we learn to the service of

Allah. This occurs when we hold fast to legitimate knowledge.

The temptation of this illicit knowledge is something which Allah

Almighty has put there as a test for human belief and so we must

all try to avoid its allure. Anyone who grazes around a forbidden

area is sure to fall into it. •

Temptations can take a physical form, like those of women,

property and children, but they can also take an unseen form such

as magic. We must avoid both kinds but especially magic because

it is an enticement from which only evil results and which never

brings us any good at all. Allah - glory be to Him and may He be

exalted! - told His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him

peace, to convey to us that magic is a temptation which leads to

disbelief. We believe everything that Allah Almighty sent down to

His truthful, faithful Messenger and so we must avoid its tempta­

tion and all that leads: to it. Therefore it is virtually an obligatory

duty to refrain from learning magic.

When we look at those who use magic, we will find that the

personality of every one of them is filled with the desire for domi­

nation and also that their provision is decreasing. No magician can

turn the magic he knows to his own profit. This is enough of a

proof for us that magic is evil and not good, harmful and not bene­

"Magicians do not prosper." (10:77)

And the Almighty also says:

"Magicians do not prosper anywherethey go." (20:69)

Neither success nor benefit ever comes from magic.

Separating a Man from His Wife

Thus all that is achieved by magic is harm and injury and the

types of harm it can do are very numerous. The workings of magic

remain invisible to us, so we must take on trust what Allah

Almighty and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him

peace, report to us about it separating a man from his wife.

Separating a man from his 'wife can be achieved by ordinary

everyday methods. Are there not wicked people in normal life who

pufin a word here and a word there and thereby cause a couple to

separate? This happens and many of us have witnessed it. But

what happens through these visible means is also enabled to take

We know that the shaytans of the jinn can take on different

shapes and that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and

grant him peace, was once going to tie a shaytan to the pillar of the

mosque after it took on the shape of man and became subject to

human laws. We say that since this is the case, there is, for

instance, nothing to prevent a shaytan of the jinn assuming an ugly

fonn on the face of a woman so that when her husband sees her

face he cannot bear to look at her and vice versa, so that the wife

finds her husband repulsive. This can happen. This is one way of

separating a man from his wife. There are also other ways which

we do not know because they are unseen and hidden from us.

However what we do know is that it is easy to separate. a man from

his wife by means of magic because the Noble Quran tells us so.

There are many other types of harm which result from magic.

"How" does not Exist in Matters of the Unseen

There are countless unseen matters in the creation of Allah ­

glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - and the question "how?"

is inapplicable to them. The unseen belongs to Allah. In respect of

physical matters it is possible to ask "how?", and so. for instance,

we can ask how water is formed, The answer consists of an actual

experiment in which two atoms of hydrogen are combined with

one atom of oxygen and water is formed. However, we cannot ask

why this happens because this is something known only to Allah

Almighty. As for matters of the unseen, no one can know how they

occur. Ibrahim the Friend, peace be upon him, asked his Lord, say­

"When Ibrahim said. 'My Lord, show me how You bring

the dead to life.' He said, 'Do you not then believe?' He

said, 'OJ course I do! But so that my heart may be at

The father of the Prophets, Ibrahim the friend, peace be upon

him, asked Allah Almighty to show him how He brings the dead to

life. Did Allah Almighty tell him how to bring the dead to life?

No, Allah carried out an experiment before himto affirm the abso­

lute and unrestricted power of Allah to bring the dead to life. The

"He said, Take four birds and incline them towards

you. Then put a part of them on each mountain and call

them. They will come rushing to you. Know that Allah is

This was the experiment which was conducted before Ibrahim,

peace be upon him. He took four birds and divided them up and

placed .a part on each mountain and then called them, and then the

birds came to him, walking on their feet so that it would be known

that they were the same birds he had divided up. They did not

come flying from another place so that the business would be con­

However, did Allah Almighty tell him how that happened? No,

because "how?" cannot be applied to the unseen. When someone

asks how harm befalls the bewitched, we say that Allah Almighty

informs us about certain matters and makes other matters hidden

from us. Allah informs us that the bewitched are made to imagine

that they see things in front of them which are not actually there.

For instance, people saw the ropes and staffs of the magicians of

Musa turn into huge, slithering snakes. Such illusion or fantasy

provokes fear in the hearts of the witnesses and makes their will

subject to that of the magician. The fear which fills them removes

any resistance from them. That is why they begin to see what the

magician wants them to see, as is proven by the fact that they saw

tl •. ropes and staffs as snakes. They do not see what the magician

does not want them to see, as is proven by the fact that they did

not see the ropes and staffs remain as they were when they had in

reality not changed at all. This whole event is related to us by

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

As for separating a man from his wife, Allah Almighty tells us

that this can take place through magic, but He does not make it

clear to us by what means it occurs. In the same way Allah

Almighty informs us that harm occurs by magic, but does'not tell

us how it takes place.

Magicians Do Not Know' the Unseen

.Nevertheless, some people still believe that magicians know the

Unseen. This is the work of charlatans who try to make people

imagine that they can have the Unseen revealed to them, but this is

In order to understand this matter properly we must know that

there is a relative Unseen and an absolute Unseen. The 'relative

Unseen is something that is hidden from us but known to someone

else. Suppose that I am robbed, for instance. Who is the robber?

The answer is hidden from me and I do not know it. The police do

not know it either. But the robber himself knows that he stole. The

one with whom the stolen goods are concealed also knows who the

thief is. It may well be that the person to whomthe stolen goods

are sold knows who the thief is as well.

A minister might have decided to promote me to a higher

office. This is hidden from me and I do not yet know that I have

been nromoted. But the minister who issued the decision knows.

The director of the department also knows because he took the

decision to have it copied. The typist or the one responsible for

copying the decision knows because they undertook the operation

of copying it. So this is a relatively unseen matter because it is hid­

den from me but not hidden from others. This kind of Unseen can

be known by man and jinn.

The past is also a kind of Unseen - something happened and

came to an end and is hidden from people. However, the person

who did it and the one who witnessed it know it. That is why it is a

relative Unseen. The same applies to things which occurred a long

time ago all the witnesses of which are now dead. It is a relative

Unseen because 'we might come upon some documents or evi­

dence which reveal them to us and tell us their story. The absolute

Unseen, however, is something which only Allah Almighty knows.

"The Knower of the Unseen; He does not manifest His

Some people might 'argue that the Messenger Of Allah, may

Allah bless him and grant him peace, told us about things which

were unseen, things which had not yet happened, and then which

later took place. We say that the noble Messenger, peace and bless­

ings be upon him, was informed about the Unseen. Allah

Almighty told His Messenger whatever He wished him to know of

the news of the Unseen. What Allah Almighty told him., the