Nazar (The Evil Eye) in Islam: Causes, Signs, and Protection

A look at evil eye in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

Islamic teaching treats the evil eye, nazar, as a real cause of harm in its own right, distinct from sihr even though the two are often discussed together and treated with the same recitations. Where black magic requires a person to deliberately practice sorcery, the evil eye can be inflicted unintentionally, simply through the intensity of envy or even undue admiration – which is precisely why the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ treated protection from it as something every Muslim needed, not only the unusually pious or the unusually unlucky.

What the Quran and Hadith Say About Nazar

The Quran alludes to the evil eye directly: Surah al-Qalam describes the disbelievers as almost striking the Prophet ﷺ down with their gaze out of malice (68:51), and the final verse of Surah al-Falaq seeks refuge specifically “from the evil of an envier when he envies.” The clearest statement, though, comes from the Prophet ﷺ himself, recorded in Sahih Muslim: “The evil eye is real, and if anything were to precede the divine decree, it would be the evil eye.” Elsewhere he is reported to have said that most of his own community who die an unnatural death do so on account of the evil eye, after being asked about jinn possession and the evil eye together – a striking statement that placed nazar among the more serious unseen harms a person could face, not a minor folk anxiety.

How the Evil Eye Is Understood to Work

Scholars describe nazar as arising from a look weighted with either envy toward what someone else has, or excessive, unchecked admiration – even well-meaning praise, if not accompanied by an invocation of Allah’s blessing, is traditionally held to be capable of causing it. This is why a companion named Sahl ibn Hunayf fell seriously ill after another companion, Amir ibn Rabi’ah, admired his skin while he bathed without saying “In sha Allah” or seeking Allah’s blessing over what he saw – an incident recorded in the hadith literature and used ever since as the textbook illustration of how nazar can be inflicted without any hostile intent at all. When the Prophet ﷺ was informed, he had Amir perform ablution and instructed that the water be poured over Sahl, after which Sahl recovered – a treatment later recognized as a specific prophetic remedy for cases where the person responsible for the evil eye is known.

Common Signs Attributed to Nazar

Ruqyah practitioners typically look for a sudden decline following a specific, identifiable moment of being seen, admired, or envied – a child who falls ill shortly after being fussed over by visitors, a business that suddenly slows after being the subject of gossip or jealousy, or unexplained fatigue, pallor, loss of appetite, or repeated yawning that begins abruptly rather than gradually. As with sihr, none of these signs is conclusive by itself, but a sharp decline that follows closely on the heels of visible envy or excessive praise is the pattern scholars point to as most characteristic of nazar specifically.

Everyday Prevention: Saying “Mashallah” and “Tabarakallah”

Because the evil eye is so often unintentional, prevention in Islamic teaching is built into ordinary daily speech rather than reserved for emergencies. A person who admires something – another person’s child, their health, their new possession, their success – is instructed to attach a blessing to the admiration: “Mashallah” (as Allah has willed), “Tabarakallah” (blessed is Allah), or a prayer for barakah, rather than voicing plain, unqualified praise. This single habit is treated in Islamic teaching as sufficient, on its own, to neutralize the harm that unqualified admiration can otherwise cause, which is why it is taught to children as routine etiquette rather than as a specialized spiritual practice.

Treatment Once the Evil Eye Has Occurred

Where the person responsible for the evil eye is known, the remedy the Prophet ﷺ demonstrated in the case of Sahl ibn Hunayf is still followed: that person performs ablution, and the water is then poured over the affected individual. Where the source is unknown, the treatment folds back into general ruqyah – reciting Al-Falaq, An-Nas, and Ayat al-Kursi over the affected person, along with the specific supplication the Prophet ﷺ used to seek refuge for his grandsons Hasan and Husain: “I seek refuge for you both in the perfect words of Allah, from every devil and poisonous creature, and from every evil eye.” He noted that their forefather, Ibrahim (AS), used the same words to seek refuge for his own sons Ismail and Ishaq – making it one of the oldest recorded protective supplications in the prophetic tradition, still recited over children for exactly the same purpose today.

Nazar Within One’s Own Family

Scholars are careful to note that nazar is not only a danger from strangers or rivals; it can arise just as easily from within a person’s own household, including from a parent, sibling, or close friend whose affection is entirely genuine. A hadith recorded by Ibn Majah and others describes the Prophet ﷺ instructing that when a person sees something in themselves, their wealth, or their companion that pleases them, they should invoke a blessing over it, since the evil eye is real – a general instruction scholars read as covering self-admiration as well, since a person can inflict the evil eye on their own possessions or achievements through unchecked pride, not only on someone else’s. This is part of why classical teaching encourages a habit of attaching “Mashallah” even to one’s own blessings when reflecting on them privately, and why some scholars recommend that a person who knows they tend to admire things intensely make a deliberate habit of saying the blessing aloud, particularly around young children and newborns, who are considered especially vulnerable given how frequently they draw open admiration from relatives and visitors alike.

Readers interested in this subject may also want to read about Jinn Possession in Islam: Signs and the Islamic Response. The verses and hadith cited above can be cross-referenced in full at Quran.com.