THE IMPORTANCE OF RUQYA DIAGNOSIS

Version: 3rd March 2025.

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Bismillahi Walhamdulilah wa salatu wa salam ala Rasulilah:

This might be the most important article that you will read on my website as it defends the practise of ruqya diagnosis that I teach and strongly encourage. You should read it very carefully and understand the evidence for ruqya diagnosis so that you don’t get deviated by the shaytan and think that ruqya diagnosis is a bidah. I say this about the shaytan because I know a patient of mine, who was convinced by ruqya diagnosis but then succumbed to the waswas attack of her jinn and then she had doubts about ruqya diagnosis so then she stopped using it. At one point, the waswas attack was so strong that she would get confused while reading this article and she couldn’t read or understand the sentences. But, now, after reading my updated article, which removed her doubts, she realised her original doubts were from her own jinn and she would like to warn Muslims to be aware of these doubts from the jinn. Her story does not surprise me at all because we already know the enmity the jinn have for us. We must understand that the jinn hate to be exposed, especially the possessing jinn because then they can’t deceive the Muslims so obviously the jinn will do their best to create doubts about ruqya diagnosis in the hearts of the Muslims.

Other patients who were convinced by ruqya diagnosis get confused after doing their general ruqya diagnosis for the spiritual diseases (ie these patients did ruqya diagnosis for sihr and know that they have sihr but afterwards they get confused about ruqya diagnosis). Their confusion occurs when they get involved in specific ruqya diagnosis. Sadly, they didn’t think it was important to study my article “7 Rules for Specific Ruqya Diagnosis” or they didn’t know they had to study it before actually doing any specific ruqya diagnosis. They ended up doing strange things with the specific ruqya diagnosis and they got strange results and then they rejected ALL ruqya diagnoses, even their general ruqya diagnosis that they were initially happy with. They have basically fallen for the trap of the shaytan and this is what he wanted for them ie reject ALL ruqya diagnoses. One question which I usually ask, to get patients to believe in ruqya diagnosis again, is: “Why does Allah give us ruqya reactions for the spiritual diseases but not for the physical diseases?”. Pondering on this question should bring back the patient to believe in ruqya diagnosis again. The other thing which helps is to study my article “7 Rules for Specific Ruqya Diagnosis” as it highlights all or most of the major errors that patients make during specific ruqya diagnosis.

Because of the possibility of a waswas attack from the possessing jinn or qareen about ruqya diagnosis, you need to ask Allah to guide you and to help you understand the evidence and information that is presented here in this article. If you start getting attacked by your possessing jinn or qareen via waswas, then seek refuge in Allah by reciting surahs falaq and nass once as a pair and on the spot. This will remove their waswas. (The evidence for using surahs falaq and nass like this is taken from the Sunnah (Sunan Tirmidhi: Vol 2, p206: Saheeh by Al-Albani and Abu Dawood: 1463: Saheeh by Al-Albani). For a discussion about this use of these two wonderful surahs, then please read my article: “self treatment notes”).

COMPARING OUR RUQYA WITH THE SAHABA’S RUQYA: WHY WE NEED RUQYA DIAGNOSIS AND THEY DIDN’T

THE EVIDENCE FOR RUQYA DIAGNOSIS & THE FACT THAT IT IS NOT A BIDAH!

There are some who believe that ruqya diagnosis is not important and that ruqya treatment is what should be offered immediately to patients. They don’t or can’t see any benefit in the diagnosis of the spiritual diseases and they may even believe that ruqya diagnosis is a bidah and that there is no evidence for it. I have even read someone saying that you can’t really know what spiritual ailment you are suffering from because that is part of the ‘unseen’.

Sadly, many Muslims cannot grasp the fact that the concept of attempting to diagnose spiritual ailments is completely permissible and not haram. Just because they are unseen, it does not mean that we cannot try to work out how to diagnose them.

To those who say that it is not important to know if you have a spiritual disease and that ruqya treatment should just be done then we would reply by saying that knowing exactly what you have means that you can treat yourself more comprehensively! Yes, the ruqya treatment would be basically the same for spiritual and physical diseases but other treatments would not be the same. For example, once I know that I have the sihr of divorce then I would search for the taweez and ignore the waswas to divorce my spouse. Once I know I don’t have sihr or jinn possession then my mental or psychological problems can be treated by a psychiatrist.

It seems that some Muslims’ failure in diagnosing spiritual ailments, has led them to believe that it is impossible to do or if anyone attempts to do it then they are doing a bidah. Their failures in being unable to diagnose spiritual diseases, has caused them to believe that such an endeavour or pursuit is a complete waste of time and that nobody should try to do it ie if they couldn’t do it then no one can. They support their claims with the fact that since they are unseen then no one can diagnose them and if someone does say he can diagnose them then he must be a sahir or fortune teller or bogus raqi or a man of bidah who works with jinn. ALL OF THIS BELIEF STEMMING FROM THEIR OWN INADEQUACIES AND FAILURES IN DIAGNOSING THE SPIRITUAL AILMENTS.

The very fact that it is permissible to diagnose physical diseases is enough proof that it is also permissible to diagnose spiritual diseases. This is because the Shariah doesn’t make any special distinction or differentiation between the two types of diseases. In general, what is permissible for one of them is also permissible for the other. The Shariah doesn’t forbid us or condemn us for trying or attempting to diagnose ANY disease, be it physical or spiritual. The Shariah doesn’t treat spiritual diseases differently from physical diseases ie giving them special rules and regulations just because they are UNSEEN. Hence, if we are allowed to diagnose physical diseases then by default, we are also allowed to diagnose spiritual diseases. The fact that some people don’t know how to diagnose spiritual diseases or the fact that the method of diagnosis for spiritual diseases is different, is completely irrelevant to the argument and doesn’t change the reality that it is permissible to try to diagnose spiritual ailments just because it is permissible to diagnose physical aliments.

The evidence for ruqya diagnosis is the hadith of the Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam) making a normal dua to Allah to show or explain to him what was wrong with him, when he was suffering from sihr, which is basically a type of diagnosis. The hadith is related as follows: 

Narrated `Aisha: Magic was worked on the Prophet (ﷺ) so that he began to fancy that he was doing a thing which he was not actually doing. One day he invoked (Allah) for a long period and then said, “I feel that Allah has inspired me as how to cure myself. Two persons came to me (in my dream) and sat, one by my head and the other by my feet. One of them asked the other, “What is the ailment of this man?” The other replied, ‘He has been bewitched” The first asked, ‘Who has bewitched him?’ The other replied, ‘Lubaid bin Al-A’sam.’ The first one asked, ‘What material has he used?’ The other replied, ‘A comb, the hair gathered on it, and the outer skin of the pollen of the male date-palm.’ The first asked, ‘Where is that?’ The other replied, ‘It is in the well of Dharwan.’ ” So, the Prophet (ﷺ) went out towards the well and then returned and said to me on his return, “Its date-palms (the date-palms near the well) are like the heads of the devils.” I asked, “Did you take out those things with which the magic was worked?” He said, “No, for I have been cured by Allah and I am afraid that this action may spread evil amongst the people.” Later on the well was filled up with earth.

(Sahih al-Bukhari 3268)

In this above hadith, the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam definitely knew that there was some kind of illness that he was suffering from. This is why the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam says in this hadith, immediately after his long dua was answered: “I feel that Allah has inspired me as how to CURE myself” (Bukhari: 3268). So since the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam used the word “Shifaa’ee” (cure myself) after the long dua and dream, we know that the long dua must have been about asking Allah to diagnose an unknown illness he was suffering from, which we later find out to be sihr from this same hadith. If it was not about an illness, he would not have used the word “cure myself”. This word itself is only really used in a discussion or conversation, when we are talking about a disease or illness that needs to be treated. So it cannot be argued that the dua, the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam, made in this hadith was not a diagnostic dua. It definitely was a diagnostic dua and the wording “cure myself” clearly proves that understanding.

Another point that proves the long dua of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam, in this same hadith (Bukhari: 3268), was a diagnostic dua, is the fact that the first part of the two Angels’ conversation, in this dream, clarifies what the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam was suffering from, namely sihr. The very fact that their conversation starts off with the following question and answer: “What is the disease of this man”. “He has been bewitched”, and they do not talk about anything else except sihr, proves to us that the main focus of the Nabi’s salalahu alayhi wasalam long dua was about wanting to know what was wrong with him ie diagnostic dua. If the long dua of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam was not a diagnostic dua then the Angels would have started off their conversation with another topic and they would not have addressed the issue of sihr so quickly. The fact that they immediately diagnosed the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam with sihr, means that the long dua of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam was really about the diagnosis of an unknown disease.

The Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam was asking Allah to diagnose him and so Allah answered him by giving him this dream with the Angels that is mentioned in this hadith (Bukhari: 3268). This dream basically told the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam that he had sihr ie the dream was the means of diagnosis.

Now, from this same hadith, if it is permissible to make a normal dua to Allah to diagnose our disease, as the Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam) did, ie to show us what is wrong with us in a dream or by other permissible means (Bukhari: 3268), then it is completely permissible to make ruqya with the same intention of diagnosis and this is because ruqya is a type of dua that deals exclusively with diseases and it is not meant for anything else. If it is permissible to make a normal dua to diagnose ourselves then it is also permissible to make ruqya to diagnose ourselves ie by using ruqya to diagnose, we have not gone outside of what ruqya is supposed to be used for in the Shariah. If you can use normal dua for diagnosis of a disease then surely you can use ruqya to diagnose a disease because ruqya is meant for dealing with diseases. What is permissible in normal dua is usually also applicable and permissible in ruqya provided that it is to do with diseases because ruqya is ONLY for diseases, whereas normal dua is not. In other words, if we can ask Allah to give us a truthful dream to diagnose our disease (and we can only really ask this because truthful dreams are only from Allah and NOT from the Shaytan) then likewise, we can also ask Allah to create ruqya reactions in our bodies, thereby diagnosing ourselves because it is ONLY Allah who creates the ruqya reactions in our bodies, when the ruqya is according to the Sunnah and no Shaytan can disrupt this process of ruqya reactions.

In short, the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam made a diagnostic dua to Allah and Allah answered his dua by giving him a truthful dream. However, for us during ruqya, there is a difference. We ask Allah via a diagnostic ruqya and Allah answers our ruqya diagnosis with ruqya reactions. So the ruqya reactions have taken the place of a truthful dream. They are similar to a truthful dream because they are both from Allah. I will explain why the ruqya reactions are from Allah and the evidence for that, later on in this article. So please carry on reading, if you want to understand the phenomenon of ruqya reactions in our religion and how they can be used to prove if someone has sihr or prove if someone is cured from sihr.

The main reason that allows us to take an example of a normal dua use and apply it directly to ruqya and then do the exact same thing in ruqya, is because the example of the normal dua use is to do with diseases. If this condition of a disease was absent then we would not be able to make the leap and connect the Nabi’s (salalahu alayhi wasalam) normal dua to our ruqya diagnosis. We are able to make this connection because ruqya is only for dealing with diseases. That is to say that we can make a normal dua for rain or a new job but we can’t make ruqya for rain and a new job because ruqya is only for diseases! So since the Nabi’s (salalahu alayhi wasalam) normal dua was for diagnosing a disease then therefore we can also read ruqya with the intention of diagnosing a disease because ruqya was legislated to deal with diseases.

If you just ponder on what I just said in the above two paragraphs then the only conclusion that you can come to regarding ruqya diagnosis is that it is permissible to do! AGAIN, IF WE CAN ASK ALLAH TO SHOW US A DREAM TO SEE IF WE GOT SIHR BECAUSE IT IS ONLY ALLAH WHO CAN SHOW US A TRUE DREAM (AND THE SHAYTAN CAN’T INTERFERE IN THIS), THEN WE CAN ALSO ASK ALLAH TO SHOW US RUQYA REACTIONS TO SEE IF WE GOT SIHR BECAUSE RUQYA IS ONLY FOR DISEASES AND IT IS ONLY ALLAH WHO CAN SHOW US TRUE RUQYA REACTIONS (AND THE SHAYTAN CAN’T INTERFERE IN THIS AS WELL)!

After all that I have mentioned, if it is still not clear to you the permissibility of ruqya diagnosis then think about treatment! We all accept that it is permissible to make a normal dua to Allah to cure us from sihr and we also know that it is permissible to make ruqya with the intention for Allah to cure us from sihr. Now here, you don’t have a problem with seeing a clear relationship between these two types of dua when it comes to the treatment of sihr because both are dealing with a type of disease. You also don’t have a problem with making a normal dua to Allah to diagnose you for sihr via a dream or any other means because the Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam) did that…..Then, why do you have a problem with reading ruqya with the intention of asking Allah to diagnose you when you have already accepted diagnosis with just a normal dua? You cannot have two different standards and apply certain rules for the treatment of sihr but then apply another set of different rules for the diagnosis of sihr, when we are dealing with the same acts of worship and even the same disease! Can’t you see that I am still restricting ruqya to dealing with diseases so I can’t see why you have a problem. In Islam, you must be consistent when it comes to the application of the rules of the Shariah! In other words, you have accepted a normal dua for the treatment of sihr and you also accepted ruqya for the treatment of sihr AND you have even accepted making a normal dua to get a sihr diagnosis from Allah via a dream! Then what is actually stopping you from going the extra length and applying the same understanding you have for the treatment of sihr to the actual diagnosis of sihr and allowing yourself to do ruqya diagnosis for sihr, when you already know that the ruqya is only for dealing with diseases? If you cannot answer this question then know that ruqya diagnosis is permissible! How is it that you can accept a normal dua for the treatment of sihr and ruqya for the treatment of sihr and even accept a normal dua for the diagnosis of sihr BUT THEN YOU REJECT THE RUQYA DIAGNOSIS FOR SIHR WHEN YOU ALREADY KNOW THE PURPOSE OF RUQYA IS TO JUST DEAL WITH DISEASES! It just doesn’t make sense at all and is not consistent and it is not in line with the Shariah’s rules for dua.

This understanding of making an intention to diagnose, a patient with ruqya, does not go against the hadith of ‘actions are only by intentions’ (Bukhari) and that is because this hadith of intentions itself, does not prevent new intentions from being invented, as we will see later in this article. So if a new intention is in accordance with the Shariah, then it cannot be labelled a bidah, just because it is new. Additionally, this intention for diagnosis does not go against the actual definition of ruqya in the Shariah and that it is basically a dua of seeking the refuge/help of Allaah against diseases ie an incantation (word(s)), which is recited with the intention of causing a positive effect on a disease and it is not restricted to just treatment. (This succinct definition is a combination of definitions of ruqya that I have taken from several sources in Arabic and English). Therefore, if someone has the intention to diagnose himself, this intention does not go against the definition of what ruqya is, nor does it go against how the hadith of intentions can be used in a different and new context and on top of that, this intention, itself, has a bases in the Sunnah as the Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam) asked Allah to basically show and guide him so he could know what was wrong with him, which is diagnosis in a nutshell.

Every ruqya must follow the rules of ruqya, ie “no shirk” (Muslim: 2200) and it has to be beneficial to the patient (Al-Albani: Saheeh Jam’i 6019). This understanding of what ruqya is allowed, means that ruqya can include diagnosis and it has NOT been restricted to just “treatment”. There is absolutely no evidence from the Quran and Sunnah that says that ruqya is only for treatment and that it cannot be used for diagnosis. Therefore, it is possible for us to read ruqya for the purpose of diagnosis of spiritual ailments, if it is needed, as this does not go outside of the definition and understanding of what ruqya is in the Shariah and nor does it go against these two hadiths ie ruqya diagnosis is beneficial and it does not contain shirk.

This understanding of ruqya not being restricted to just “treatment” is reflected in what the scholars actually agreed upon about the permissible ruqya.

This understanding of the scholars’ ijma, that ruqya is NOT just for treatment, is probably why every competent and knowledgeable raqi that I know doesn’t have a problem with ruqya being used as a means to diagnose patients. Hence, they perform some sort ruqya diagnosis to check patients for spiritual diseases, especially if they are confused about a case. They would read ruqya diagnosis over a patient to see if they react thereby removing confusion. They may not use the exact term ruqya diagnosis but that is what they are actually doing. To illustrate this fact of doing ruqya diagnosis but not actually calling it ruqya diagnosis, look at what Sheikh Dr Abu’l-Mundir Khaleel ibn Ibraaheem Ameen says in his book “The Jinn & Human Sickness” pages 92 – 93. (English translation: First Edition: June 2005. Published by Darussalam, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who only generally produce books that are approved by Saudi scholars)

As a result of this use of ruqya that I highlighted and stated from the aforementioned book, we can say that according to this book, reading ruqya with the intention of asking Allah to ‘show us reactions if the patient has jinn possession’ is a form of ruqya diagnosis and that reading ruqya with the intention of asking Allah to ‘cure the patient from jinn possession’, is a form of ruqya treatment. I will present an even more comprehensive definition of ruqya diagnosis and treatment later on in this article but this definition will suffice for now.

Ruqya Diagnosis is based on five principles and evidences: (1) the hadith of the Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam) making a normal dua to Allah to show or explain to him what was wrong with him, when he was suffering from sihr, which is basically a type of diagnosis (Bukhari: 3268), (2) the ijma or consensus of the scholars which doesn’t restrict ruqya to just treatment, (3) the understanding and application of the hadith of intentions, (4) the knowledge that ruqya is basically a dua of seeking the help of Allah against diseases, that must NOT contain shirk (Muslim: 5732) and must be beneficial to the patient (Al-Albani: Saheeh Jam’i 6019) and lastly (5) that Allah creates ruqya reactions in a patient, who has a spiritual disease, when ruqya is read on them (hence, we ask Allah to “show us” if a spiritual disease is present via ruqya reactions). So knowing these principles and evidences, is there really a problem if someone asks Allah and reads ruqya with the intention: ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr through my recitation of ruqya upon myself’. If some people say that they have never seen this before and therefore, this intention and subsequent action of ruqya, must be a bidah, then we would say to them where exactly is the bidah and can you explain to us how it is a bidah when the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam made a similar dua when he was suffering from sihr (Bukhari 3268) and on top of that, I have never heard a scholar call ruqya diagnosis a bidah and many reputable scholars actually do it? They wouldn’t be able answer this question satisfactorily because they haven’t understood the flexibility of this particular hadith (Bukhari 3268) and that it can also apply to ruqya diagnosis. Next, we would ask them: “Is there any shirk in the intention: O Allah show me if I have sihr”? They would have to say ‘No’. We would then say to them, is it WRONG to make that dua to Allah? They may say ‘Yes it is because there is no evidence for it’, then, we would say that we have already given you the evidence of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam making a similar dua, which is enough evidence. Just because a dua or an intention are NEW and not found, word-for-word, in the sunnah, they do not become a bidah just because of this and the general meaning of aforementioned hadith is sufficient to prove ruqya diagnosis (Bukhari: 3268). Do they expect every possible dua and intention to be stated in the Shariah word-for-word! This would make things difficult! THE SHARIAH HAS NOT WRITTEN DOWN ALL THE POSSIBLE DUAS OR INTENTIONS THAT WE CAN MAKE IN RUQYA, WORD-FOR-WORD, but it has laid down some rules and regulations that we need to follow when making our duas and intentions, such as avoiding shirk and showing off. So a NEW dua or NEW intention for ruqya that a Muslim introduces can never be a real bidah, just because the dua or intention is NEW and not found word-for-word in the Sunnah! It needs more than that to become a true bidah. In the end, those people who reject ruqya diagnosis, have to accept that there is no real reason to stop someone having an intention to diagnose themselves for spiritual diseases because this intention itself has a bases in the Sunnah (Bukhari 3268) and the subsequent action of ruqya diagnosis with this intention has NOT gone against any of the rules of ruqya that have been stated in the Shariah. Indeed, this is the main point: ruqya diagnosis doesn’t go against the rules of ruqya that are in the Shariah. Ruqya has been legislated to allow some flexibility, hence the use of ruqya as diagnostic tool by many raqis and scholars.

The ruqya diagnosis intention “O Allah, show me if I have sihr” which becomes a dua of ruqya when it is read with the Quran, is included in the general saying of the Nabi salulahu alayhi wasalam: “Whoever among you is able to benefit his brother then let him benefit him” (Al-Albani: Saheeh Jam’i 6019). This is because in this general ruqya hadith, ruqya is NOT restricted or fixed to certain duas or intentions so therefore we can invent our own duas and intentions for ruqya provided that they don’t contain shirk and that they benefit the patient as the hadith mentions. No one can deny that it is extremely beneficial to know if you have sihr and that is because once you know, then you can start treating yourself. Knowing this diagnosis about sihr is especially important, if you are a married person.

This above understanding is discussed in the fatwa below. In it, you will see that the scholars who wrote the fatwa said that some other scholars were of the view that any ruqya that benefits is permissible to use. No doubt they took this condition of “benefit” from the above hadith itself and indeed, the ruqya has to be beneficial. However, there is also the condition that it must be free of shirk (Muslim: 5732), which these other scholars failed to include as a condition. Anyway, the main point here, from the fatwa, is that if the ruqya is beneficial and it doesn’t contain any shirk or lead to shirk then it can be used on a patient, hence, we can do ruqya diagnosis and it is not a bidah because it is according to the rules of ruqya that are stated in the Sunnah.

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/175189/selection-of-verses-and-supplications-for-incantation-purposes

We need to point out that in this above hadith (Al-Albani: Saheeh Jam’i 6019), it is recommended to help your Muslim brother or sister with beneficial ruqya that helps them fight their disease. After ruqya treatment, I cannot think of a more beneficial ruqya than ruqya diagnosis, especially certain ruqya diagnoses that actually help the Muslims in their deen, such as the ruqya diagnosis for the sihr of divorce. We can also argue that the hadith can be used as evidence for us to use our experience and to be creative and to invent ruqyas that are going to be beneficial and helpful to the Muslims because the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam asked the Sahaba to present their ruqyas so that he could see if they were Islamic and beneficial, ie their experience in making ruqyas was not being criticised and they were, in fact, being encouraged to carry on being creative in ruqya as long as it helped their Muslim brother and it wasn’t against Islam. Ruqya diagnosis can definitely be seen as one of these creative and beneficial ruqyas that helps Muslims as it uses the experience that the spiritual diseases react to ruqya and the fact that ruqya is not just for treatment. We have to remember that the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam did not restrict ruqya to just treatment in this hadith (or in any other hadith) but he allowed ANY RUQYA that didn’t contain shirk and which benefitted the Muslim patient. We have to also remember that ruqya was practiced before Islam and that the Shariah did not come to prohibit it but it came to regulate it and remove from it those things that were against Islam. Hence, to practise ruqya diagnosis is more in line with the said hadith and the encouragement of the Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam), as it provides MORE beneficial ruqya to the Muslim patients than just ruqya treatment.

The reason these two above hadiths (Muslim: 5732 & Jam’i: 6019) are very broad and general in meaning is so that ruqya can effectively deal with the many different kinds of diseases and even any new disease that might appear. They also allow us to adapt the application of ruqya to changing contexts or situations. For instance, this broadness allows us to invent or develop different methods to get the ruqya to the disease directly. So someone with bowel problems might read ruqya on his food instead of water so that the ruqya can get to the colon and stay there for longer. Likewise, someone with a blood disease, after consulting doctors, might read ruqya over the liquid contents in an intravenous medication or drip to get the ruqya directly into the blood. Another example would be a raqi doing ruqya over the phone or using videophone. If the application of ruqya was not as broad, then we would not be allowed to do such things, but by the mercy of Allah it is, so we can do such actions and not worry about falling into sin because of a bidah in ruqya.

Those who say that doing ruqya diagnosis is not allowed have not understood that ruqya is quite broad in scope and it is not restricted as they see it. It seems that they see it, like the way they see salah and therefore they request that you prove every single action you do in ruqya with a hadith. However, if they understood the broadness of the two aforementioned hadiths, they would not constantly ask to prove every issue in ruqya. They have to make a distinction between ruqya and the other fixed acts of worship like salah. Yes, ruqya is a fixed act of worship but it is not as fixed as salah and that is because it is a type of medicine that needs flexibility so that it can deal with any disease and any situation. Hence, the accusations of bidah in ruqya are not as easy to establish as they are with salah. Yes, we can fall into bidah with ruqya but it is easier to do bidah in salah. Therefore, we must see ruqya like the way we see the reading of the Quran, the listening to the Quran and making dua. All three are fixed acts of worship but they have some flexibility so they can deal with different situations and contexts. This is how we need to see ruqya.

This is the understanding of Sheikh Bin Baz (rahimullah) and other scholars and that is why they believe you can read ruqya over a mixture of sidr leaves and water to treat sihr and they do not see this as a bidah (See below for the fatwa). There are no hadiths about reading ruqya over sidr leaves but that does not matter as the aforementioned 2 ruqya hadiths cover this situation. If we take on this understanding of ruqya that Sheikh Bin Baz (rahimullah) has, then a lot of arguing between the Muslims would stop and they would stop accusing each other of bidah and then patients would receive better care.

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/91627/treatment-for-one-who-is-unable-to-have-intercourse-with-his-wife

For my dear brothers and sisters who still feel that we can never really know if a person is possessed or not because this is to do with the ‘unseen’ then I sincerely say to them to carefully ponder on the definition of ruqya and its Shariah conditions, and then to look carefully at the hadith of intentions and then you will hopefully see that the combination of these will allow us to diagnose jinn possession in a patient. And this is all because spiritual ailments, like jinn possession, ONLY react to ruqya while physical ailments don’t react to ruqya at all (ie for physical ailments like cancer or diabetes, the patients can’t feel or detect any reaction during ruqya), and so by the mercy of Allah, the unseen spiritual ailments can be detected via ruqya. It is Allah who causes the ruqya to affect spiritual ailments ie making them produce physical symptoms and obviously we must be thankful and make use of Allah’s mercy here. If it weren’t for Allah, we would never know if someone had a spiritual disease or not.

USING THE CONSENSUS OF SCHOLARS (IJMA) TO PROVE THAT THE RUQYA REACTIONS OF THE PATIENT & AFFLICTED RAQI ARE FROM ALLAH

We must ask those people, who are totally against using ruqya as a diagnostic tool, to explain to us why they think Allah responds to the ruqya for the spiritual diseases and creates reactions inside the patient but he does not do this for the physical diseases? Is this action of Allah FRIVOLOUS! (not having any serious purpose). Is this action not done by the MOST WISE (Al-Hakeem) who is in control of everything and everyone. Definitely, Allah knows what he is doing and he doesn’t do anything without a good reason. Are they aware of this phenomenon or are they totally ignorant of this fact and reality! Do they think that Allah has the ability to make the physical diseases react to ruqya? Obviously, he can do this, but Allah chooses not to do this because he has already given us the ability to diagnose the physical aliments without the help of ruqya. Indeed, Allah knows that we cannot detect the spiritual diseases with our 5 senses SO THEREFORE, HE HELPS US DETECT THEM VIA RUQYA. The smart Muslim raqi is he who has insight into this matter and knows that the actions of Allah are NEVER FRIVOLOUS. This raqi has wisdom and recognises that this is a gift and mercy from Allah and then he uses it to help his Muslim brothers and sisters! This is similar to the way Allah has gifted this latter generation of the Ummah with true dreams. We are so far away from the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam that Allah helps us with true dreams to give us hope and to support us and to make us steadfast in our religion. This is how the scholars explained the topic of true dreams in the latter times of the Ummah. Likewise, the ruqya reactions are there to help us diagnose ourselves because we don’t have the diagnosis of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam nor the Sahaba!

It is NOT rocket science! If you cannot understand the reason why Allah makes the spiritual ailments react to ruqya and how to use this gift from Allah to help Muslims, then frankly speaking, you should not be in the field of ruqya because you will cause more harm than good! That is because when you are asked certain important questions by Muslim patients, such as “Do I have sihr or ayn?” or “Am I possessed”? or “I don’t know why I feel like divorcing my brilliant and lovely spouse – so do I have the sihr of divorce?” or “I feel like leaving my job – is this waswas from the possessing jinn?” or “Am I cured from sihr, yet?” Etc. You will say: “I don’t know” or “I am not sure” and such a response may cause Muslims to do something that they eventually regret.

                               وفي ” فتاوى اللجنة الدائمة ” ( 1 / 155 ) :

There is NO evidence from the Shariah that forbids us from trying to diagnose if someone has sihr or not because this issue of ruqya diagnosis is NOT like the work of fortune tellers or people who use jinn since we are NOT using the help of any jinn and we are NOT trying to work out what is part of the absolute unseen (al-ghayb al-mutlaq) such as the future, which is ONLY known by Allah, and we are NOT claiming to know it. We must realise that Allah allows some of the unseen knowledge, THAT ISN’T PART OF THE ABSOLUTE UNSEEN, to be known by some people via certain means such as when a doctor can tell the gender of a baby during pregnancy. Similarly, when scientists can work out if there will be a solar eclipse or what the weather will be like tomorrow or when police and forensic scientists investigate crimes that were committed in the past and then accuse someone of murder because of the evidence they have gathered. NO SCHOLARS CONDEMN THESE DOCTORS, SCIENTISTS OR POLICE FOR LOOKING INTO THE UNSEEN. On the contrary, they will be praised and commended for their actions. This is because these issues are based on physical evidence and experience and on the study of the natural laws of Allah. Likewise, those who have extensive experience of the natural laws of Allah regarding the spiritual ailments and that is that they react to ruqya, which is a physical and apparent evidence, are those people who are able to diagnose patients using ruqya diagnosis. We just don’t guess if someone has sihr but we use our skills, experience and ruqya to come to a conclusion. Those people who don’t have extensive experience in this field and don’t know much about the natural law of Allah regarding spiritual ailments, are those who are unable to understand or do ruqya diagnosis. Just because they do not know, it doesn’t mean that others are ignorant. Having said this, we must point out that ruqya diagnosis is a practical science and so some people may get the diagnosis wrong because of their inexperience. This wrong diagnosis could be due to several issues such as not establishing a proper reference point or interference issues or definition issues or incorrect intentions. The main point here is that a wrong diagnosis is possible, just like how it is possible to make errors in other fields of science. Nonetheless, this doesn’t negate or put doubts into the correct ruqya diagnosis that is conducted by a competent and experienced raqi or that correct self ruqya diagnosis that was done by a patient who had spent some time studying ruqya diagnosis before they actually did it. This is because ruqya diagnosis is an exact science that follows the natural laws of Allah and if it is done correctly and properly then a person can be 100% certain of their ruqya diagnosis results, just like they can sometimes be 100% certain with medical diagnosis or with the results in other sciences. This certainty in ruqya diagnosis is all because of the help of Allah so if we know that a person has the unseen disease of sihr because of ruqya diagnosis then that is from Allah because it was Allah who gave us this knowledge of this unseen disease by creating reactions in the person’s body and we couldn’t do it without Allah.

With regards to using ruqya to diagnose the present condition of a patient or their past situation that is related to their present condition, then it is permissible to do these two types of ruqya diagnosis, as mentioned in some of my articles, because the Shariah does NOT forbid us from investigating, by any halal means, the past or present condition of the patient since this has NOTHING to do with the future or the absolute unseen knowledge (al-ghayb al-mutlaq) of Allah. In fact, this is similar to what medical doctors do when they investigate the past or present condition of their patients. No scholars condemn or accuse doctors of investigating the unseen, when the doctors try to work out, via various halal means, the past or medical history of patients or the present situation of patients. This is all because, in general, the Shariah does NOT differentiate between the way we deal with physical or spiritual diseases. Hence, if we are permitted to treat or do something with one of them, then we are also permitted to do the same with the other, even if the means or ways are different. So therefore, if we can investigate a cancer patient’s present/past condition or any causes of his present/past cancer or any present/past medical problems that are or were caused by cancer, then we can do the same investigations and diagnoses with a sihr patient.

NB: Having said all of that, I must state that the information gained via ruqya diagnosis is not something that can be used in an Islamic court. This is similar to the information gained from dreams! Both can be 100%, clear cut for the individual but because it is very personal and cannot be verified by others, it therefore cannot be presented as evidence in an Islamic court. This means that if you work out via advanced specific ruqya diagnosis, who the sahir is or who the hasid is, then this information must be kept secret, just like you would do with your dreams!

For more information on Advanced Ruqya Diagnosis, then please go to the sub section below, titled “The Benefits of Ruqya Diagnosis for the Spiritual Ailments“, and click the link for the YouTube video. The said link is in point “(4) A. Ruqya Diagnosis Improves General Treatment“

PROVING RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS NOT A BIDAH BY USING EXAMPLES OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN A RAQI & HIS PATIENTS

To help you understand that this concept of ruqya diagnosis isn’t a bidah, let us imagine a person, who is 100% convinced that he has ayn, decides to visit a raqi for “ruqya treatment” for ayn. The raqi himself isn’t convinced the person has ayn and he actually believes the person has sihr based on their discussions and the person’s history. However, the raqi performs ‘ruqya treatment’ for ONLY ayn on this person even though he doesn’t really believe the person has ayn. He reads ruqya treatment on the patient using the Arabic dua “Asalullaah An yashfiyaka min ayn’ (I ask Allah to CURE you from evil eye). To the raqi’s surprise, while doing the “ruqya treatment” for ONLY ayn, the raqi actually notices that the person is really reacting to the ayn “ruqya treatment” and therefore the raqi himself is now convinced that the person definitely has ayn because of the physical reactions that he has observed. Another person visits the same raqi and this second person is also 100% convinced that he has ayn but the raqi himself isn’t convinced again but the raqi still does exactly the same “ruqya treatment”, for ayn ONLY, using the same Arabic dua on the second person as he did on the first person. So in both cases the raqi actually starts reading the ruqya “treatment” while disbelieving or having a doubt in his heart that the patients are really afflicted. For the second “ruqya treatment” session for ONLY ayn, there were absolutely NO physical reactions felt by the second person so therefore, after the raqi finished the ruqya, he tells the second person that, in his opinion, the second person doesn’t have any ayn BECAUSE HE DIDN’T REACT TO THE “RUQYA TREATMENT” for ONLY ayn. Now, the raqi and both patients may say that they just did “ruqya treatment” or “ruqya” BUT IN REALITY THESE ARE A RUQYA DIAGNOSIS SESSIONS and can never really be called ruqya treatment because NO real treatment was done. There may have been some REAL ruqya treatment at the end or the last few minutes of the first ruqya session, once the raqi was 100% convinced about the presence of ayn in the first person. However, the majority of the time, in both cases, was taken up by ruqya diagnosis and NOT ruqya treatment, whether that is acknowledged or not by the raqi himself and the two people. WE CAN SAY THIS BECAUSE OF THE DOUBT IN RAQI’S HEART (he didn’t really believe they had ayn) AT THE BEGINNING OF BOTH RUQYA SESSIONS AND HE WAS WAITING TO SEE IF THERE WAS A REACTION BEFORE ANY REAL TREATMENT WAS ADMINISTERED. If you accept what the raqi did in both sessions was Islamically valid then you have basically accepted ruqya diagnosis. We need to be honest with ourselves and base things on the reality of things and actions. Just because the name “ruqya diagnosis” doesn’t appear in the sunnah, it doesn’t mean that the reality of the action itself is a bidah because what we call ruqya diagnosis is basically the two ruqya scenarios we just described. If you accept them as being valid then in reality you also accept ruqya diagnosis because it is exactly the same action. We need to step away from terms and names and just look at the reality of certain actions before we can actually say they are haram or bidah.

Now, lets look at another example. Imagine a person thinks that he has sihr because of the issues he is having in his life but he is not 100% sure that he has sihr but he, nevertheless, still starts reading ruqya “treatment” with the Arabic dua: ‘Asalullaah An yashfiyanee min sihr’ (meaning: I ask Allah that he cure me from sihr), to see if he himself reacts to this dua. Because he wants to see if he reacts, we can  therefore say that his intention in his heart is not in line with the dua and his actual intention is: ‘O Allah Show me if I have sihr’……even though the Arabic wording of his dua is ‘I ask Allah that he cure me from sihr’ that is not the reality of whats is actually going on. REMEMBER THIS RULE: ACTIONS ARE BASED ON INTENTIONS. So even though, outwardly, it seems that he is doing treatment ruqya for the sihr with the literal wording of the dua, in reality, he is doing diagnosis ruqya for the sihr because the real intention in his heart of wanting to see if he reacts, overides his actual verbal action of reading ruqya ie the words of the dua that come out of his mouth. SO THE MERE DOUBT IN THE HEART AND ALSO HIS INTENTION TO SEE IF HE REACTS TO THE RUQYA, HAS CHANGED THE ACTION OF TREATMENT RUQYA TO THE ACTION OF DIAGNOSIS RUQYA. How can this be pure treatment of sihr (ie asking Allah for cure without any doubt that you have sihr) when he himself is not sure that he has sihr and so that doubt in the heart and his desire to see if he reacts, renders the ruqya treatment into a diagnosis ruqya rather than a pure 100% treatment ruqya. Therefore, his real intention and BY DEFAULT, HIS REAL ACTION OF RUQYA, BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SEE HOW HE REACTS is ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr’ while using the Arabic dua:  Asalullaah An yashfiyanee min sihr (I ask Allah that he cure me from sihr’). If he gets a reaction to this ruqya then we conclude that he has sihr.

What we have mentioned above is similar to when a medical doctor is presented with a undiagnosed patient who is complaining about chest problems. After examining the patient, the doctor is not 100% sure that it is a bacterial infection of the lungs but nonetheless he takes a guess and prescribes the patient antibiotics and keeps him in hospital overnight. In the morning, to the doctor’s surprise, the patient is feeling much better and it seems that he has responded very well to the antibiotics. The doctor is now 100% convinced that it was some kind of bacterial infection because of the patient’s response to the antibiotics.

Likewise, if a raqi follows the above doctor’s method and takes a guess and then treats a patient for ayn, using Surah Fatiha, and then the patient physically reacts and responds very well to the ayn ruqya treatment then we can say that the patient is suffering from ayn, and therefore, in reality, this “treatment” that the raqi has performed can be seen as a type of diagnosis.

If we are not going to shout “bidah” or condemn or criticise the medical doctor for guessing and then treating and then only becoming convinced of his patient’s diagnosis, then we can’t really say anything against the raqi who just did something similar to the doctor.

The reason we can’t condemn the doctor or raqi for guessing is because the Shariah does NOT differentiate between physical or spiritual ailments in terms of treatment and it does not stop us from “having a guess” or “trying out treatments”, even if we are not 100% convinced that a physical or spiritual disease is present. It also doesn’t expect us to get the diagnosis 100% right before any treatment can be administered. We are just supposed to try our best and fear Allah as much as we can. That is all the Shariah wants from us in terms of the diagnosis of physical and spiritual diseases. Hence, nothing haram or any bidah has been committed by the above doctor or the raqi.

This understanding of guessing the spiritual disease and then applying an appropriate treament and then finally basing the diagnosis on the patient’s response to the treatment, is taken from the well known hadith (Al Mishkat: 4562. Graded Sahih by Al Albani), where the Nabi (salulahu alayhi wasalam) teaches the Sahaba (radiullahu anhum) and us about how to treat ayn (evil eye) using the ayn perpetrator’s ghusl water. From this very hadith, we learn that it is NOT a problem to “guess” who the ayn perpetrator is and once you do this, you are also, by default, guessing the type of disease that the patient is suffering from, in this case ayn. Once you have made a good guess, you can administer the treatment for ayn by getting the patient to wash with the ayn perpetrator’s ghusl water. If the patient responds well to the treatment then this becomes a type of diagnosis as well, showing us who the ayn perpetrator is and that the patient has ayn. If the patient is not immediately cured with the first ghusl then we can request the SAME ayn perpetrator to prepare more ghusl water for the patient, basing this request on what our treatment/diagnosis result showed us.

AFTER READING THE ABOVE, HOW CAN ANYONE CLAIM THAT RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS A BIDAH! In reality, it is basically a type of ruqya that was based on a good guess but with a doubt in the heart as to whether or not the patient truly has a spiritual illness ie we are waiting to see if the patient reacts to the ruqya. Whereas true ruqya treatment is NOT based on a good guess and there is NO doubt in the heart of the patient or raqi that there is definitely a spiritual or physical illness that is present and which needs to be treated with ruqya.

THE RAQI WHO CLAIMS THAT HE JUST DOES RUQYA TREATMENT IS IN FACT DOING A TYPE OF RUQYA DIAGNOSIS BUT HE DOESN’T ADMIT IT 

Conducting ruqya diagnosis doesn’t go against any of the Islamic principles of ruqya in Islam and is not a bidah. If you don’t want to do it then that is fine but please don’t accuse those who do it of performing a bidah since your idea of going ‘straight to ruqya treatment’ is in reality a form of diagnosis but you have not used the term ‘diagnosis’. When you basically practise ‘straight to ruqya treatment’ on a NEW PATIENT, you are not 100% convinced that you are actually treating anything in particular in the new patient because you are unsure yourself, in your heart, if this new patient has an affliction so you look for signs of a spiritual ailment and then you inform the new patient of what you have noticed after the ruqya ‘treatment’ session. This in short is a form of diagnosis whether you say it or not because that is what diagnosis is all about in reality! In Islam, we look at the reality of things not just names.

A new patient may ask that they feel they might have sihr so a straight-to-treatment raqi may even say to this patient ‘lets treat you with ruqya and then see what happens to you’. This proposal is basically a form of diagnosis even if it is called treatment 100 times!

So those who claim to just do ruqya treatment then we say to them that your ‘treatment’ on new patients is in reality, a combination of diagnosis and treatment and it is not just treatment that you are offering new patients because you are carefully observing the reactions of your new patients during your ‘straight to ruqya treatment’ since you are not sure if they really have a spiritual ailment, so how can that be purely treatment then! If you are really offering treatment ONLY then why do you need to carefully observe the patient and ask them how they feel?

The only way to really know if a patient has been cured by Allah is to read on them and see if they still react to ruqya or not and this is what all straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqis have to do IN THE END when one of their patients visits them or ask them the question ‘Am I cured’? If you ponder on and carefully reflect on the reality of this ruqya that the raqi will perform to see if the patient is cured or not, you will only come to the conclusion that this ruqya is diagnosis FULL STOP! All raqis and patients will have go through this process and there is no quicker way to find out if you are cured or not. Any raqi who has done several straight-to-ruqya-treatment sessions on a patient, over several months, may be told by the same patient that they feel like they have finally been cured by Allah. The raqi might not believe them and would then obviously suggest that they do some ruqya ‘treatment’ to see how they feel. Without a doubt and no matter how many times the raqi says “this is treatment ruqya only”, the reality is that this is DEFINITELY A DIAGNOSTIC RUQYA because the raqi is reading to see if the patient will react to the ruqya so it cannot really be treatment and the REAL intention is: ‘O Allah show us if this patient has has sihr’. As you can see, this is exactly what must have happened with the initial ruqya ‘treatment’ session the raqi had performed on this patient and on the rest his patients.

I personally used to do straight-to-ruqya treatment as I was not too bothered about what I was suffering from initially. In fact, I remember I even did straight-to-ruqya-treatment as my first self ruqya session on myself. I prepared the water for ‘treatment’ and I was anxiously waiting for results and when I carefully think of what I did during that so called ‘treatment’, I can clearly see now that it was NOT ruqya treatment at all but a ruqya diagnosis since I was anticipating the results and reactions ie I was waiting to see how the ruqya water would affect me. So those who call for straight-to-ruqya-treatment have to stop denying the reality of what they are actually doing and be honest with themselves and just admit that their first straight-to-ruqya-treatment session on new patients is in reality a form of diagnosis whether they say it or not!

The funny thing in all these discussions on whether or not I am doing a bidah, is that those accusers actually do the same thing as me but they don’t call it a bidah. They read their initial ruqya treatment on a patient with a doubt in their hearts, which I do as well. However, when they see the patient’s body react to their initial ruqya treatment, they refuse to draw any conclusions from the situation or observation, whereas I would make conclusions and even offer alternative treatments depending upon what I observed or what the patient said they felt during my first or initial ruqya treatment. These accusers need to understand that the drawing of conclusions from your first or initial ruqya treatment is not and can NEVER EVER be a bidah. So if I read my first ruqya treatment for sihr on a patient and they react then I CAN CONCLUDE THAT THEY HAVE SIHR and no one can say that I did a bidah by saying the patient has sihr. That is because the mental or psychological process of drawing up a conclusion from an observation of a patient is NOT a fixed act of worship, in of itself. Indeed, it is something all good professional doctors, scholars and scientists regularly do!

DEFINING RUQYA DIAGNOSIS & RUQYA TREATMENT 

After the above discussion and explanations, we may now define ruqya diagnosis and ruqya treatment according to what is in heart of the raqi at the time of actually conducting or administering the ruqya:

RUQYA DIAGNOSIS: Is a type of RUQYA that is initially done (or subsequently done after a course of treatment) and is based on a good guess but with a doubt in the heart as to whether or not a spiritual ailment is truly present in the patient so consequently the raqi asks Allah to SHOW physical signs that the patient has a spiritual illness.

RUQYA TREATMENT: Is a type of RUQYA that is NOT based on a good guess and there is NO doubt in the heart that the patient definitely has a physical or spiritual ailment so consequently the raqi asks Allah to CURE the patient’s illness.

I hope I have removed the doubt from those who reject ruqya diagnosis and I pray for our and their guidance.

A SUMMARY OF WHY RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS PERMISSIBLE IN ISLAM 

RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS ONLY FOR SPIRITUAL AILMENTS AND NOT FOR PHYSICAL AILMENTS

Ruqya diagnosis is ONLY for spiritual ailments and it is NOT for diagnosing physical ailments. Having said that, we can TREAT physical illnesses with ruqya. If you want to diagnose a physical ailment like cancer or diabetes then you should ask a doctor. This is based on the experience of practising ruqya. We found that physical ailments do not give a patient, any reactions during ruqya treatment like the spiritual ailments do, so therefore we can’t use ruqya to diagnose physical diseases. The ruqya treatment is definitely doing something positive to the physical disease but the patient can’t really notice it and this is not a real problem as Allah has given us another way to diagnose physical ailments. Allah has created our bodies so that we can notice when we have a physical illness; either we can see it or feel it because it is not something that is hidden and therefore we do not really need ruqya diagnosis to help us diagnose physical ailments since the disease is apparent. All we need to do is treat it so once a doctor has diagnosed you or you yourself feel ill then you can start ruqya treatment of your physical illness.

When I am trying to convince those who do not agree with ruqya diagnosis, I sometimes tell them to use ruqya treatment as a form of diagnosis. This argument they readily accept because for them, ruqya treatment is the only form of ruqya. Having said that, there is a problem with this method of ruqya treatment as diagnosis, which I want to explain here and which people have experienced.

THE BENEFITS OF RUQYA DIAGNOSIS FOR THE SPIRITUAL AILMENTS

Having said the above, there are still people who do not think that ruqya diagnosis is necessary. They may not believe that it is a bidah but they still can’t see how important it is. So in this section, I am going to explain why it is important from several perspectives.

I usually get patients telling me that it is not important to know if they have sihr or ayn because the treatment is the same in the end. This statement of theirs is true to a degree but these patients fail to understand that their statement is just applicable to ruqya treatment and not to other forms of treatment such as destroying the taweez, when you find it. (You are not really going to search for the taweez unless you know, via ruqya diagnosis, that you have sihr). From my experience, those patients who usually tell me that it is not important to do ruqya diagnosis, are those who are suffering from sihr with jinn possession ie the jinn came via sihr. These jinn through sihr, do not like their victims to know that they are inside them so they discourage them, via waswas, to not do ruqya diagnosis. Remember, jinn through sihr would like victims to believe that everything is fine and that any waswas that they give to victims to divorce a spouse, etc, is only natural and not from jinn. When ruqya diagnosis reveals that victims have the sihr of divorce then obviously such victims will be very cautious and careful about any negative feelings they feel towards their spouse.

Ruqya diagnosis is important because of the following reasons:

(1) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS STOPS SHIRK!

By doing ruqya diagnosis you close the door to being amazed at jinn and speaking to them to find out what the patient is suffering from and therefore you avoid falling into shirk with jinn. How many unfortunate people have ended up speaking to jinn and asking them about things and then believing them and then finally asking for assistance from jinn, which is major shirk!

Those raqis, who insist on not doing or teaching ruqya diagnosis, need to understand that many patients who are very desperate for answers, will turn to those who use jinn, such as jinn catchers or peers or fortune tellers or bogus raqis, to get their questions answered. Therefore, I strongly recommend that they reconsider their opposition to ruqya diagnosis because conducting ruqya diagnosis will stop people falling into shirk.

(2) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS CLARIFIES IF A MUSLIM IS SUFFERING FROM AYN (EVIL EYE)

Most Muslims are aware of the seriousness of the evil eye and that it will cause a lot of death in the ummah because of the hadith of the Nabi salulahu alayhi wasalam:

“Most of those who die among my ummah die because of the will and decree of allah, and then because of the evil eye.” (Hasan: Al-Albani, Silsila 384/2. Hasan: Al-Albani, Sahih Jam’i 1206)

Therefore, it is important to identify those of us who are suffering from the evil eye so that we can treat them and the quickest way to identify them would be to do ruqya diagnosis, hence the importance of ruqya diagnosis in our lives.

(3) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS CLARIFIES WHAT THE PERSON IS SUFFERING FROM

Ruqya Diagnosis allows the patient to get answers to the medical or psychological problems they are facing in their life. They may have visited their doctor several times and the doctor cannot find anything wrong with them but once they do ruqya diagnosis they realise that their problem was jinn related or sihr.

Some patients that truly have a spiritual ailment that is causing physical problems  might actually believe that they are really suffering from an unknown physical ailment and they might be taking unnecessary medicines (that have strong side effects) to relieve pain or discomfort or to reduce a physical problem. Some of these medicines do give some relief but they don’t get to the bottom of the problem, while others are totally useless and should not be taken by patients. Ruqya diagnosis stops such oral administration of medicines and clarifies to patients that their pain or discomfort or physical problem is not stemming from a physical illness but a spiritual one. After ruqya diagnosis the patient would know that they have a spiritual disease and then they would do ruqya treatment to cure the illness instead of taking medicines.

It should be noted that if the ruqya patient does get some relief from taking some medicine, like antihistamine, then they can continue even if it is not a cure to their problem. (There is NO problem in combining ruqya treatment with modern medicine).

Ruqya diagnosis can stop patients having unnecessary surgical procedures. I had one patient who had an operation to remove a nerve from his arm and hand. The operation did not relieve his pain or problem but it was the only thing the doctors could do. We found out later that the issue was jinn related and therefore the brother had an unnecessary medical procedure which resulted in him losing a healthy nerve. From what I remember, he has now lost some ability in his arm.

Some muscle twitches or limbs shaking are jinn related so removing healthy nerves is not going to solve the problem. In fact, it may make it worse. Only ruqya diagnosis can clarify what we are really dealing with.

Sadly, there may be cases of real spiritual disease, where whole organs are removed or reduced in size via operations but after such procedures NO improvements in the patient can be detected or noticed ie the patient is still complaining about their original physical problem. In such situations, ruqya diagnosis would stop the removal of healthy organs.

Recently, a patient of mine did specific ruqya diagnosis and realised that the cancer that they are suffering from is being caused by ALL 4 SPIRITUAL AILMENTS, including waswas conditioning, which surprised me! They are now emphasising and focusing on treating the spiritual ailments and giving more time to them because they are the real cause for the cancer. If it weren’t for ruqya diagnosis then this information would not have been known and the patient would not take the treatment of spiritual ailments so seriously.

Ruqya diagnosis also helps out in our interactions with others. A muslim couple who are experiencing marriage problems and they cannot understand why they are not happy in their marriage may consider getting a divorce. However, once they do the ruqya diagnosis they realise they have the sihr of divorce.
(THE GENERAL RULE FOR ALL COUPLES THINKING ABOUT DIVORCE IS: DO SIHR DIAGNOSIS BEFORE SEEING A MARRIAGE COUNSELLOR. How strange it is that when a couple is deciding, whether or not, to get a divorce, hardly anyone suggests to them that they should do sihr diagnosis. Even worse than this are those who are involved in marriage counselling and they do not have a clue about sihr and its effects on a marriage. The Quran is clear on the fact that sihr is used to cause divorce so how come we are oblivious to this fact or don’t think that sihr could be causing divorce).

Diagnosis allows us to know whether or not the bad behaviour of a child or adult is due to jinn or not. Some children have anger management problems caused by jinn issues and therefore they can’t get along with other children or with their parents. In this case, it very important for the parents to diagnose their children before the possessing jinn get too comfortable and used to ‘living’ in their child. Such jinn, who have spent years with a person from childhood, can be very difficult to remove because they see the person and the person’s family as their own family.
It should be mentioned that it is very important to diagnose children for jinn possession before they hit puberty. Once puberty is reached then the jinn can influence them to have haram relationships and do other haram activity.

The reason we need to diagnose our children before puberty is because it is much more difficult to get rid of jinn possession in adults because their sins have an effect on the possessing jinn and make them stronger ie if a person is very sinful then it is much more difficult to remove the possessing jinn and the jinn may even completely manifest and start speaking through the patient and then cause havoc and chaos.

(4) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IMPROVES GENERAL TREATMENT

One of the main benefits of diagnosis is that it HELPS treatment and you will be able to remove the spiritual ailment much quicker because we will be able to offer the best method of treatment available. It also allows us to use more ruqya treatment intentions because we know what spiritual ailments you are exactly suffering from. WE HAVE FOUND FROM EXPERIENCE THAT THE MORE INTENTIONS YOU USE, THE STRONGER THE RUQYA TREATMENT BECOMES. This is because you are more focused and precise at what you are asking Allah to cure you from. Without diagnosis, you cannot add more treatment intentions and your focus and precision, in asking Allah for the cure, is not really there.

A. Once we diagnose a patient is suffering from sihr then we would try and search for the taweez. Finding the taweez is one of the quickest ways to get the cure. If it weren’t for this sihr ruqya diagnosis then we would not search for the taweez in first place. (We can use advanced specific ruqya diagnosis to find out where exactly the taweez is and then destroy it. If it weren’t for ruqya diagnosis then we would not be able to do this. For information on this, please watch this video: Advanced Ruqya Diagnosis Workshop)
B. If we diagnose a person with ayn then we would try and obtain the ayn perpetrator’s ghusl water. Getting this ghusl water is one of the quickest ways to get the cure. If it weren’t for this ayn ruqya diagnosis then we would not ask for the ghusl water in the first place. (We can use advanced specific ruqya diagnosis to find out who exactly is the ayn or hasad perpetrator and then get their ghusl water and then wash with it. If it weren’t for ruqya diagnosis then we would not be able to do this. For information on this, please watch this video: Advanced Ruqya Diagnosis Workshop).
C. Once we diagnose the person with jinn possession then we would try to extract and kill the jinn with the JET Technique.
D. Once we diagnose the person with static sihr, ayn, jinn possession or waswaas conditioning then we would try to remove that with hijama.
E. Once we diagnose the person with sihr and ayn then we would tell him to treat the ayn at the same time as sihr because ayn can block sihr treatment.
F. Once we have diagnosed the patient with sihr then we would tell them to treat the sihr network as that can block sihr treatment.
G. Once we diagnose the person with hasad then we would advise that they treat the hasad network as that can block ayn treatment.

(5) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS ALLOWS US TO ADVISE THE PATIENT APPROPRIATELY

Once we know that patient has sihr of divorce with jinn possession then we will would tell them to ignore any thoughts of divorce and try to treat their spouse islamically and give them their rights as best as they can.
If we diagnose a patient with ayn because of their hair then we would advise them to be careful where they expose themselves and remind them to keep up with their protection adhkar.
Once we diagnose the person with jinn possession then we would advise them about sins because sins cause jinn manifestation.

(6) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS MAKES THE PATIENT MORE SINCERE IN MAKING DUA

One of the wonderful benefits of diagnosis is that you will make a much more sincere dua to Allah when you realise what you exactly have. For example, if you did a ruqya diagnosis for sihr which was positive then you will call out to Allah, sincerely asking him to cure you from sihr because you have witnessed the effects of the ruqya diagnosis and you definitely now know that someone has specifically targeted you with sihr. If you did not do sihr diagnosis but did ‘straight-to-ruqya-treatment’, you will obviously get some reactions but because you did not use the intention of diagnosing sihr, you can’t be sure of what you have and therefore you are not going to cry out to Allah to cure you from sihr like a person who definitely knows they have sihr.

(7) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS REMOVES ANY DOUBTS AND MAKES YOU SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR RUQYA TREATMENT

I have seen people who are DEFINITELY possessed by jinn but they are in doubt about it and therefore this doubt causes them to stop or reduce their ruqya treatment. However, once they do a proper ruqya diagnosis, they become convinced and restart their ruqya treatment. So if it weren’t for ruqya diagnosis this person would not ever do or continue their ruqya treatment.
I would recommend anyone who gets doubts about having jinn possession to do a proper mass diagnosis on a regularly basis until they convince themselves via the ruqya diagnosis that they are definitely possessed by jinn. This will make them steadfast in their ruqya treatment.

(8) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS ALLOWS US TO DISCOVER NEW SPIRITUAL AILMENTS

If it weren’t for ruqya diagnosis then I would not have been able to discover waswas conditioning. It was through ruqya diagnosis that this spiritual ailment, that I and others suffered from, was identified and recognised.

I thought I would never be able to clear the psychological problems I had. I didn’t believe there was a cure because there was no disease in the first place that had been diagnosed. I felt that what I was going through was normal and I had to think of coping strateges to get by in life. However, by the mercy of Allah, we were able to discover and diagnose waswaas conditioning and then treat it, walhamdulilah.

If we don’t understand the importance and significance of ruqya diagnosis then we may not be able to help Muslims who are suffering from unknown spiritual illnesses.

(9) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS HELPS WITH EXPERIMENTING & DEVELOPING NEW TREATMENTS FOR SPIRITUAL AILMENTS

In order to know if a NEW type of treatment benefits sufferers of a particular spiritual ailment, we need to first do ruqya diagnosis on patients to actually see if they really have this particular spiritual ailment or not. If they don’t then there is NO point in trying out this NEW treatment on them because it would be a total waste of time. For example, if we want to see if a new treatment called X helps treat sihr patients then we must first diagnose patients with sihr. If we don’t use ruqya diagnosis then how can we identify patients with sihr and how can we ever know if X treatment is beneficial or not. If we just use X treatment on a group people who we think may have sihr then this would be a waste of time since the results cannot be relied upon because the patients might not have had any sihr in the first place. To avoid such a scenario, it is better to do ruqya diagnosis to identify sihr patients and then treat these patients with the new X treatment and then do ruqya diagnosis to see if this new X treatment had reduced the sihr or not.

(10) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS PREVENTS US USING INEFFECTIVE AND USELESS TREATMENTS

Once we know via ruqya diagnosis that a particular patient does NOT have a specific spiritual illness then we will not use any treatments that are used to treat that specific spiritual illness. For example, we know that truffles and mushrooms treat Ayn, as I mention in the self treatment notes, but if we know via ruqya diagnosis that a patient does not have Ayn then we would not waste time and money on treating this patient with truffles or mushrooms because he or she does not have any Ayn in the first place!

(11) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS HELPS US TO APPRECIATE WHAT ALLAH IS DOING FOR US

Ruqya diagnosis makes you appreciate what Allah has done for you which will then cause you to love Allah even further than you already do! Take for instance the patient who finds out that he has sihr of divorce, sihr to cause financial issues and sihr of infertility but then the patient remains married, has a successful business and has children. This patient will be very thankful to Allah because even though he has a jinnee through sihr that was commanded to cause divorce, cause financial problems and to stop the patient from having children, Allah didn’t allow the sihr and its jinnee to be successful. Obviously, any patient like this example, who realises what Allah has done for him will love Allah more!

I remember my own case and how I am still very thankful to Allah. I had diagnosed myself with the sihr to kill my own wife ie the jinnee from sihr had been sent with a command to make me kill my wife but by the mercy of Allah I didn’t do that. Sometimes, when I just think about it and my whole sihr situation in general, it brings tears to my eyes and appreciation for Allah, especially when I remember how Allah saved me from the evils plans of the sahir.

Recently, we had a patient who did ruqya diagnosis and got positive results for different types of sihr that they had and then they reflected on their past life with these types of sihr and were emotionally overwhelmed and very thankful to Allah when they realised how Allah had saved them from the plans of the sahir……such an experience can only make a patient love Allah more! After reading this……HOW CAN ANYONE REFUSE TO DO RUQYA DIAGNOSIS!!!

(12) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS HELPS US TO KNOW IF THE PATIENT IS GETTING BETTER OR NOT

Ruqya diagnosis allows us to monitor the development of a spiritual disease and therefore it assists us in determining if a patient’s spiritual illness is getting better or not. Through it, we may discover that a patient’s physical reactions or symptoms during ruqya diagnosis have become less which generally means that the patient is getting better and therefore we can conclude that the patient’s current treatment plan is working successfully and there is no need to change or modify it and if they continue using it they should get cured inshallah. We may find via ruqya diagnosis that a patient has new sihr or new jinn and therefore we would have to analyse and try to identify what has caused these new issues and then rectify any problems that we discover. None of these actions of continuing or improving a treatment plan can be done properly without having the information that ruqya diagnosis provides to us.

(13) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS ALLOWS US TO DISCOVER NEW SIHR DEVELOPMENTS

(14) RUQYA DIAGNOSIS ALLOWS US TO KNOW IF WE ARE CURED OR NOT

The main way to know if you are cured from your spiritual ailment is for you to do ruqya diagnosis. Once you keep getting negative results from your ruqya diagnosis then you can be certain that you have been cured by Allah.

CONCLUSION

Ruqya diagnosis is an established Islamic way to find out if you have a spiritual ailment or not and it is knowingly or unknowingly practised by every single raqi in the world even if they initially call their first ruqya session on new patients ‘treatment’ because it is in reality a diagnosis by default, whether they accept it or not and the mere changing of the name to ‘treatment’ doesn’t change the actual reality of what they are really doing. There is no way around it, YOUR FIRST RUQYA SESSION FOR SPIRITUAL AILMENTS WILL ALWAYS BE A RUQYA DIAGNOSIS SESSION!

The main difference between ruqya diagnosis and ruqya treatment is in the intention so please remember that!

The Sahaba didn’t need ruqya diagnosis. This is because their ruqya treatment was very strong and it would cure them quickly. However, in our time, we need ruqya diagnosis to help us because our ruqya treatment is weak and it takes a long time to get the cure from Allah. While we are waiting for the ruqya cure, we can use our ruqya diagnostic results to help us treat ourselves more comprehensively and to advise ourselves more appropriately.

Any ruqya diagnosis is approved or allowed by the Sunnah, if it is used in way that will benefit the patient (Saheeh Jam’i: 6019) and if it does not contain any shirk (Muslim: 5732). Ruqya diagnosis is not investigating or looking into the forbidden unseen and it does NOT use the help of jinn. Hence, it is not a bidah to do ruqya diagnosis for the spiritual ailments, according to the rules in the Sunnah. So therefore, those Muslims, who do not do ruqya diagnosis, should stop saying that people who do ruqya diagnosis are doing a bidah. 

All medical professionals do some sort of diagnosis before actually treating patients and none of them would ever ‘go-straight-to-treatment’ (unless they are actually using the initial ‘treatment’ as part of their final diagnosis as mentioned in our above example) because even the patients would not let them do that.

I don’t know where this idea came from that our initial ruqya treatment for spiritual ailments can never be seen as a type of diagnosis. Some people don’t want anyone to benefit from their first ruqya treatment and if we try to diagnose the patient via our initial ruqya ‘treatment’ then they say it is a bidah! It is like those who claim this, close their eyes or turn away from the patient when they read their initial ‘ruqya treatment’. It is like they believe that there is absolutely no benefit in observing or noting down how the patient reacts to the their initial ‘ruqya treatment’. It is as if they see the ruqya reactions in the patient as something insignificant and not important or a total waste of time. This maybe due to the fact that they don’t understand or comprehend that it is ONLY the spiritual ailments that react to ruqya, while physical diseases don’t react at all. IF THEY KNEW THIS PRINCIPLE THEN THEY WOULD NOT BE CONFUSED ABOUT RUQYA DIAGNOSIS. 

We know that this knowledge of the spiritual ailments reacting to ruqya comes from experience and not from the sunnah but that itself does not make it a bidah. So if we get a reaction from a patient during our initial ruqya treatment then they definitely have a spiritual disease.

The reason there is so much confusion out there regarding ruqya diagnosis is because certain Sheikhs and scholars actually create this confusion. For example, recently, while I was on holiday, I listened to a Sheikh who was asked about how to diagnose ayn. Sadly, he didn’t know how to do it. He has a lot of ilm in other areas and I have definitely benefitted from him and still do, but here, he just doesn’t know or have a clue. You must understand that some sheikhs don’t know this topic of ruqya when it comes down to the experience side of it. They can tell you if you are doing shirk or bidah in ruqya or going against the Shariah but they can’t tell you things such as “what happens when ayn ruqya is read on a patient” or “how do we know when we are cured from ayn” or “how can I remove jinn from my body using hijama”. But this should not really be a surprise because just like we don’t expect a sheikh to know how to diagnose and treat cancer, etc, we shouldn’t expect them to know everything about the evil eye, especially if they are not known for teaching or writing about ruqya comprehensively ie from A to Z. So it is important to refer your questions on ruqya diagnosis and treatment of spiritual diseases to those specialists who have experience in the field, especially, if they themselves were afflicted with a spiritual illness and then they became cured from it.

I am not exactly sure why some Muslims are so against ruqya diagnosis for the spiritual ailments, when these same muslims readily accept medical diagnosis for physical diseases that medical professionals do and have been doing for centuries. If you accept one type of disease being diagnosed then you have to accept the concept or idea that the other type of disease can also be diagnosed, even if means are different, because the Shariah doesn’t say it can’t be done. Just because you don’t know how to diagnose spiritual diseases doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Why do they accept medical diagnosis based on a treatment for a physical disease but won’t accept ruqya diagnosis based on ruqya treatment for a spiritual disease? Where did this separation come from? It is not from the Shariah! They do NOT shout ‘BIDAH’ when a medical doctor tries to diagnose a physical disease using a “treatment” so then why do they shout bidah when a raqi tries to diagnose a spiritual disease using ‘ruqya treatment’. 

There is no evidence that says that we can ONLY medically diagnose physical illnesses and we can’t diagnose spiritual ailments via ruqya treatment. The Shariah does not make a distinction nor a difference in the way we treat and deal with physical and spiritual ailments so then why are we making a difference! If we are able to diagnose one of them then surely we can diagnose the other even if the means or method of diagnosis is different.

I believe the reason why you may find some people that are strongly against ruqya diagnosis is because they have never been afflicted with a spiritual disease and so they have never really been in a predicament where they needed to get answers to the problems they were facing. If you are in a situation, where you have to make an important decision regarding divorcing your spouse and you really want to know if you are afflicted with the sihr of divorce, you will be more open to listen to different opinions and your heart will be more inclined to listen to those raqis who say that we can diagnose this type of sihr via ruqya because you can see how this truly benefits your immediate situation.

You can never beat personal experience in this field. This is why you usually find that the most knowledgeable raqis are those who have had a spiritual illness and then got cured through their own ruqya treatment. I personally believe that their opinions carry more weight than those raqis who have never been afflicted with any spiritual illness. This is similar to dream interpretation. The best Islamic dream interpreters are those who have actually experienced different types of truthful dreams themselves. This does not mean that a person cannot be an expert in ruqya unless they have experience. It just means that experience adds another dimension to understanding the topic. For example, when someone says to me that Surah Baqrah is the best for self ruqya, then my reply would be that it is not and that surahs falaq and nass are better than it. This opinion is from the Sunnah evidence, (ie surah baqrah was never used as self ruqya but falaq and nass were used as self ruqya by the Nabi Salalahu alayhi wasalam), and also from my own personal experience of using surah baqrah and surahs falaq and nass. I found the two surahs much stronger than baqrah. Experience also allows you to empathise with what patients are going through and this on its own, means a lot to them. The raqi with no experience can only really offer sympathy with no real empathy because he never suffered a spiritual illness.

When you carefully look at and study the benefits of ruqya diagnosis that I have mentioned above, you will have to agree that there are enough reasons to do ruqya diagnosis and you would not be able to argue against any of those benefits and you would have a tough time trying to justify not doing ruqya diagnosis.

Unfortunately, many people still don’t know how to do ruqya diagnosis on themselves or their families. For those of you who don’t know then I would recommend that you watch my YouTube videos: ‘Practical Self Ruqya Part 7.1- 6’ or ‘Practical Self Ruqya PART 1 & 3’.

If you are not sinning and you sincerely ask Allah to show you during ruqya diagnosis if you have a spiritual ailment or not, then Allah will show you inshallah and no jinnee can interfere or hide itself from the sincere islamic ruqya, just like no jinnee can negatively affect or interfere with normal dua to Allah; it is all about thinking well of Allah and not doubting his power!

For information and advice on ruqya: abulqasim1972@gmail.com