Specific Ruqya Diagnosis Is Not A Bidah

Version: 18th July 2023.

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INTRODUCTION

Bismillahi Walhamdulilah wa salatu wa salam ala Rasulilah

In this article I want to prove that specific ruqya is a not a bidah and that it is just an extended application of the general ruqya diagnosis that many Muslims already accept.

The evidences that we are going to use in this article are the hadith of the sihr affliction of Nabi (salalahu alayhi wasalam), when he made a dua to Allah to show him what was wrong with him. We will also use the hadith of intentions, the hadith that ruqya should be beneficial and the agreed upon principle that ruqya is a dua to Allah and that it must not contain shirk, which is also taken from a hadith.

Let us first establish that general ruqya diagnosis is acceptable in Islam and that it is an application of those four hadiths that I just mentioned. To do this, I will take a section of my article ‘The importance of ruqya diagnosis’, where I discuss the concept that general ruqya diagnosis is not a bidah and this will be used as a bases to prove that specific ruqya diagnosis is not a bidah. Before we look at the evidence for general ruqya diagnosis, I will present the idea that the Sahaba didn’t need ruqya diagnosis but we do.

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

RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS NOT A BIDAH!

There are some who believe that ruqya diagnosis is not important and that treatment is what should be offered immediately. They don’t or can’t see any benefit in diagnosis and may even believe that 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 (Bukhari: 3268). 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 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 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 jinn) 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 jinn can disrupt this process of ruqya reactions.

The main reason that allows us to take an example of normal dua use and apply it directly to ruqya and do the exact same thing in ruqya is because the example of 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.

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! 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 JINN 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 JINN 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. 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 also 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 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 DEAL WITH DISEASES! It just doesn’t make sense and is not consistent and it is not in line with the Shariah’s rules for dua.

Because of the similarities between the two types of dua ie normal dua and ruqya, it is allowed to make a normal dua to Allah to cure a particular disbeliever (such as a parent of a Muslim) especially, when you want them to become cured so that they can embrace Islam. This is based on the hadith of the mushrik receiving ruqya from a Muslim Sahabi (Bukhari: 5736). If we can make ruqya on a kafir, asking Allah to cure him, then obviously we can also make a normal dua to Allah to cure him, especially when he is in another country and we can’t get to him to do the ruqya treatment.

This understanding, ie making the intention to diagnose, in fact, 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 help of Allaah against diseases ie an incantation, which is recited with the intention of causing a positive effect on a disease and it is not restricted to just treatment. 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.

As a result of this, we can say that reading ruqya with the intention of asking Allah to ‘show us if the patient has sihr’ is ruqya diagnosis and that reading ruqya with the intention of asking Allah to ‘cure the patient from sihr’, is ruqya treatment.

Ruqya Diagnosis is based on three principles: (1) the understanding and application of the hadith of intentions, (2) the knowledge that ruqya is basically a dua of seeking the help of Allah against diseases, that must NOT contain shirk (Muslim: 5732) and be beneficial to the patient (Al-Albani: Saheeh Jam’i 6019), and lastly (3) that Allah creates ruqya reactions in a patient, who has a spiritual disease (hence, we ask Allah to “show us” if a spiritual disease is present via ruqya reactions). So knowing these principles, 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 they say that they have never seen this before and therefore, this intention must be a bidah, then we say to them is there any shirk in the intention? 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 just because a dua and an intention are NEW and not found in the sunnah, they do not become a bidah just because of this. Do they expect every possible dua and intention to be stated in the Shariah! This is impossible! Next, we would say to them what about the dua ‘O Allah please give me a car and mobile phone’, is this dua acceptable? Obviously, they would have to accept this dua and if they do then we would say why didn’t you accept ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr’. If they say that they don’t accept it because it is in reality an intention and not a dua and that there is no evidence for this intention. Then, we would say what about the intention that someone is ‘fixing his car to help muslims’. Is this intention acceptable? They would have to accept this intention, even though, it is not mentioned in the sunnah. Then, we would say how come you accept this intention which also does not have a clear hadith evidence but you didn’t accept ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr’ which also does not have clear hadith evidence. In reality, the evidence for all islamic intentions is the hadith of ‘actions are only by intentions’ and those who claim the intention ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr’ is incorrect or is a bidah have not really understood how this hadith can be applied to different situations or contexts or actions. THE SHARIAH HAS NOT WRITTEN DOWN ALL THE POSSIBLE DUAS OR INTENTIONS THAT WE CAN MAKE 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 bidah, just because the dua or intention are NEW! 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 and the subsequent action of ruqya diagnosis have NOT gone against any of the rules of ruqya that have been stated in the Shariah.

Sadly, I have even come across someone who said that actual intentions for ruqya treatment are bidah in of themselves. I would say to this person the ONLY real difference between reading Quran for reward and reading Quran for ruqya treatment is the intention and that I hope Allah guides your heart to understand this.

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 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 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 reading 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.

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. He has wisdom and recognises this gift and mercy from Allah and then uses it to help his Muslim brother. 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 since we are NOT using the help of 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. 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.

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, after a while of 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 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 to cure me from the 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 HOW 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 that doubt in the heart, and his intention to see if he reacts, renders the ruqya 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.

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!

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 

SPECIFIC RUQYA DIAGNOSIS: THE THEORY

Now, after quoting the above you must agree with me that general ruqya diagnosis is legitimate and not a bidah…….HOW ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO TELL IF YOU ARE CURED FROM SIHR OR ANY OTHER SPIRITUAL AILMENTS. We must understand and be honest with ourselves about what is really going on with our first ruqya session. Frankly, there is no way around it, your first ruqya session for spiritual ailments, BY DEFAULT, will always automatically be a ruqya diagnosis session whether you like it or not and using the term ‘treatment’ does not change the reality of what is truly going on. 

Specific ruqya diagnosis is just using the same understanding of the hadith of intentions and knowing that ruqya is basically a dua to Allah that must not contain shirk and must be beneficial to the patient (as mentioned in the hadiths in the previous section). Once these are firmly grounded in your mind then you will see that specific ruqya diagnosis is just an extension of the general ruqya diagnosis that you have already accepted.

We can also add to the above understanding, our firm belief that there is definitely a specific spiritual disease that is called the sihr of divorce (sihr tafreeq) that is clearly mentioned in the Quran (Surah 2:102). Now, if someone is ONLY suffering from this sihr of divorce, then the ruqya treatment that is used to treat this specific sihr is by default a specific ruqya treatment (ie the ruqya specifically targets and attacks the sihr of divorce) which then necessitates that the first ruqya “treatment” session for this said patient is by default a specific ruqya diagnosis session.

If you accept there is such a thing as sihr of divorce then you have to accept the specific ruqya treatment for the sihr of divorce which then obliges you to accept the specific ruqya diagnosis for the sihr of divorce……..AND IF YOU HAVE ACCEPTED ONE SPECIFIC RUQYA DIAGNOSIS THEN YOU MUST ACCEPT THE OTHERS!

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PATIENT

We are now going to use some examples to try and explain this concept of specific ruqya diagnosis and how it can be used to gain information about the present condition of the patient and also the past condition of the patient that is related to or affecting him in the present.

It is permissible to do these two types of ruqya diagnosis (ie past & present condition) 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, e.g. using ruqya diagnosis. 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 diagnosis with a sihr patient using ruqya diagnosis and that is because the intention and dua of ruqya have NOT been fixed by the Shariah. 

When a patient wants to see if he has sihr of divorce then he has 3 options:

1. Read ruqya on himself using ayah 102 of Surah Baqarah, particularly focusing on that part of the ayah that speaks about sihr causing divorce.

2. Read a ruqya dua on himself in Arabic that he constructed himself with the intention of diagnosing sihr: Asalullaahal An yashfinee min sihr tafreeq  (I ask Allah that he cure me from the sihr of separation (divorce)

3. Read a general sihr ayah as ruqya on himself from the Quran like ayah 4 of surah falaq but he reads it with the intention of looking for sihr of divorce.

I don’t want look at which is the better method right now but I want to prove that all of the above is correct and not a bidah. If you want more discussion about the the 3 methods then please watch practical self ruqya part 2 on youtube.

Let us just focus on method 2 because we can see the dua that the patient is making and it allows us to make a comparison between his actual dua and his intention in his heart.

Now, imagine the patient did a general diagnosis using intention ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr’ and used the Arabic dua: ‘Asalullaah An yashfiyanee min sihr’ (I ask Allah to cure me from sihr) and then he got a reaction and therefore we concluded that he had sihr AND WE ALREADY EXPLAINED ABOVE, IN THE FIRST PART OF THIS ARTICLE, WHY THIS GENERAL RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS PERMISSIBLE. So he currently has general sihr and he is definitely suffering from it because that is what our diagnosis has told us. Who told us or who gave us this information?…..ALLAH DID…..we could not do it without Allah’s help and mercy. This is not looking into or guessing the unseen as some have claimed but it is Allah who answered the dua and then showed us that the patient currently has sihr…….Sadly many forget that ruqya is a dua to Allah and that he is personally involved in the whole process. We just recite and have intentions in our hearts and it is Allah who causes the ruqya dua to work or not. Allah does accept the dua of pious Muslims and from what I have seen, ruqya dua is never rejected if it is sincerely and islamically done for Allah……ie Allah will cause the ruqya to affect the patient immediately and directly.

Now, imagine again that this person thinks that he  also has sihr of divorce because of the issues he is having in his marriage but he is not 100% sure that he has this type of sihr but he still starts reading ruqya treatment with the Arabic ruqya dua: ‘Asalullaah An yashfiyanee min sihr tafreeq (meaning: I ask Allah that he cure me from the sihr of divorce), to see if he reacts to this dua as ruqya treatment. His new intention is not in line with the new dua and his actual intention is: ‘O Allah Show me if I have sihr of divorce’……because be wants to see how he reacts. Even though the Arabic wording of his dua is ‘I ask Allah that he cure me from the sihr of divorce’ 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 of divorce with the literal wording of the dua, in reality, he is doing diagnosis ruqya for the sihr of divorce because the real intention in his heart of wanting to see how he reacts, overides his actual verbal action of reading ruqya ie the words that come out of his mouth. SO THE MERE DOUBT IN THE HEART AND HIS INTENTION TO SEE HOW HE WILL REACT TO THE RUQYA, HAS CHANGED THE ACTION OF TREATMENT RUQYA TO THE ACTION OF DIAGNOSIS RUQYA. How can this be pure treatment of sihr of divorce (ie asking Allah for cure) when he himself is not sure that he has sihr of divorce and that doubt in the heart renders the ruqya into a diagnosis ruqya rather than a pure 100 % treatment ruqya. Therefore, because he wants to see how he reacts, his real intention and BY DEFAULT, HIS REAL VERBAL ACTION OF RUQYA is ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr of divorce’ while using the Arabic dua: “Asalullaah An yashfiyanee min sihr tafreeq” (I ask Allah that he cure me from sihr of divorce’). If he gets a reaction to this ruqya treatment then we conclude that he has sihr of divorce.

This explains how we work out the current situation of the patient via specific ruqya diagnosis

PAST CONDITION OF THE PATIENT RELATED TO HIS PRESENT CONDITION

Let us imagine that the patient has a feeling that he may have eaten the sihr of divorce ie HE IS NOT 100% SURE HE ATE IT…… and let us imagine in reality there is no other source of sihr other than the fact that he really DID eat all of it but he himself does NOT know it or believe it and obviously he has doubts about that as he does not have any information to make it certain that he ate the sihr of divorce. Having said all of that and while having this doubt in his heart, the patient STILL changes his Arabic ruqya dua into (I ask Allah that he cures me from the sihr of divorce which I ate) to see if he will react to it. Now, we said that in reality all of the sihr was actually eaten in the past and therefore the sihr has this non changeable attribute or permanent characteristic that it is all sihr that was once eaten. Obviously, the action of eating has finished and some of the sihr is currently in the stomach of our patient BUT THIS ATTRIBUTE OF EATEN SIHR WILL ALWAYS BE PART OF THE SIHR ITSELF and this characteristic cannot NEVER change and it is a reality and fact. When the patient starts to “TREAT” himself with the Arabic dua that I just mentioned, he in fact won’t be doing treatment at all but he will be doing diagnosis because he wants to see if he reacts to the ruqya and also the doubt in his heart will change the intention to ‘O ALLAH SHOW ME IF I HAVE SIHR OF DIVORCE THAT I HAVE EATEN’…….this intention is what is REALLY happening and so the action of ruqya becomes diagnosis and not treatment. The intention in his heart, ie his desire to see if he reacts, has made the ruqya a diagnosis ruqya because actions are ONLY by intentions and his intention of diagnosis will overide the actual wording of the dua……he outwardly looks like he is treating eaten sihr but in reality he is diagnosing eaten sihr because that’s his REAL intention. If the patient gets a reaction to this ruqya then we can conclude that he has sihr of divorce that he has eaten some time in the past and that he is suffering from now.

Another good example of this specific ruqya diagnosis is when the patient wants to know if the possessing jinnee that is presently in him, gave him waswaas to divorce his wife yesterday or last week. This is particular important when the patient doesn’t react to the sihr of divorce ie possessing jinnee is not a jinnee from sihr and when a husband has already pronounced the first talaq (divorce). So if you want to find out if a jinnee from ayn is giving you waswaas for divorce then your only option is to do this specific ruqya.

It might be that a patient with a love  jinnee might get severe waswaas to divorce his wife and then the patient finally caves in and agrees in himself to divorce the wife and starts making preparations. This preparation period might take a few hours and during it, he might feel euphoric and relieved that he is actually going to divorce his wife (this euphoric feeling will obviously come from the jinn as waswas). The initial severe waswaas to divorce has gone and is no longer felt by the patient but the love jinnee, that was responsible for it, is still there. Even though the severe waswaas happened a few hours ago, we can still read specific ruqya diagnosis to find out if the current possessing love jinnee was the cause of the waswas to divorce. If we don’t do this specific ruqya then a divorce might occur. (I believe that some of the most important specific ruqyas are those that are to do with preventing divorce).

This explains how we work out the past condition or situation of the patient that is affecting him now.

OUR PATIENT WHO IS SUFFERING FROM SIHR OF DIVORCE WHICH HE HAD EATEN VISITS A STRAIGHT-TO-TREATMENT RAQI

If our above patient decides to visit a straight-to-treatment raqi and asks the raqi to do ruqya diagnosis on him, the straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqi might say that he doesn’t do ruqya diagnosis at all and he only does ruqya treatment. The patient insists that he really does have sihr but this raqi is obviously unsure as many patients believe that they suffer from sihr but they actually don’t have sihr. Now, since the raqi is unsure in his own heart what the patient really has (which means he will look for reactions, when reading ruqya) then the ruqya the raqi performs cannot really be treatment and that the intention in the raqi’s heart makes the action of ruqya a diagnosis ruqya as we have already explained.

Lets imagine our patient ONLY has sihr of divorce and he had eaten ALL of the sihr which consists of the sihr in the stomach and a sihr jinnee…..HE HAS NO AYN OR OTHER JINN IN HIM AND HE HAS NO OTHER SIHR. HE DOES HAVE WASWAAS CONDITIONING FROM THE SIHR JINNEE BUT THE RAQI DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THAT SO NO RUQYA WILL AFFECT THAT WASWAAS CONDITIONING BECAUSE THE RAQI WON’T MAKE THE INTENTION TO “TREAT” WASWAAS CONDITIONING.

Now, straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqis usually just do an ALL-IN-ONE ruqya covering any sihr, jinn or ayn and they usually don’t differentiate their intentions and so their ruqya will hit all of these 3 spiritual ailments at the same time.

Now, if the raqi actually does this all-in-one ruqya on our patient whereby he is asking Allah to attack all 3 spiritual ailments at the same time……Can you see (may Allah make it easy for you to see) that when the straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqi actually does his ruqya on our patient that he is in reality doing a specific ruqya diagnosis BUT THE RAQI DOES NOT KNOW IT. In reality, because he has a doubt that our patient has any sihr and the fact the raqi wants to see reactions, then his real intention must be ‘O Allah show me if this patient has a jinn, ayn or sihr’ and it can’t be treatment ‘O Allah cure this patient from sihr, jinn or ayn’ and ALL of his ruqya, ONLY hits the sihr of divorce, the sihr that was eaten and the sihr jinnee BECAUSE THATS ALL THE PATIENT IS SUFFERING FROM…….so if that is ONLY what the raqi’s ruqya is hitting then that is specific ruqya diagnosis in of itself, because there is no other spiritual ailment for his ruqya to attack or hit. When I do the specific ruqya diagnosis with the intention of the sihr of divorce on the same patient then I will get exactly the same results as the raqi did ie my ruqya will hit the same things ie the sihr of divorce, sihr that was eaten and the sihr jinnee…..so if I have been criticised for doing specific ruqya diagnosis at least we know and admit it and that is far better than those who actually do it sometimes but don’t actually admit it because they are ignorant of the fact that they are really doing specific ruqya diagnosis……ie they are ready to criticise us but they themselves do the same specific ruqya diagnosis as I do, occasionally, without them knowing or being aware of it.

Take another example of a patient who just has ayn hasid and no other spiritual ailments so when the straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqi reads on this person for the very first time the only thing that will react to the ruqya is the ayn hasid and nothing else because that’s all the person is suffering from. If I read on this same person the specific ruqya diagnosis for ayn hasid then obviously only the ayn hasid will react and nothing else because my intention is ONLY to read on the ayn hasid. Now, the raqi will call and define what he did as ruqya treatment whereas I will call it specific ruqya diagnosis for ayn hasid. In reality, these are just names we are using and the real result of the ruqya is that we both did specific ruqya diagnosis because we both had some doubt if the person was really afflicted so we looked for reactions and both our ruqyas ONLY ATTACKED THE AYN HASID and our ruqyas did not hit anything else in the person. When you look at the patient, he exhibits exactly the same reactions for both ruqyas….NO DIFFERENCE……IT IS EXACTLY SAME RUQYA BUT DIFFERENT NAMES HAVE BEEN USED TO DESCRIBE IT. IN ISLAM, WE LOOK AT THE REALITY OF THINGS NOT JUST NAMES……..so the reality is that the straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqi and I, myself have done exactly the same thing with both patients. He calls what he did ruqya treatment whereas I call it specific ruqya diagnosis BUT THESE ARE JUST OUR DEFINITIONS OF EXACTLY THE SAME OUTCOME AND REALITY……WE HAVE BOTH DONE THE SAME RUQYA BUT CALLED IT DIFFERENT NAMES.

If we are really honest with ourselves then the raqi will have to admit that he sometimes must be doing specific ruqya diagnosis IN REALITY without his knowledge or without him being aware of it……and therefore he should not criticise other raqis who do specific ruqya diagnosis and say that they are doing a bidah, when he himself does it.

A SPIRITUAL AILMENT CURRENTLY CAUSING PROBLEMS OR ILLNESSES

We already know from the Quran that sihr can cause divorce and from the sunnah we know that ayn can cause an illness such as when the sahabi fell unconscious. Since we know the spiritual ailments can have a real effect on a patient then it is possible to check to see what the spiritual ailment is actually causing in the patient via ruqya. This can ONLY be done because it is Allah who answers the the dua of ruqya and we definitely don’t know the answer until Allah answers the ruqya dua and allows the ruqya dua to affect the spiritual ailment in the patient.
In some occasions, a patient might be diagnosed with sihr of divorce but we might find after doing another specific ruqya diagnosis that the sihr is actually dormant, not active and not causing any problems in the patient’s current marriage. However, if this patient gets married to a second wife the sihr will become activated. We have also seen one or two cases where the patient has sihr of divorce but is not married and obviously if they do get married then the sihr MIGHT become active. All this is possible because the contract of sihr is one separate thing and the effects or workings of the sihr are another separate thing. So a patient might make the ruqya dua in Arabic ‘O Allah cure me of this sihr of divorce that is currently affecting my marriage’ and not get a reaction but they do get a reaction for sihr of divorce. This is because they have added to the dua the phrase ‘….that is currently affecting my marriage’. This addition caused a negative result because there is no sihr that is currently affecting the marriage ie the jinn from sihr are NOT giving any waswaas for divorce in this current marriage. As we explained earlier, this in reality is a diagnosis ruqya and not treatment ruqya and the intention and real dua of this ruqya action is: ‘O Allah show me if I have sihr of divorce that is currently affecting my marriage’. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT A NEGATIVE RESULT OF RUQYA DIAGNOSIS IS ALSO ALLAH ANSWERING THE RUQYA DUA. This is because the patient asks Allah during diagnosis to either ‘show me if I have sihr’ or ‘show me if I don’t have sihr’, so the patient either expects a positive result or negative result from Allah and is happy with both. Another married patient might react to both the sihr of divorce and the sihr of divorce affecting his current marriage ie the jinn from sihr are actively working to destroy the marriage and are giving the patient waswas to divorce spouse.

If a patient thinks but is not sure if the ayn he is suffering from is causing his current cancer illness but he still calls Allah with the ruqya dua in Arabic ‘O Allah cure me from this ayn that is causing my current cancer’ and he gets a reaction to this dua then the ayn is currently causing the cancer. Obviously, this is specific ruqya diagnosis and not treatment as I have already explained and the real intention and BY DEFAULT HIS REAL ACTION OF RUQYA IS: ‘O Allah show me if this ayn is causing the current cancer’ (Meaning you are asking Allah to attack the ayn with ruqya, if it is causing the current cancer)

Another good example of this type of specific ruqya diagnosis is when a patient wants to find out if the current illness, such as a severe headache, is being caused by their possessing jinn or jinnee.

A SPIRITUAL AILMENT THAT CAUSED PROBLEMS OR ILLNESSES IN THE PAST

Now, a patient that unknowingly had sihr of divorce and got married and then unfortunately got divorced and didn’t realise all of his marriage problems and actual divorce were due to the sihr of divorce. This patient, who is now single and not married, after being spoken to about the reality of sihr decides to do ‘ruqya treatment’ (diagnosis in reality) and calls on Allah in Arabic with the ruqya dua ‘O Allah cure me from this sihr divorce that destroyed my previous marriage’. If he gets a reaction then that very sihr was involved in the destruction of his previous marriage ie the possessing jinn from sihr that is in him now, gave the patient waswas to divorce spouse. It should be noted that this sihr of divorce that this patient is still suffering from would obviously have sihr jinn that would react to the above ruqya and that would have caused all the problems between the couple and they are still in him and probably waiting to cause more misery in his next marriage. Not all sihr jinn leave once a divorce has happened but some may stay until the next marriage and this will depend on what exactly was done in the sihr contract between the sahir and jinn.
As we have said before, his doubt in his heart that he is actually suffering from any sihr at all makes his intention overide the actual wording of the dua in Arabic and so the real action of ruqya becomes a specific ruqya diagnosis that informs us that the current sihr the patient is suffering from had actually caused the divorce in the past. So his ruqya action is ‘O Allah show me if this sihr had caused my divorce’. If he gets a reaction then we conclude that the sihr he has, had indeed caused his divorce ie the jinn from sihr gave the patient waswas to divorce his wife which he acted upon. We can only know this via ruqya and it is Allah who gives us this information and no one else. WE CANNOT KNOW THIS INFORMATION WITHOUT ALLAH. Knowing this information about his divorce is very important. The patient can now contact his previous wife and get married to her again or take her back if it is still the iddah period.

This ruqya can also be applied to a patient who is still suffering from ayn and wants to know if this same ayn actually caused his previous illness.
If a patient thinks but is not sure if the ayn he is suffering from now had caused his previous cancer illness yet he still calls on Allah with the ruqya dua in Arabic ‘O Allah cure me from this ayn that caused my previous cancer’ and he gets a reaction to this dua then the ayn he has currently caused the cancer. Obviously, this is specific ruqya diagnosis and not treatment as I have already explained and the real intention and BY DEFAULT HIS REAL ACTION OF RUQYA IS: ‘O Allah show me if this ayn I have now had caused the cancer in the past’

Another good example of this specific ruqya diagnosis is when a patient wants to find out if a past illness, that has been cured, was caused by their possessing jinn that is currently still in them.

SPECIFIC RUQYA DIAGNOSIS: NO SHIRK, BIDAH OR ANYTHING HARAM!

As you can see from the above examples and discussion, specific ruqya diagnosis allows us to extract important information about the patient and his spiritual affliction from the ruqya itself that will help the patient.
No bidah has been committed, all the duas that I have mentioned contain no shirk (Muslim: 5732), all the intentions are islamic and ALL the ruqyas were beneficial to the patient (Al-Albani: Saheeh Jam’i 6019). Nothing haram or inappropriate was asked for and NON OF THE SPECIFIC RUQYA IS AGAINST SHARIAH and therefore Allah answers the dua with a positive or negative result.

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 specific ruqya diagnosis, especially certain specific ruqya diagnoses that actually help the Muslims in their deen, such as the specific 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 did not go against Islam. Specific 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. Hence, whoever Allah has guided to practice specific ruqya diagnosis, then this practice is more in line with the said hadith and the encouragement of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam, as it provides much more beneficial ruqya to the Muslim patients than just ruqya treatment. How can we deny this fact and reality when we know the above hadith and we also know the hadith of the Nabi salalahu alayhi wasalam: “The most beloved people to Allah, are those who are the most beneficial to the people” (Al-Albani: Sahih. Silsilah 906). Therefore, practicing specific ruqya diagnosis in all its different types and variations to help the Muslims is a mercy and a precious gift from Allah subhanahu wa taala, the One who is the Giver of Light and Guidance (An-Nur), and NOTHING AND NOBODY would EVER be in light and guidance without Him.

Sadly, many seem to not realise that ruqya is a dua so there has to either be a positive result or a negative result from the ruqya itself because that’s what ruqya dua is all about. WE ASK ALLAH TO GIVE US A POSITIVE RESULT OR NEGATIVE RESULT and through this ruqya dua we get the information we need. A negative result is NOT the ruqya dua being rejected but it is a sign that the dua was accepted and answered because we either ask Allah to show us if the patient has sihr of divorce (positive result) and at the same time we ask Allah to show if the patient is free of sihr of divorce (negative result).

NEVER DIAGNOSE THE SPIRITUAL AILMENTS LIKE YOU DIAGNOSE THE PHYSICAL AILMENTS: DON’T JUST USE BACKGROUND HISTORY AND PATIENT INFORMATION TO DIAGNOSE PATIENTS

Sadly, It seems that some straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqis put a lot of trust in the background history of the patient. No, doubt this is very important but it should never be used to make the final judgement or diagnosis of a patient……THIS SHOULD BE LEFT TO RUQYA DIAGNOSIS. This is because the spiritual ailments on their own, outside of ruqya (ie when ruqya is not being administered on them) can exhibit similar symptoms to each other and this can cause confusion and a wrong diagnosis, when you just use the history of the patient and what the patient is complaining about. For example, a woman might complain that her hair is falling out after she went to a wedding, where women were complementing her on how beautiful her hair was. Without using ruqya diagnosis and just basing the diagnosis on what the woman said and other background information, a raqi who does not believe in ruqya diagnosis would come to the conclusion that it must hasad that the woman is suffering from. However, when ruqya diagnosis is administered, we find out that the woman actually has sihr for hair loss and she does not have hasad at all. This clearly illustrates the problem those raqis who don’t do ruqya diagnosis face and fall into. Some might complain and say that I have oversimplified their diagnosis procedure in this example but the reality is that, no matter how much information they gather from the patient, their diagnosis is NEVER going to be accurate as ruqya diagnosis.

It seems, and Allah knows best, the reason why these straight-to-ruqya-treatment raqis are against any form of ruqya diagnosis, ESPECIALLY SPECIFIC RUQYA DIAGNOSIS is because they are treating the spiritual ailments (sihr, jinn, ayn, etc) exactly like physical ailments (cancer or diabetes) AND THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE. Doctors use a lot of background information and history to help diagnose physical ailments as there is no quick alternative like ruqya diagnosis because these physical illnesses don’t give us any reactions during ruqya so we can’t do ruqya diagnosis for cancer and other physical illnesses (but we can treat cancer with ruqya after a medical doctor has diagnosed and confirmed cancer in a patient). This is not the case of spiritual ailments as we can do ruqya diagnosis for ALL spiritual ailments because they clearly react during ruqya diagnosis and treatment so there is no need to be heavily dependent on the background history of the patient. Indeed, sometimes the background history may lead you to the conclusion that the patient has sihr but when you do the ruqya diagnosis, you realise the patient only had hasad.

So we advise our dear brothers who practice straight-to-ruqya-treatment that they should NOT see the diagnosis of a spiritual ailment in the same way they see the diagnosis of a physical ailment. The diagnosis of spiritual ailments and physical ailments is completely different and they should never be treated in the same manner. That is because a particular physical disease usually has fixed or semi fixed physical symptoms which differentiate it from other physical diseases. On the other hand, outside of ruqya, the physical symptoms related to a particular spiritual disease are not as fixed as the symptoms for physical diseases and therefore we cannot diagnose spiritual ailments like the way we diagnose physical ailments. For example, if a man complains about being lethargic and loss of libido then this could be caused by a physical disease or it could be caused by a lack of vitamins and minerals or it could be caused by a spiritual disease. The only way to find out if it is a spiritual disease is by doing ruqya diagnosis as those two symptoms he is suffering from (lethargy and loss of libido) could be caused by a physical disease or a lack of nutrients. If the ruqya diagnosis turns out to be negative then the man can approach a doctor for advice. (Hence, it is always better to do ruqya diagnosis before actually going to the doctor. Even if your medical problem is caused by a spiritual disease, you should still visit the doctor for help as they maybe able to give you something that may reduce your medical problem). In another example, if a man complains about a sudden hatred of his wife, headaches, lethargy, loss of appetite and nightmares, and that all of his in-laws practice sihr. Then these symptoms could be the result of sihr of divorce or ayn with jinn possession that is causing divorce or even just jinn possession that is causing divorce. It could also be caused by a possessing jinnee that loves the man and wants to cause divorce. There are also other possibilities of what the man could be suffering from. As you can see it is impossible to know exactly what the man is suffering from, by just looking at his symptoms. The fact that his in-laws practice sihr does not necessarily mean that they did sihr on him. In such a situation, a raqi who does not believe in ruqya diagnosis would be confused and may change his opinion several times regarding the diagnosis of this man or the raqi may feel that since the in-laws are all sahirs then it must be the sihr of divorce. This is why you cannot treat the diagnosis of spiritual ailments like the diagnosis of physical ailments. The only way to resolve this confusion would be to do ruqya diagnosis.

I know of another case where the sihr patient did not exhibit any of the typical physical signs of sihr or jinn possession. This patient did not even have waswas or nightmares. The patient only had a serious bowel illness but this was thought to be caused by something other than spiritual diseases. Now, this patient would not have known if they had sihr if they did not do the ruqya diagnosis. Ruqya diagnosis was the key in identifying that the patient had sihr and that the bowel illness was actually being caused by sihr. How are those raqis (who don’t do ruqya diagnosis) going deal with such patients? Their experience of other cases won’t help them here and they would find it very difficult to give the patient any advice. Usually, in such cases, the raqi who does not do ruqya diagnosis would suggest that the patient visit a medical doctor as the raqi could not see or identify any sihr or jinn possession symptoms and how sad that is!

CONCLUSION

I hope that this discussion has made it possible for those who think that specific ruqya is a bidah to change their mind.

It is all about understanding the above hadiths on  the intentions, patient’s benefit of ruqya and no shirk in ruqya and how we can use these hadiths to help diagnose ourselves with specific ruqya and then with this diagnosis, we are in a better situation and position to treat and advise ourselves.

If you agree and have accepted general sihr diagnosis and general ayn diagnosis, which are IN REALITY a type of specific ruqya diagnosis, then what is preventing you from accepting specific ruqya diagnosis! Both general sihr diagnosis and general ayn diagnosis are ACTUALLY a type of specific ruqya diagnosis, where we ONLY read ruqya specifically on the sihr or the ayn in the body and we ignore everything else that the patient could be afflicted with. If you accept these two, then you really cannot argue against a patient who ONLY wants to read ruqya on the sihr of divorce that is in his body, and which might be the ONLY sihr that the patient is suffering from.

If you accept general sihr ruqya diagnosis then you have no choice but to also accept the specific ruqya diagnosis for the sihr of divorce and even other ones as well.

If you accept the existence of the spiritual disease: “the sihr of divorce” (Sura Baqrah: 102) then obviously, you must also accept the specific ruqya treatment for this sihr of divorce, which then obliges you to accept the specific ruqya diagnosis for the sihr of divorce. This is because your first ruqya “treatment” session will ALWAYS be a ruqya diagnosis session.

It was through specific ruqya that I got cured from ALL of my spiritual ailments and that is why I always promote it and talk about it because I know it really works! If you want more information about how I used specific ruqya then please read the article ‘HOW ALLAH CURED ME’ via the link below.

How Allah Cured me

Specific ruqya diagnosis also stops us from speaking to jinn and being amazed at them and it closes the door of asking the jinn about the situation of the patient ie diagnosis. It also keeps us away from asking help from the jinn which is shirk because specific ruqya diagnosis provides us with the information about the state of the patient and his spiritual affliction without having to speak to jinn or using the jinn’s help.

Now, I have to mention that there are some rules for specific ruqya diagnosis that you can read via the link below:

7 Rules for Specific Ruqya
I had to personally put these together as I could not find any rules on the topic that could help patients and at the same time stop them from falling into shirk and bidah. PLEASE FOLLOW THESE RULES CAREFULLY as it is possible to make serious errors in constructing your specific intentions.

If you are new to specific ruqya and are unsure if your specific ruqya intentions (and by default your actions of ruqya) are permissible then please contact me on the email below and I will try my best to answer your query.

……..and with Allah is the success and cure.

For more information: abulqasim1972@gmail.com