Ruqyah Shariah: The Islamic Method of Treating Black Magic (Sihr)

A look at ruqyah shariah in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

Long before pharmacies and hospitals, the earliest Muslim community already had a treatment for the kind of harm no scalpel could reach: sihr, black magic, and the unseen interference of the jinn. The remedy the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught his companions is known as ruqyah shariah – a method of healing built entirely on the words of the Quran and the supplications he himself used, with no talismans, no ambiguous symbols, and nothing addressed to anyone other than Allah. It remains, fourteen centuries later, the only method of treating magic that mainstream Islamic scholarship accepts as fully sound.

Ruqyah Shariah: What Ruqyah Actually Is

Ruqyah simply means a spoken remedy – specific verses of the Quran, the names and attributes of Allah, and authentic prophetic supplications recited over a person who is unwell, whether the illness is physical, or the kind attributed to sihr, the evil eye, or jinn interference. The Prophet ﷺ did not invent the practice from nothing; ruqyah of various kinds existed in pre-Islamic Arabia too, but much of it involved invoking jinn or unknown spirits for help. When his companions asked whether the ruqyah they had used before Islam was still permitted, his answer drew the line precisely: “Show me your ruqyah. There is no harm in ruqyah so long as it does not contain shirk” – meaning nothing in it may call on any being besides Allah. That single condition is what separates lawful ruqyah from the amulets, charms, and spirit-invocations that Islamic teaching firmly rejects.

The Verses Used Most Often

Certain passages of the Quran recur constantly in ruqyah practice because of how directly they address protection from harm. Ayat al-Kursi, the Throne Verse (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:255), describes Allah’s complete and unmatched dominion over all creation, and the Prophet ﷺ taught that reciting it at night keeps a person guarded until morning. The final two surahs of the Quran, Al-Falaq and An-Nas, were revealed specifically as a means of seeking refuge – the first from the harm of the night, of blowers upon knots, and of the envier; the second from the whispering of Shaytan directly. Alongside these, the opening and closing verses of Surah al-Baqarah, and Surah al-Kafirun’s declaration of pure monotheism, form the core recitations a person practicing ruqyah on themselves or a family member is taught to return to.

How the Prophet ﷺ Himself Was Treated for Sihr

The clearest proof that magic is real and that ruqyah works against it comes from an episode involving the Prophet ﷺ himself, preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari on the authority of his wife Aisha (RA). A man named Labid ibn al-A’sam, who practiced sorcery, cast a spell against the Prophet ﷺ using strands of his hair and a comb, tied into knots and hidden inside the spathe of a male date palm, which was then sunk into a well called Dhi Arwan. The Prophet ﷺ began experiencing symptoms without any apparent physical cause, until Allah showed him in a dream exactly where the item was hidden and who had placed it there. Companions retrieved it from the well, and as the knots were untied – some accounts describe this happening while Surahs Al-Falaq and An-Nas were recited over them – his condition eased. Aisha (RA) reported that he never confronted Labid over it or sought retaliation, choosing instead simply to seek Allah’s protection and move on, which is itself part of what later scholars point to when teaching that the response to sihr is spiritual treatment, not revenge.

Practical Elements Alongside the Recitation

Ruqyah is not limited to recitation alone. The Prophet ﷺ described black seed (habbat al-sawda, Nigella sativa) as containing a cure for every ailment except death itself, and cupping (hijamah) is separately recorded among the physical treatments he approved of. Practitioners of ruqyah today commonly combine recitation directly into a sick person’s ear, reciting over water that is then drunk or used for washing, and blowing gently after recitation onto the hands and then wiping them over the body – a method the Prophet ﷺ himself used on his own family, and which Aisha (RA) continued using on him during his final illness once he was too weak to do it himself.

Why Scholars Insist on Ruqyah Over Alternatives

Classical and contemporary scholars alike – from Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah in his medical writings to modern authorities such as Sheikh Abdul Aziz ibn Baz – have been consistent on one point: a person who believes they are affected by sihr must never go to a fortune-teller, a soothsayer, or a magician for a counter-spell, even one who claims to work “with the Quran.” Countering magic with magic, in this view, only replaces one form of shirk with another, since it necessarily involves appealing to the jinn for cooperation. Ruqyah, by contrast, appeals to nobody but Allah, and its permissibility rests on exactly that distinction – a distinction the Prophet ﷺ drew explicitly the first time his companions asked him about it.

Ruqyah Alongside Medicine, Not Instead of It

Scholars are equally firm on a second point that is often overlooked: ruqyah was never intended to replace ordinary medical treatment. A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari has the Prophet ﷺ teaching that Allah has not sent down any disease without also sending down its cure, known to those who have learned it and unknown to those who have not – a statement that positions medicine and spiritual treatment as complementary rather than competing options. A separate account records a Bedouin asking the Prophet ﷺ whether it was appropriate to seek medical treatment at all, given that some Muslims believed illness should simply be endured as divine decree; the Prophet ﷺ answered plainly that yes, they should seek treatment, since Allah does not create a disease without also creating its remedy, with the sole exception of old age itself. Classical scholars cite this pairing of hadith to correct a real and persistent error: a person who suspects sihr is expected to consult a physician for any genuine underlying medical condition at the same time as pursuing ruqyah, not treat the two as alternatives where choosing one excuses neglecting the other.

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

For a closely related topic, see our discussion of Signs and Symptoms of Sihr (Black Magic) According to Quran and Sunnah. For further primary-source reading, Quran.com offers searchable access to the full text of the Quran and its major hadith collections.