The Mus­lim Schol­ars Regard­ing the Bewitch­ment” of the Prophet Muhammad

The Mus­lim schol­ars hold three views with regard to this incident :

The first view : The sor­cery whom the Prophet (peace be upon him) was exposed to is mere­ly a usu­al dis­ease and a tran­sient ill­ness, this is pos­si­ble in regard to the Prophets as is to any human being. It does not dis­prove prophet­hood or dis­turb the mes­sage or rev­e­la­tion. God the Exalt­ed pro­tect­ed His Prophet from what­ev­er inter­feres with the mis­sion of con­vey­ing the mes­sage and from being killed, not from tran­sient phys­i­cal diseases.

This is the view of Al-MaziriAl-Mu’lem be Fawa’id Mus­lim, vol. 3, p. 93, Ibn Al-Qayy­im, Al-‘AiniUmdat-ul-Qari, vol. 15, p. 98, As-Sin­diAs-Sindi’s foot­notes on Sunan At-Tirmithi vol. 7, p. 113 and Ibn BazzMaj­mu’ Fatawa Ibn BazCf. Fath-ul-Bari, vol. 10, p. 237 and Nail-ul-Awtar, vol. 17, p. 211.

Al-Qadi Iyyad explained it saying :

In regard to what was report­ed that he used to think that he did a thing while he did not, it does not inter­fere with his deliv­ery of the Mes­sage or the Law nor does it under­mine his truth­ful­ness due to the evi­dent proof and con­sen­sus of his pro­tec­tion from this. This was mere­ly a world­ly mat­ter that has noth­ing to do with his Mis­sion or rank, and he is exposed to it as any oth­er human being. So, it is not impos­si­ble for him to imag­ine unre­al things, then find out what they real­ly are. It is not report­ed regard­ing this event any­thing oth­er than what he said about doing some­thing that he real­ly did not. It was mere­ly imag­i­na­tion.Ash-Shi­fa bi Ta?rif Huqouq Al-Mustafa, vol. 2, p. 113

Ibn-ul-Qayy­im said :

Sor­cery that affect­ed the Prophet (peace be upon him) was a tran­sient dis­ease that Allah cured him from. There is noth­ing defec­tive about it for all Prophets are exposed to ill­ness as well as faint­ing ; he (peace be upon him) faint­ed dur­ing his ill­nessRelat­ed by Al-Bukhari in his Sahih, book of ?Azan?, hadith no. 687 and by Mus­lim in his Sahih, book of Salat”, hadith no. 418, fell down when his leg loos­ened and was bruisedIt is relat­ed by Anas ibn Malik that he said : The Prophet (peace be upon him) fell down from a horse, so his right side was bruised”. Relat­ed by Al-Bukhari in his Sahih, book of ?Salat?, hadith no. 378. and Mus­lim in his Sahih, book of ?Salat?, hadith no. 411. This is afflic­tion by which Prophets increase in rank and degree. Most afflict­ed peo­ple are the Prophets ; they were afflict­ed with killing, hurt, abuse and impris­on­ment, so it is not new for the Prophet (peace be upon him) to be afflict­ed with some sor­cery from his ene­mies as he was bruised when some­one stoned him and as ani­mal bow­els were thrown on him dur­ing his pros­tra­tionRelat­ed by Al-Bukhari in his Sahih, book of ?Wudu?, hadith n., 240. and Mus­lim in his Sahih, book of ?Jihad and Sayr?, hadith no. 1794 and oth­er inci­dents. There is noth­ing under­min­ing or dis­grace­ful about it, on the con­trary, it indi­cates their per­fec­tion and high rank before God. Bada’il-ul-Fawa’id, vol. 2, p. 192 ; cf. Zad-ul-Ma’ad, vol. 4. p. 124

The sec­ond view : Sor­cery mere­ly affect­ed his exter­nals and organs, not his heart, mind or intel­lect. The mean­ing of the verse is pro­tec­tion of heart and belief, not pro­tec­tion of the body from world­ly accidents.

This is the pref­er­ence of Al-Qadi IyyadAs-Shi­fa, vol. 2, p. 113 and Ibn Hajar al-Haytha­miAz-Zawa­jir, vol. 2, pp. 163 – 164.

The third view :
What was report­ed — that the Prophet (peace be upon him) was charmed — is an unac­cept­able forgery. Rather, it was fab­ri­cat­ed by the disbelievers.

This is the posi­tion of the Mu’­taza­litesCf. Mafatih-ul-Ghaib, vol. 23, p. 172 ; Umdat-ul-Qari, vol. 21, p. 280.

It is the pref­er­ence of al-Jas­sas, the Sun­ni schol­ar, who said :

They alleged that the Prophet (peace be upon him) was charmed and sor­cery worked upon him — such reports are fab­ri­cat­ed by athe­ists to mock infe­ri­or peo­ple and to lead them to reject mir­a­cles of the Prophets and crit­i­cize them, and that there is no dif­fer­ence between mir­a­cles of Prophets and works of sor­cer­ers and that they are the same. It is indeed strange that some com­bine belief in Prophets (peace be upon them) and their mir­a­cles and belief in works of sor­cer­ers despite His say­ing, And the magi­cian thrives not (no mat­ter) where he goes” (Holy Qur’an 20:69). So they believe the one whom God has belied and told about his forgery and inco­her­ence of his claims.

It is pos­si­ble that the Jew­ish woman did this — out of igno­rance — think­ing that it works upon bod­ies and tar­get­ed the Prophet (peace be upon him). So God informed His Prophet about her secret and exposed her igno­rance about what she believed and imag­ined in order for this to be one of proofs of his prophet­hood, not that it has hurt and con­fused him. Not all reporters said that he was con­fused ; it was mere­ly a base­less addi­tion.Al-Jas­sas, Ahkam-ul-Qur?an, vol. 1, pp. 58 – 59

Their evi­dence is that say­ing that the Prophet (peace be upon him) was charmed, neces­si­tates the following :

    1. Degra­da­tion and crit­i­cism of mir­a­cles of Prophets (peace be upon them).
    2. Con­fu­sion of mir­a­cles of Prophets (peace be upon them) with works of sorcerers.
    3. Affir­ma­tion of the dis­be­liev­ers’ claim : Ye fol­low none oth­er than a man bewitched” (Holy Qur’an 25:8). Peo­ple of Saleh said to him Thou art only one of those bewitched” (Holy Qur’an 26:153) and peo­ple of Shu’aib said the same to him.
    4. Prophets are not sus­cep­ti­ble to sor­cery because it con­tra­dicts God?s pro­tec­tion and immu­ni­ty of them.Cf. Al-Jas­sas, Ahkam-ul-Qur?an, vol. 1, p. 59 ; Mafatih-ul-Ghaib, 32, p. 172 ;Bada?i?-ul-Fawa?id, vol. 2, p. 191

They respond­ed to the hadith of Aisha” in which it is men­tioned that the Prophet (peace be upon him) was charmed — that it is sole­ly report­ed by Hisham ibn UrwahHe is Hisham ibn Urwah ibn Az-Zubair Ibn Al-‘Awwam ibn Khuwalid ibn Asad ibn ?Abdul-?Uzza ibn Qusay ibn Kilab, the trust­wor­thy Imam, Sheikh-ul-Islam, Abul-Mun­zir al-Quraisi al-Asa­di Az-Zubairi al-Madani, Ibn Sa’ad said : he was trust­wor­thy, reli­able, rich in Hadith and and author­i­ty”. Abu Hatem Ar-Razi said : trust­wor­thy Imam in Hadith”.Yahya Ibn Ma?een and oth­ers said : trust­wor­thy”. Died 146 A.H. cf. Syar A’lam-un-Nubala’, vol. 6, p. 34. on author­i­ty of his father from Aisha, and that he was con­fused about it.Cf. Bada’i-ul-Fawa’id, vol. 2, p. 191.

Our Objec­tions :

  1. His Say­ing : Ye fol­low none oth­er than a man bewitched” (Holy Qur’an 25:8) and Thou art only one of those bewitched” (Holy Qur’an 26:153) is a ref­er­ence to the one who is bewitched till he becomes a lunatic and los­es his mind. The charmed one who is not to be fol­lowed is the one who has gone so crazy that he can­not real­ize what he says ; that is why they accused him and said Tutored (by oth­ers), a man pos­sessed” (Holy Qur’an 44:14). As for the one who is bod­i­ly affect­ed with some sort of a dis­ease, fol­low­ing him is not pre­vent­ed. Ene­mies of Prophets did not accuse them of bod­i­ly ill­ness, rather of what pre­vents their fol­low­ers from fol­low­ing them : that they were so bewitched that they could not real­ize what they say, just like lunatics. This is why God, the Exalt­ed, says See what sim­i­les they strike for thee : but they have gone astray, and nev­er can they find a way” (Holy Qur’an 17:48).
  2. As for their say­ing that bewitch­ment of the Prophets con­tra­dicts their divine pro­tec­tion, we say that as God pro­tects, saves and keeps them, He also tests them with what­ev­er he likes of dis­be­liev­ers’ harm, for them to deserve the high­est ranks of nobil­i­ty and patience, and to be as exam­ples to their fol­low­ers and nations who are afflict­ed by peo­ple. So, when they see what hap­pened to Prophets, they become patient and accept­ing, and fol­low the exam­ple of their Prophets.Cf. Bada’i-ul-Fawa’id, vol. 2, pp. 192 – 193 ; Mafatih-ul-Ghaib, vol. 32, p. 172.

  3. As for their say­ing that the hadith was sole­ly report­ed by Hisham Ibn Urwah, the answer is that their claim is reject­ed, for Hisham is one of the most trust­wor­thy and knowl­edge­able reporters and no Imam has ever crit­i­cized him to the degree that jus­ti­fies rejec­tion of his report. Com­pil­ers of both Sahihs agreed on authen­tic­i­ty of this hadith and none of Hadith schol­ars has ever uttered a word against it. The inci­dent is well known to schol­ars of Tafsir, Sunan and Hadith and to Jurists, these peo­ple are most ori­ent­ed with con­di­tions of God?s Mes­sen­ger (peace be upon him) than others.

More­over, the hadith was not sole­ly report­ed by Hisham ; it was also relat­ed by al-A’mash — from Yazid Ibn Hayyan from Zaid ibn Arqam — who said :

A Jew­ish man charmed the Prophet (peace be upon him), he com­plained for some days. Gabriel (peace be upon him) came and said : a Jew­ish man has charmed you ; he made for you a knob in such-and-such well. God’s Mes­sen­ger (peace be upon him) some peo­ple to get it. Once they brought it to him, he got up active­ly. He (peace be upon him) nev­er men­tioned this to the Jew­ish man, nor expressed it”.Relat­ed by Ibn Abi Shai­ba in his Musan­naf, vol. 5, p. 40. and Imam Ahmad in his Mus­nad, vol. 4, p. 367. and An-Nisa’i in his Sunan, book of Tahrim-ul-Damm”, hadith n., 4080. all on author­i­ty of al-A’mash and authen­ti­cat­ed by Al-Albani in Sahih Sunan An-Nisa’i, vol. 3, p. 98, hadith no. 4091.Cf. Bada’i-ul-Fawa’id, vol. 2, p. 191.

And only God knows best. The Muslim Scholars Regarding the "Bewitchment" of the Prophet Muhammad 1Endmark

Cite this arti­cle as : Sheikh Ahmad Ibn Abdul-Aziz Al-Qusaier, The Mus­lim Schol­ars Regard­ing the Bewitch­ment” of the Prophet Muham­mad,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Decem­ber 12, 2005, last accessed March 19, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​m​u​h​a​m​m​a​d​/​t​h​e​-​m​u​s​l​i​m​-​s​c​h​o​l​a​r​s​-​r​e​g​a​r​d​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​b​e​w​i​t​c​h​m​e​n​t​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​p​r​o​p​h​e​t​-​m​u​h​a​m​m​ad/

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5 responses to “The Mus­lim Schol­ars Regard­ing the Bewitch­ment” of the Prophet Muhammad”

  1. shery Avatar
    shery

    (Source : Ibn Ishaq’s Biog­ra­phy of the Prophet quot­ed in Faisal Sid­diqui, The Bible’s Last Prophet, pp. 104 – 105)

  2. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    as salaa­mu alaykum wa rah­matu allahi wa barakatu

    broth­er huss gun­da, although i agree that the atone­ment by blood is a pagan and satan­ic doc­trine (accord­ing to the ency­clo­pe­dia bri­tan­ni­ca, the pagan mesopotami­an gods con­sume the sac­ri­fices through olfac­tion. kind like YHWH when he smelled the scent of the sac­ri­fices prophet noah made. pagan gods need blood, because in real­i­ty they are shay­atin pos­ing as gods. Iblis’ favorite cult is the pas­sion of baal”, the demon­ic god who took human form, died, har­rowed hell, and was ressurect­ed on the third day. Chris­tians will most cer­tain­ly say that part of these beliefs is a belief the Mus­lims accept, that of the vir­gin birth. But the vir­gin birth is not pagan­is­tic. it is the doc­trine of God sir­ing a son,and not a vir­gin bear­ing a son, which is pagan­is­tic. diony­sus was not vir­gin-born ; he was the son of a god and a mor­tal woman), please try to tame your tongue. please do not judge who will go to hell. you are cor­rect, if they per­sist in their belief, it is to their own harm. but we are not saved because of any­thing we do. we will be saved if Allah’s infi­nite Rah­ma, the Rah­ma of the God who does not need the blood of Abra­ham’s son to for­give the great­est sin, the God who does not need the mas­sacre of inno­cent Amalekite infants and suck­lings, dawns upon us. what im try­ing to tell you is to fol­low Imam al-Ghaz­za­l­i’s exam­ple of tol­er­ance and open-mind­ed­ness. please dont con­demn all of them, as some may become sin­cere mus­lims, insha’l­lah, maybe bet­ter mus­lims than you and me.

  3. huss gunda Avatar
    huss gunda

    sham shomouns god had a plan from the beggining.this plan was about allow­ing judas to betray him so that he can joy­ful­ly like a sadist com­mit sui­cide by allow­ing peo­ple to cru­ci­fy him.the truth was that it was­n’t god but satan who died for chris­tians on the cross.if satan’s plan is a suc­cess then mil­lions of pagans like shamoun will join him in hell.

  4. Aqsa Avatar

    In the name of Allah most gra­cious most merciful
    Assalaa­mu alaykum wa rah­mat­u­al­lahi wa barakatuhu

    Bewitch­ment of Prophet Muham­mad peace be upon him.
     — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

    Mag­ic effect­ed prophet peace be upon him only as a husband,that too only on part of sex­u­al relations.

    Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith­Ha­dith 7.660 Nar­rat­ed byAisha
    Mag­ic was worked on Allah’s Apos­tle so that he used to think that he had sex­u­al rela­tions with his wives while he actu­al­ly had not (Sufyan said : That
    is the hard­est kind of mag­ic as it has such an effect). Then one day he said, O Aisha do you know that Allah has instruct­ed me con­cern­ing the
    mat­ter I asked Him about ? Two men came to me and one of them sat near my head and the oth­er sat near my feet. The one near my head asked the other,
    What is wrong with this man?’ The lat­ter replied He is under the effect of mag­ic.’ The first one asked, Who has worked mag­ic on him?’ The other
    replied, Labid bin Al-A’sam, a man from Bani Zuraiq who was an ally of the Jews and was a hyp­ocrite.’ The first one asked, What mate­r­i­al did he use?’
    The oth­er replied, A comb and the hair stuck to it.’ The first one asked, Where (is that)?’ The oth­er replied, In a skin of pollen of a male date
    palm tree kept under a stone in the well of Dhar­wan.’ ” So the Prophet went to that well and took out those things and said, That was the well which
    was shown to me (in a dream). Its water looked like the infu­sion of Hen­na leaves and its date-palm trees looked like the heads of dev­ils.” The Prophet
    added, Then that thing was tak­en out.” I said (to the Prophet), Why do you not treat your­self with Nashra?” He said, Allah has cured me ; I dis­like to
    let evil spread among my people.”

    He was informed in dream about magic.
     — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — –
    Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith­Ha­dith 4.490 Nar­rat­ed byAisha
    Mag­ic was worked on the Prophet so that he began to fan­cy that he was doing a thing which he was not actu­al­ly doing. One day he invoked (Allah) for a long peri­od and then said, I feel that Allah has inspired me as how to cure myself. Two per­sons came to me (in my dream) and sat, one by my head and the oth­er by my feet. One of them asked the oth­er, What is the ail­ment of this man?’ The oth­er replied, He has been bewitched.’ The first asked, Who has bewitched him?’ The oth­er replied, Lubaid bin Al-A’sam.’ The first one asked, What mate­r­i­al has he used?’ The oth­er replied, A comb, the hair gath­ered on it, and the out­er skin of the pollen of the male date-palm.’ The first asked, Where is that?’ The oth­er replied, It is in the well of Dhar­wan.’ ” So, the Prophet went out towards the well and then returned and said to me on his return, Its date-palms (the date-palms near the well) are like the heads of the dev­ils.” I asked, Did you take out those things with which the mag­ic was worked?” He said, No, for I have been cured by Allah and I am afraid that this action may spread evil amongst the peo­ple.” Lat­er on the well was filled up with earth.

    Allah sub­hanawata­la pro­tect­ed Prophet Muham­mad peace be upon him from mag­ic in his duty as prophet i.e con­vey­ing divine mes­sage & also on prac­tis­ing it.
     — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
    52:29 There­fore pro­claim thou the prais­es (of thy Lord): For by the Grace of thy Lord thou art no (vul­gar) sooth­say­er nor art thou one possessed.
    68:2 Thou art not by the grace of thy Lord mad or possessed.
    81:22 And (O peo­ple!) your com­pan­ion is not one possessed ;
    34:46 Say : I do admon­ish you on one point : that ye do stand up before Allah – (it may be) in pairs or (it may be) singly and reflect (with­in your­selves): your Com­pan­ion is not pos­sessed : he is no less than a Warn­er to you in face of a ter­ri­ble Penalty.”
    23:70 Or do they say He is pos­sessed”? Nay he has brought them the Truth but most of them hate the Truth.

    There are var­i­ous types of magic.
     — — — — — — — — — — —
    [a]To sow dis­cord between man and wife.
    2:102 They fol­lowed what the evil ones gave out (false­ly) against the pow­er of Solomon ; the blas­phe­mers were not Solomon but the evil ones teach­ing men mag­ic and such things as came down at Baby­lon to the angels Harut and Marut. But nei­ther of these taught any­one (such things) with­out say­ing : We are only for tri­al so do not blas­pheme.” They learned from them the means to sow dis­cord between man and wife. But they could not thus harm any­one except by Allah’s per­mis­sion. And they learned what harmed them not what prof­it­ed them. And they knew that the buy­ers of (mag­ic) would have no share in the hap­pi­ness of the Here­after. And vile was the price for which they did sell their souls if they but knew !
    [b]Magic which was done on ropes & rods.
    20:66 He said Nay throw ye first!” Then behold their ropes and their rods so it seemed to him on account of their mag­ic began to be in live­ly motion !

    *Note:Hence there are dif­fer­ent types of mag­ic the mag­ic which affect­ed Prophet Muham­mad peace be upon him was only on the basis of his duty as a husband.

    The surah as pre­ven­tion & cure from magic
     — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
    113:1 Say : I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn
    2 From the mis­chief of cre­at­ed things ;
    3 From the mis­chief of Dark­ness as it overspreads ;
    4 From the mis­chief of those who prac­tice Secret Arts ;
    5 And from the mis­chief of the envi­ous one as he prac­tices envy.

    Allah knows best.

  5. Hafiz Avatar
    Hafiz

    Good site broth­er. Good site.
    May Allah reward you with a thou­sand houris, no man or Jinn has touched before.

    Ameen.

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