Siḥr

The word usually translated as "magic" in the Quran is siḥr.^{[Note 1]} According to Adam Silverstein, the "Arabic word for 'magic' is siḥr, ... in the Qur'an Siḥr means ... 'black magic,' but in modern Arabic the same word is used for 'entertaining magic'".^[12][13] The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic defines siḥr as "bewitchment, beguilement, enchantment, fascination"; and the plural form (ashar) as "sorcery, witchcraft, magic".^[14] Toufic Fahd in the Brill Encyclopedia of Islam usually uses "magic as the translation of sihr", but "occasionally uses sorcery or witchcraft".^[15] Fahd himself first defines sihr as that which leads its subject to "believe that what he sees is real when it is not", but also includes "everything that is known as 'white' or 'natural magic'".^[16] In his examination of what about sihr in contemporary Islamic society is haram and what isn't, Remke Kruk defines the practice of siḥr as magic or sorcery, and translates material objects called sihr as "charms".^[15] Emilie Savage-Smith gives a very broad definition including "anything wondrous, including elegant and subtle poetry, ... sleight-of-hand tricks, ... the healing properties of plants, ... invocations to God for assistance, ... invocations to jinn or demons or the spirits of the planets, and on occasion even to the divinatory art of astrology."^[17]

Branches of magic

Some of "the more commonly used branches" of the art of magic listed by Dastghaib Shirazi and/or schools of the occult listed by the Ottoman-Turkic theologian Taşköprüzade:

• ʿIlm akham an nugum—Astrology
• ʿIlm as-Simiya—combines "will-power with particular physical and material forces for manipulating the natural order", and includes "eye-enchantment".^[21] Magic based on imagination, such as enchantments and magic of letters.^[22]
• ʿIlm al-Limiya or "the knowledge of subjugation of the spirits"—uses the psyche to bring "higher and stronger spirits" (such as "the spirits of the stars", and jinn) under the control of the magician.^[21]
• ʿIlm al-Himiya or talisman—combines "the powers of the higher spiritual world" with the base elements of nature to "produce awe-inspiring effect".^[21]
• ʿIlm ar-Rimiya or ash-Sha'badhah—such as "sleight of hand, jugglery", creates the illusion of super-natural effects.^[21]
• ʿIlm al-firasa—Predicting the character of a person by his outer appearance.^[22]
• ʿIlm ta'bir ar-ru'ya—Interpreting dreams^[22]
• ʿIlm at-tillasmat—Talisman^[22]

Supplementary fields of magic are:

• ʿIlm al-Kimiya or alchemy—the transmuting (i.e. the attempt to transmute) base metals into gold or silver.^[21][22]
• ʿIlm al-Khafiyah or the hidden knowledge—discovers the names of "the angels or the satans" to be used to invoke those beings.^[21]

Still others (all forbidden) are:

• ʿIlm Shoabada—is the creating of an illusion (such as by moving a burning ball in circles so that it appears to be a circle of fire); "All the fuqaha [Islamic jurists] are unanimous that Shobada ... is a type of magic", and "harām" (forbidden).^[21]
• ʿIlm Taskhirāt—"the method of controlling Angels, Jinns, souls or various wild animals"; is "also harām and considered a form of sorcery".^[21]
• ʿIlm Qayafa—the art of determining the lineage of an individual by use of magic.^[21]

Divination

Divination (i.e. "prediction of future events or gaining information about things unseen"^[23] by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual), has been called "a branch of magic" by "Muslim encyclopedists, such as al-Afkānī, Tāshköprüzade, and Ḥājjī Khalīfah", according to Fahd.^[19] Shia cleric Sayyid Abdul Husayn Dastghaib Shirazi of Al-Islam.com^[21] and historian Emilie Savage-Smith^[17] calls divination in Islam Kaḥanat—Dastghaib Shirazi specifying that it is where the one predicting uses knowledge obtained from "some groups of Jinns".^[21] ("All the jurists are unanimous in their opinion that Kahanat or soothsaying is Harām", according to Dastghaib Shirazi, and all those who go to "a sorcerer, a soothsayer or a liar and testifies to what he says" become infidels, according to the Holy Imam A.S. This is because "Allah the Almighty does not wish people to have knowledge of the future".)^[21]

Toufic Fahd describes the difference between divination and magic as blurred. Both share a "practical and nontheoretical character"; use "supernatural means to predict natural elements", and share the technique of obtaining knowledge from "demonic inspiration"; but in "Islamic magical literature", the two "run parallel without mingling".^[19]

Witchcraft

Sources on Islam and magic differ in their use of the term "witchcraft". It is sometimes seems to be used in place of "magic" (Pew Research Center survey on Muslim beliefs),^[24] sometimes excluded from use (Toufic Fahd),^[19] sometimes avoided in favor of "sorcery" because it (witchcraft) "evokes the wrong associations" (Remke Kruk)^[15]—i.e. because it is "a late medieval Christian heresy",^[25] or because unlike sorcery it is "a psychic act" that uses no spells, rites or medicines.^[26][15] G. Hussein Rassool includes witchcraft as a subset of a "wider" definition of magic: "Witchcraft refers to toxic actions that are carried out by persons presumed to have access to the supernatural world."^[1]

Other definitions

Beings, afflictions, and tools often involved in magic are:

• Jinn—supernatural creatures in Islam who may be good or evil but who are mentioned frequently in magical works throughout the Islamic world (often mentioned together with devils, i.e. shayāṭīn, and held responsible for misfortune, possession and diseases), to be summoned and bound to a sorcerer.
• Rūḥanīyah—spiritual beings;^[19]
• Sarʿ—possession by jinn or other spirits;^[15]
• Masruʿ—possessed, also sometimes as 'showing signs of possession';^[15]
• Tilsam, hirz—the "most common Arabic terms" employed for amulets;^[27]
• Ruqyah—Kruk defines it as an incantation made up of 41 "Quranic verses, formulas and short chapters";^[28]
• Karamat—the ability "to perform extraordinary acts" (aka miracles) which is given by God only to those with great "piety and abstinence".^[21]

Pre-Islamic influence

Scholars of the history of religion have linked several magical practises in Islam with pre-Islamic Turkish and East African customs. Most notable of the Aftrican customs is the Zār.^[29] Other pre-Islamic cultures and practises that had influence on early Islamic belief were Jewish, Sabians of the city of Harran, Aramaic, Iraqi practises; the danger and prevention of the evil eye, the astrology and the "special occult properties of plant, animal, and mineral substances" of late antiquity.^[30]

Quran

Sixty six Quranic verses reportedly relate to the subject of magic,^[19] but the verse dealing with magic in the most detail is Q.2:102:^[31]

• They ˹instead˺ followed the magic promoted by the devils during the reign of Solomon. Never did Solomon disbelieve, rather the devils disbelieved. They taught magic to the people, along with what had been revealed to the two angels, Hârût and Mârût, in Babylon. The two angels never taught anyone without saying, “We are only a test ˹for you˺, so do not abandon ˹your˺ faith.” Yet people learned ˹magic˺ that caused a rift ˹even˺ between husband and wife; although their magic could not harm anyone except by Allah’s Will. They learned what harmed them and did not benefit them—although they already knew that whoever buys into magic would have no share in the Hereafter. Miserable indeed was the price for which they sold their souls, if only they knew!^[32]

Q.2:102 and many other verses describe magic in a negative light. It practices are secrets that the humans "ought not to have known";^[19] devils/fallen angels teach it; it's practitioners will end up in hell; other verses condemn it as a pagan practice. But the Quran does not forbid magic or prescribe punishment for its practice.^[33]: 90 The description in Q.2:102 of magic as revealed by supernatural creatures (Fallen angels (Hārūt and Mārūt) suggests it is, (in the words of Toufic Fahd), a "fragment of a celestial knowledge ...".^[19] Based on the verse, Irmeli Perho describes magic as "part of God’s creation, like good deeds and bad deeds; like belief and unbelief". Since the magicians "evil actions will only take place if God allows it", magic is accommodated in the Islamic doctrine of "an omnipotent God".^[34]

In Verse Q.10:2 Muhammad is falsely accused of being a magician by his opponents ('Yet the disbelievers said, “Indeed, this ˹man˺ is clearly a magician!”').^[35][36]

Not all verses make negative references to supernatural powers or those that use them. Surah al-Isra suggests that the Quran itself bestows barakah (magical blessings) upon hearers and heals them.^[37] In An-Naml (Surah 27), Solomon is described as having the power to speak with animals and jinn, and command birds and devils, (which according to Islam, he only possesses with God's permission).^[38][39]

Muhammad, sira and hadith

In a examination of hadith on magic and witchcraft, Irmeli Perho writes that "magic is seen as a power distinct from God, whereas in the Qurʾān magic is a power that is ultimately subject to God’s will".^[42]

A hadith graded as Da’if (Weak) by Darussalam from Sahih al-Tirmidhi has Muhammad condemning users of magic to death—"The punishment of the Saḥir [one who practices magic] is a strike of the sword."^[43]

Witchcraft or black magic is mentioned in sira (prophetic biographies) and hadith (reports about what Muhammad said and did), where Muhammad becomes ill because of an evil doer who uses a magic charm which is hidden "in a well" (in some versions of the story "hair left on the Prophet's comb" and "some other objects" are the charm, in another version "a string with a number of knots upon it");^[44] the Prophet suffered from the magic but prays and receives a dream or a visit from Gabriel to tell him what to do, in the end he is cured through God's power.

One scholar, Irmeli Perho, notes that all versions of the hadith (and all hadith dealing with witchcraft) signify Islamic belief in the power of magic to harm even so great a man as the Prophet of Islam, but the many different variants of the hadith include different solutions to the curse of the charm—in some God's power against the charm is so great Muhammad does not bother to take the magic object(s) out of the well; in others he is asked if he took them out, if he burned them, if he made a counter spell against the charm. In many hadith he answers “God, He is powerful and great, has already cured me", but in one version that statement is absent and Muhammad is only cured after the charm (a knot) is taken and disassembled—these variants representing to Perho how Muslims don't all believe magic has the same level of power. In the hadith where Muhammad says "God has already cured me", God’s power is described as "sufficient to counter the power of magic" and only an outsider/enemy is involved in magic, whereas in the latter hadith "human action" was required to counter the magic.^[45] Believers in human action against harmful witchcraft will indicate support for use of "protective spells" and counter spells.^[42]

Contemporary scholars

According to Michael Dols, despite the vast number of works on magic produced throughout Islamic history, the subject has often been ignored by scholars,^[46]: 87 and its legitimacy rarely discussed in Islamic law-books, (and if, only in passing).^[46]: 96 When it was discussed by scholars, magic was "almost always assumed" to be bad, and subject to hostility.^[46]: 87 This is despite the fact that at least (non-polytheistic) magical incantations intended to heal a subject are sanctioned by hadith.^{[47][46]: 87}

Dols offers a number of explanations, including that because they share resemblances, the two are sometimes in competition. Like religion, magic goes beyond reason and the natural world to deal with the "unseen". Performance of magic resembled prayer in that it is "usually a method of supplication" to the divine for help with some problem, but is "more forceful" than standard prayer. Unlike the "austere monotheism" of orthodox Muslim belief favored by scholars it highlights the existence of "supramundane beings" and instead of bypassing/ignoring the question of evil, it engages it, offering a "plausible explanation for it". Finally, good and bad (licit and illicit) magic were also often "uncomfortably close".^{[46]: 88-89}

Magic in Islam is understood differently from that of modern Christian Europe, often related to God for means of protection from the evil eye, demons, and evil jinn, and by that, generally accepted.^[48]

According to Remke Kruk, the traditional "scholarly definition" of magic distinguishes between natural, or sympathetic magic—which "makes use of the hidden properties (in Arabic: khawass) of natural substances"; and "demoniac magic"—which "involves the help of spirits, usually malevolent spirits (demons)". The former is allowed, the latter is forbidden.^[10]

Toufic Fahd argues that it is the directing of the mind "toward an object other than God" that is forbidden, not the utilizing of "demons and jinn" to perform magic. Fahd quotes Ḥājjī Khalīfah (1609 AD – d. 1657 AD) in "summarizing the views of the Muslim theologians": 'The obedience of demons and jinn to humans is not something unimaginable, either from the standpoint of reason or from the standpoint of accepted practice.'^[19]

Michael Muhammad Knight writes that "early jurists "generally" regarded sihr as "idolatrous", bringing harm and constituting apostasy; some other jurists distinguished between sihr intended to heal (ruqya') and that intended to injure others -- Muhammad himself by his practice giving "foundational authority" to ruqya'.^[49]

Wahid 'Abd al-Salam (or Ibn al-Salam) Bali, a popular Wahhabi-trained author of several books on the dangers of jinn and magic, uses "sorcery" (siḥr) to mean "demonic, not on sympathetic magic".^[9] Khawass often refers to "God's holy names and of various Qur'anic texts" and belief that these have a powerful supernatural effect is "very much a part of Islamic daily practice", nonetheless some (Qasim Mahmud al-Mahmud),^[50] have denounced "these religious texts ... as demonic" and Islamically "unacceptable".^[51] (Qasim Mahmud al-Mahmud accused a Islamic healer of the forbidden practice getting help from a jinn after the healer maintained that all fragments of text of the Quran have a 'spirit servant', and if a Muslim reads the appropriate "text a fixed number of times according to the abjad, they "will immediately obtain what they desire".)^[52]

Opinions of traditional scholars

Ibn al-Nadim (c. 932-c.992) argues that good supernatural powers are received from God after purifying the soul, while sorcerers please devils and sacrifices to demons, committing acts of disobedience.^[53]

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (780-855 CE) "refrained from condemning" those who used magic to heal, to "the same class as sahirs", according to Michael Muhammad Knight.^[49]

Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037) and Al-Razi (1149 or 1150–1209), describe magic as merely a tool with the outcome of an act of magic determining whether it is legitimate or not.^[54] Whether or not sorcery/magic is accessed by acts of piety or disobedience is often seen as an indicator whether sorcery/magic is licit or illicit, according to Moiz Ansari.^[55]

Tabasi (d. 1089) ^{[Note 2]} offered a wide range of rituals to perform sorcery, but also agreed that only magic in accordance with sharia is permissible.^[54] According to Tobias Nünlist, rather than condemning magic and occultism as whole, Muslim writers on the subject usually distinguished between licit and illicit occult practises.^[56] According to Henrik Bogdan, Gordan Djurdjevic, contrary to Western esotericism and occultism, there is no clear conflict between orthodoxy and occultism in Islam.^[57]

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (c. 1150–1209) "includes under sorcery the use (isti'ana, seeking help) of the hidden properties (khawass) of foodstuffs, medicines and unguents"; but traditional medicines are both widely practiced in the Islamic world and "never subject to religious censorship".^[9]

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350), a disciple of Ibn Taimiyya, who became the major source for Wahhabism, entirely disregards magic, including exorcisms, as superstition.^[58] During the end of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims started to disregard occult practises as superstition.^{[citation needed]}

Ibn al-Nadim (932-995) -- a "bookish" pious Muslim, concedes the permissibility of white magic and but condemns the practice of black magic. He traces licit magic back to King Solomon (the prophet Sulaimān ibn Dāwūd in Islam) and illicit to Iblis (leader of the devils in Islam). The licit magicians included exorcists. They obeyed Islamic law and invoked God's name. Illicit magicians or sorcerers, controlled or attempted to control demons by deeds or offerings that were displeasing to God.^[46]: 92

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) brands sorcery, talismans, and prestidigitation as forbidden and illegal.^[59] He categorically states that 'All [the magician's] actions are evil and done for evil purposes',^[60] and that they should be put to death. (His writing indicates that the sorcery he was speaking of was that which produced "injury to the body, mind, or spirit" of the victim -- such as illness, death, discord between husband and wife.)^[46]: 96

Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE) , although admitting the reality of magic, regards learning any sort of magic as forbidden.^[54]

Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindi (801–873 CE), a philosopher, mathematician, physician, and philosopher, writing centuries before Al-Ghazali, asserted Astrology was consistent with Islam, with the stars not determining the future but simply passing on to Astrologers what God had decreed. (Al-Ghazali condemned Astrology as kufr.)^[61]

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), founder of Wahhabism, considered sorcery as one of the few sins where killing was a "divinely sanctioned punishment".^[62] 20th century scholar Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani stated that those who have "the conviction that sorcery has effect of its own accord, and not because of God's decision and will", will not enter paradise.^[9]

Magic

"Most" magic in the early Islamic world was "protective in nature", asking for God's beneficence in general and His intervention specifically against the supernatural powers of the evil eye, shayatin (devils) and jinn, all mentioned in the Quran.^[63] Incantations, spells, evocation, theurgy all involve contacting some spirit/supernatural being/deity and employing them for some purpose.

Divination

In the early and classical Islamic world divination (gaining information about future events or things unseen by occult methods)^[23] encompassed a range of techniques, "grouped roughly" into those "largely intuitive" (for example, water diviners observed the behaviour of animals, such as the hoopoe, to discover "the presence of underground water")^[81] and those employing "numerical or mechanical methods".^[23] interpreting the will of God by examining "the conformation of animal parts"; the patterns appearing on the "surface of water, oil, or ink, (hydromancy); dream interpretation (oneiromancy);^[82] "Few details remain of the specific methods" used in these intuitive techniques.^[81] Predicting changes in weather patterns "based on the visibility of important star-groups", was the subject of a tract by al-Kindi c. 801–873 CE) and another tract "is still in circulation today, at least in Iraq".^[83]

In modern times in the Middle East, "fortunetelling", according to Dawn Perlmutter,

focuses more on spiritual protection and family counseling than prediction and prophecy. In addition to reading cards, dice, palms, and coffee grounds, activities include selling amulets to ward off evil spirits and providing advice for marital problems. In Afghanistan, fortunetellers operate out of small shops or outside of mosques and shrines across the country but are rarely consulted to portend the future; most often their clients are women or the elderly seeking guidance for problems affecting their families.^[7]

In Iran and Pakistan this fortunetelling is also widespread.^[7]

Approved treatments

Magic or traditional healing without any dispute and approved by orthodox scholars includes

Works about magic

Ibn al-Nadim, Muslim scholar of his Kitāb al-Fihrist, describes a book that lists 70 jinn led by Fuqṭus (Arabic: فقْطس), including several jinn appointed over each day of the week.^{[91][92](p38)} A collection of late 14th- or early 15th-century magico-medical manuscripts from Ocaña, Spain describes a different set of 72 jinn (termed "Tayaliq") again under Fuqtus (here named "Fayqayțūš" or Fiqitush), blaming them for various ailments.^[93][94] According to these manuscripts, each jinni was brought before King Solomon and ordered to divulge their "corruption" and "residence" while the jinn-king Fiqitush gave Solomon a recipe for curing the ailments associated with each jinni as they confessed their transgressions.^[95]

Criticism and disbelief

Dismissal of magic not as sin but as nonsense and deception has existed within Islamic tradition since the early age, and from "multiple theological and legal schools".^[98]

One example is the exegesis on Surah al-Falaq by early scholars, such as Zamakshari (1074 –1143).^[99] Rejection of sorcery by Classical scholars wasn't based on reason so much as Quranic exegesis. Within Islamic theology, the world is seen as a system created through God's consistent will, which can be discovered through reason and logic.^[100] Whereby, critics minimalize the existence of supernatural intervention. Supernaturality is limited to angels, jinn, and devils.

Hanafi jurist Abu Bakr al-Jaṣṣās, argued against Magic on practical grounds, namely that if magic actually worked, it's practitioners would be rich and powerful rather than impoverished hustlers of common people in the marketplace.^[98]

A lot of Mu'tazilites, doubted their existence as well. Al-Jahiz's Kitāb al-Hayawān offers a variety of psychological explanations for alleged encounters with jinn (ghul) and devils (waswas).^[101]

Criticism on the supernatural was adopted in modern times. Salafi scholars, such as Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida, Muhammad Asad, and Sayyid Qutb, reject magic and associated traditions, interpretating references to sorcery and witchcraft in a metaphorical way.^[102]

Modern Asharites and Maturidites usually argue against the rejection of magic and a distinction between the natural and supernatural in general. Adhering to Occasionalism, there would be no restriction on God designing the natural law. God could deviate from the generally assumed order and bestow magical abilities on someone anytime and changing natural laws. Asserting that only God's will exists, they reject the dichotomy of supernatural and natural.^[103]

Popular practices v. religious orthodoxy

Scholar Remke Kruk found books on magic and sorcery "extremely well represented" in "street stalls and bookshops" in the Muslim world from Marrakesh to Cairo to Yemen circa 2005. Practical handbooks on the subject were common, but with the "orthodox" Islamic revival, "religious pamphlets condemning various practices" also became popular, starting around 1990.^[104] G. Hussein Rassool states that

Throughout the Muslim world, there are sorcerers, fortune tellers and traditional healers; many are in violation of interpretations of the Shari’ah (Islamic law). This leads the magicians or healers that use magic or witchcraft into the realm of major Shirk which refers to the association of a partner with Allah, the summoning other than God and relying on others beside Allah.^[1]

Kruk writes that "over the centuries" the Islamic scholars of "official Islam" have worked to forbid magical practices, but despite their efforts magic practices have "become intricately interwoven with religious elements and practices" in Islamic culture. Consequently, the line between forbidden and allowed "is so blurred that neither the practitioner nor the client" are often aware of when they are crossing that line.^[2]

On the one hand, practices approved by strict Islamic conservatives (called "orthodox" by Kruk) and revivalists to counteract magic include things like the use of water "over which the Quran has been recited" or to which have been added "salt, rose essence, oil of black caraway, or the leaves of the lote tree". On the other, in traditionally practised "magic and sorcery" now under attack from those strict conservatives, recitation of the 99 names of God and verses of the Quran play "a major part".^[104]

The practice of many Islamic healers who claim to talk to jinn for the purpose of curing and preventing the evil eye and exorcism of possession by jinn, is believed to be the extremely serious sin of shirk (mentioned above) by more strict/conservative/orthodox Muslims. Kruk points out how fine the differences between approved and disapproved practices can be—it is acceptable to get in touch with jinn "in exorcisms" to threaten them, but it is shirk to ask their help in a healing;^[52][105] dissolving Quranic texts written on paper in water is forbidden, but "writing in bowls with ink that is washed off by the water poured into the bowl", is recommended by the well known conservative, Wahabbi-oriented cleric Wahid 'Abd al-Salam Bali.^[28] Kruk worries that the rise of stricter forms of Islam has led to an attack on healing "practices that used to be well integrated into Islamic life".^[106]

Methods of counteracting sorcery approved by scholars

As a "good representative" of the kind of literature attacking the practice of magic,^[106] Kruk cites a popular, widely available book (al-Sarim al-Battar fi tasaddi li-l-sahara al-ashrar), on "how to deal with sorcery and its evil effects", written from an orthodox and strict Wahhabi viewpoint, by Saudi shaykh Wahid 'Abd al-Salam (or Ibn al-Salam) Bali. ^{[Note 3]} The book calls for

• treating sihr al-junan (madness-sorcery), sihr al-khumul (apathy-sorcery), various sexual afflictions, by incantations to drive out the jinn that is occupying the victim's brain or other parts of his body;^[115] or
• treating inability to have intercourse with your wife by urinating on the heated blade of a sharp axe.^[116]
• treating a stomach ache by drinking water "over which Qur'anic passages have been recited".^[115]
• describing sihr al-nazif (sorcery which allegedly causes vaginal bleeding outside menstruation and may go on for months) as being brought about by 'a trampling of the devil on one of the veins in the womb'. Its treatment is drinking water over which a "Qur'anic incantation has been recited", and taking baths in the water "for three days".^[117]
• treating the evil eye (which is not caused by jinn) with "ritual bathing" and "pious incantations".^[118]
• "foremost" among the ruqa (spells and incantations) allowed to be recited into the ear of the afflicted by Islamic healers is the ruqya; an incantation made up of 41 "Quranic verses, formulas and short chapters".^{[Note 4]}

Shia cleric Sayyid Abdul Husayn Dastghaib Shirazi, who states on his webpage on Al-Islam that "a Muslim who indulges in magic and does not repent is punished by death",^[21] goes on to affirm that "many" Islamic jurists are of the opinion that "countering one magic spell by another is permitted", and gives examples of how

• ‘ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (the first Shia Imam and fourth Rashidun caliph) told a victim of witchcraft to carry a prayer of invocation/supplication written "on the skin of deer" and always keep it with him;^[21]
• how Abbas the Safawid compelled a Christian to convert to Islam using tasbih (prayer beads) "made of dust from Imam Husain (a.s.)’s grave",^[21] (both sounding very much like magic charms).