Some Characteristics To Recognise A Magician – Shaikh Wahid Abdus-Salam Bali

Compiled, Translated and Annotated 

Abu Hibbaan and Abu Khuzaimah Ansaari

If the characteristics mentioned below are recognised in a person who attempts to heal someone, and if he possesses them then one should be certain that such a person is a magician.

1. The magician asks the name of the ill person and the name of the mother.
2. The magician requests some form of clothes of the ill person for example, shirt, hat or handkerchief.
3. Sometimes the magician requests an animal that he sacrifices without reciting “Bismillah (Begining in the name of Allaah).” then he rubs the blood of the animal on the person’s body and he throws the rest on uninhabited land.
4. The magician writes spells and talismans (ta’weez).
5. The magician recites the spells and talisman that cannot be understood by normal people.
6. The magician gives the patient a veil that has boxes and the boxes contain numbers or letters.
7. The magician orders the patient to seclude himself from the people for a specific period and to lock himself in a room where sunlight cannot reach him.
8. The magician sometimes asks the patient not to touch water for a specific period which is normally forty (40) days. And this sign is clear evidence that the Jinn the magician uses are Christian.
9. The magician gives the patient some things that he needs to bury in the ground.
10. He gives the patient some papers that he needs to burn and inhale the smoke from the burning paper.
11. He may chant or murmur in a tongue or language that nobody understands.
12. The magician sometimes tells the patient his name, the name of his city and the reason for his visit, all as soon as he sees him.
13. The magician gives the patient a piece of paper or a plate with some letters inscribed on it, and the patient has to mix it with water and drink it.

If you see a single sign from these signs in a person and you become certain he is a magician then do not go to him otherwise the statement of the Messenger of Allaah (sal-Allaahu ‘alayhe wa sallam) will apply to you:

“Whoever visited a fortune teller and believed in what was said to him then he has disbelieved in the religion revealed to Muhammad (sal-Allaahu ‘alayhe wa sallam).” [This hadeeth with its supports is Hasan, and Bazzaar, Ahmad and Haakim have narrated it. See also Saheeh al-Jaami (no.5939)]