Daily Azkar and Duas for Protection From Sihr, Jinn, and Evil Eye

A look at daily azkar in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

Every remedy Islamic teaching offers against sihr, the evil eye, and jinn interference is treatment after the fact. Prevention is treated as far more important, and it is built entirely out of ordinary, everyday acts of worship the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ performed and taught his companions to repeat – a set of morning, evening, and bedtime remembrances known collectively as azkar, alongside a small number of specific supplications for particular moments of vulnerability.

Daily azkar: Ayat al-Kursi Before Sleep

Among the single most emphasized protective practices in the entire hadith literature is reciting Ayat al-Kursi (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:255) before sleeping. Abu Hurairah (RA) narrated, in a hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, that he was assigned by the Prophet ﷺ to guard the stored dates of charity, caught a figure stealing from it three nights in a row, and on the third night the thief – who turned out to be a devil – taught him to recite Ayat al-Kursi before sleeping in exchange for being let go, promising that whoever does so would have a protector from Allah remain with them, and no devil would come near them until morning. When Abu Hurairah reported this to the Prophet ﷺ the next day, he confirmed it was true, adding that the creature, despite being a habitual liar, had told the truth that time.

The Last Two Verses of Al-Baqarah

The Prophet ﷺ is reported in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim to have said that whoever recites the final two verses of Surah al-Baqarah (2:285-286) at night, they will be sufficient for him – understood by scholars to mean sufficient protection against harm through the night, and against the intrusion of Shaytan specifically. These two verses, affirming belief in Allah, His angels, His books, and His messengers, and closing with a direct supplication asking Allah not to burden the believer beyond what they can bear, are treated as a nightly staple alongside Ayat al-Kursi rather than a substitute for it.

Al-Mu’awwidhatayn: Al-Falaq and An-Nas

Aisha (RA) narrated that in his final illness, the Prophet ﷺ would recite Surah al-Falaq and Surah an-Nas – together known as al-Mu’awwidhatayn, “the two surahs of refuge” – blow gently onto his own hands, and wipe them over his body, and that when he became too weak to do so himself, she performed the same action for him using his own hand. These two surahs, the final chapters of the Quran, name specific harms directly: the evil of what He created, the darkness of night, those who blow on knots in witchcraft, the envier, and the whispering of Shaytan – making them the single most concentrated protective recitation in the Quran, and the core of ruqyah practiced by a person on themselves each morning and evening.

Morning and Evening Remembrance (Adhkar al-Sabah wal-Masaa)

Beyond the bedtime recitations, the Prophet ﷺ taught a fuller set of remembrances to be said each morning after Fajr and each evening after Asr, gathered by later scholars into collections still circulated today as “Hisn al-Muslim” (the Fortress of the Muslim). These include reciting Ayat al-Kursi, the three protective surahs (al-Ikhlas, al-Falaq, an-Nas) three times each, and a specific supplication the Prophet ﷺ taught for exactly this purpose: “In the name of Allah, with whose name nothing on earth or in the heaven can cause harm, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing” – recited three times, morning and evening, with the promise, narrated by Uthman ibn Affan (RA) in a hadith recorded by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi, that nothing would harm the one who said it until the next such recitation.

Saying Bismillah at Ordinary Moments

Protection in Islamic teaching is not reserved for formal recitation sessions; it is woven into the smallest daily actions. The Prophet ﷺ taught that saying “Bismillah” before entering a home keeps Shaytan from entering with the household, before eating keeps a devil from sharing in the meal, and before marital relations is what the specific supplication for that moment is built around – asking Allah to keep Shaytan away from the couple and from any child that may be conceived. Scholars point to this pattern deliberately: the same protection sought through lengthy nightly recitation is available, in smaller doses, through a single word said consistently throughout the ordinary business of the day.

Why Consistency Matters More Than Length

Scholars writing on ruqyah and protective recitation are consistent on one closing point: none of these azkar function as a one-time inoculation. The Prophet ﷺ himself, despite reciting these same protections, was still affected by the sihr of Labid ibn al-A’sam, which is why scholars teach that azkar are a means of seeking Allah’s protection rather than a mechanical guarantee, to be repeated daily as an act of worship and reliance on Allah rather than performed once and then set aside. It is the regularity of the practice – morning, evening, and before sleep, every day – that Islamic teaching treats as the real safeguard, far more than any single recitation on its own.

Supplications for Leaving and Entering the Home

Among the recorded azkar tied to specific daily transitions, hadith preserve a distinct supplication for the moment a person steps outside their door: “In the name of Allah, I place my trust in Allah, and there is no might nor power except with Allah,” recorded by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi, with the added promise that the person who says it will be told it is sufficient for them and that they are guided and protected, while a devil moves away from them at that moment. A separate, shorter supplication is taught for entering the home, invoking Allah’s name upon entering and upon eating within it, described in a hadith recorded in Sahih Muslim as denying Shaytan any place to spend the night in that household once both invocations are made. Scholars group these alongside the broader set of daily azkar precisely because they mark the same kind of everyday threshold moment – leaving safety for the outside world, and returning to it again – that Islamic teaching consistently treats as worth anchoring in the remembrance of Allah, rather than passing through unmarked.

Read in full, this is what daily azkar looks like when Islamic teaching moves from principle into daily life.

For a closely related topic, see our discussion of Birr al-Walidayn: The Rights of Parents in Islam. The verses and hadith cited above can be cross-referenced in full at Sunnah.com.