Islamic Fiqh > Penalties (hudud) > Apostasy: procedure, legal status and property > The sorcerer: disbelief and punishment
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Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
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Magic is a discourse by which other than Allah is venerated and decrees and events are ascribed to Him (al-Sharh al-Kabir with ad-Dasuqi's hashiya 6/282).
The jurists disagreed about the sorcerer: is he an unbeliever killed as an apostate if he was a Muslim before, or if Islam manifested from him? Is he killed only if he kills by his magic? Is there a difference between one magic and another? The Hanafis, the Malikis and the Hanbalis: the sorcerer is an unbeliever killed as an apostate if he was a Muslim before, or if Islam had manifested from him before his disbelief through the practice of magic; he therefore deserves killing, according to the Prophet's word (peace be upon him): "whoever changes his religion, kill him"; the sorcerer has moreover joined to his disbelief the pursuit of corruption upon the earth. They argue his killing by what al-Hasan narrates from Jundub: the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "the sorcerer's punishment is a blow of the sword" (narrated by at-Tirmidhi (1460); a weak hadith). And from Nafi' from Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them): a slave girl of Hafsa bewitched her mistress; her magic was found and she confessed; Abd ar-Rahman ibn Zayd ordered her killed, and the news reached Uthman who strongly disapproved; Ibn Umar went to him and informed him that she had bewitched her mistress, confessed, and that her magic was found; it may be that Uthman disapproved only because she was killed without his authorization (narrated by Abd ar-Razzaq in his Musannaf (18747) and Ibn Abi Shayba in his Musannaf (28980)).
And from Bujala: I was the secretary of Ju'd ibn Mu'awiya, the uncle of al-Ahnaf ibn Qays, when Omar's letter reached us one year before his death: kill every sorcerer and sorceress; separate every mahram wife from her husband among the Magians; and turn them away from murmuring; we killed three sorceresses and began separating the man from his wife according to the Book of Allah (narrated by Abu Dawud (3043) and Imam Ahmad in his Musnad (1657); a sahih hadith).
Imam Abu Bakr al-Jassas transmits that Ibn Shuja' related from al-Hasan ibn Ziyad from Abu Hanifa about the sorcerer: he is killed once known to be a sorcerer, without being summoned to repentance, and his statement "I quit magic and repent of it" is not accepted; once he confesses to being a sorcerer his blood becomes lawful; if two witnesses testify he is a sorcerer, describing it by a mark by which it is known to be magic, he is killed without summons; if he confesses saying "I used to practice sorcery and stopped long ago", he is accepted and not killed; likewise if it is testified that he was once a sorcerer and ceased long ago: he is not killed, unless they testify that at this very moment he is a sorcerer and he confesses, in which case he is killed. The same applies to the Muslim slave, the protected person and the free protected person: whoever of them confesses to being a sorcerer has his blood become lawful and he is killed without his repentance being accepted; likewise if it is testified against a slave or a protected person that he is a sorcerer, describing it by a mark by which it is known to be magic: his repentance is not accepted and he is killed; if the slave or the protected person confesses having been a sorcerer and having ceased long ago, it is accepted from him; likewise if they testify he was once a sorcerer without testifying that he is one at this moment: he is not killed. As for the woman: if it is testified that she is a sorceress, or she confesses it, she is not killed: she is imprisoned and beaten until it becomes certain to them that she has abandoned sorcery; the same applies to the slave girl and the protected woman. All of this is Abu Hanifa's view. Ibn Shuja' said: he ruled the sorcerer and sorceress as the apostate and apostate woman, except if he comes confessing the magic or it is testified that he practiced it: that is placed in the rank of persistence in apostasy. Muhammad ibn Shuja' relates from Abu Ali ar-Razi that he asked Abu Yusuf about Abu Hanifa's statement on the sorcerer "he is killed without summons": why should that not be like the apostate? Abu Yusuf said: the sorcerer has joined to his disbelief the pursuit of corruption upon the earth, and the pursuer of corruption, once he kills, is killed; I said to Abu Yusuf: what is the sorcerer? He said: the one against whom retribution is demanded for his act, as the Jews did to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and as the reports indicate, when he kills thereby; if he does not reach killing thereby he is not killed, for Labid ibn al-A'sam bewitched the messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) without killing him. Abu Bakr al-Jassas comments: nothing in what was said defines the magic whose doer deserves killing; one cannot suspect Abu Yusuf of holding about magic what the philosophers hold, namely conveying harm to the bewitched without touch or drink; it is possible that the Jews' magic against the Prophet (peace be upon him) aimed at reaching his death through feeding, and Allah showed him what they intended, as Zaynab the Jewess named it concerning the poisoned ewe, of which he was informed: "this ewe informs me that it is poisoned".
Should someone object: you do not kill the strangler or the highwayman until they have killed; why not say the same of the sorcerer? The answer: the two differ in that the strangler and the bandit did not disbelieve before or after the killing and therefore do not deserve killing, no cause deserving it having preceded from them; as for the sorcerer, he disbelieved by his magic, whether he killed by it or not, deserving killing by his disbelief; and as he is moreover a pursuer of corruption upon the earth, his killing becomes obligatory as a legal punishment that repentance does not remove, like the highwayman once he deserves killing: he resembles the bandit who killed, whose killing is a legal punishment that repentance does not remove; he differs from the apostate in that the apostate deserves killing by his persistence in disbelief alone: once he departs it, disbelief and killing both fall. For these reasons they did not distinguish the protected sorcerer from the Muslim sorcerer, as the ruling of the protected and Muslim highwayman does not differ in what they deserve by brigandage; hence the sorceress woman is not killed: the woman among the bandits is not killed as a legal punishment but in retribution. Another ground for Abu Hanifa's omission of the sorcerer's summons, reported by at-Tahawi from Abu Yusuf in his nawadir: Abu Hanifa said: kill the zindiq in secret, for his repentance is not known; Abu Yusuf reported no disagreement, and the question of the sorcerer may be built upon it: the sorcerer disbelieves in secret, he resembles the zindiq, so his repentance must not be accepted. If it is said: on this basis the protected sorcerer should not be killed, for his disbelief is apparent and he does not deserve killing for disbelief; the answer: the disbelief we acknowledge against him is what he showed us; the disbelief he fell into by his magic is not acknowledged against him, and we did not grant him protection upon that acknowledgment: consider, were he to demand the jizya in acknowledgment of his sorcery, we would not grant it; no difference between him and the sorcerer of the religion; moreover, were the protected sorcerer not to deserve killing for his disbelief, he would deserve it for his pursuit of corruption upon the earth, like the highwaymen; and their statement on refusing the zindiq's repentance implies that the Ismailis and other heretics whose disbelief is known, like the zindiqs, are not summoned and are killed even while manifesting repentance.
The proof of the obligation to kill the sorcerer is also the hadith transmitted by Ibn Qani': the sorcerer's punishment is the blow of the sword; and Jundub's story of killing the sorcerer in Kufa before al-Walid ibn Uqba is famous. The statement "the sorcerer's punishment is the blow of the sword" indicates two meanings: the obligation to kill him, and that it is a legal punishment repentance does not remove, like the other punishments once due, and what we mentioned of killing him in the manner of the bandit (al-Jassas's Ahkam al-Quran 1/61-66).
The Malikis write: the sorcerer disbelieves in Allah; Allah said on the tongues of the two angels:
We are only a trial, so do not disbelieve.
Surah al-Baqara 102
Whoever learns magic or teaches it, even without practicing it, is an unbeliever, for exalting demons and ascribing events to them cannot proceed from a reasonable man who believes in Allah; if he practices magic himself he is killed without summons. Malik said: he is like the zindiq when he practices magic himself; Allah said: "they surely knew that whoever purchases it will have no share in the hereafter" (Surah al-Baqara 102); "Hafsa ordered her slave girl who had bewitched her killed, and she was killed". Ibn Abd al-Hakim and Asbagh say: he is like the zindiq: his inheritance goes to his Muslim heirs; if the sorcery and the zandaqa have a manifestation, he is summoned to repentance; if he does not repent he is killed and his property goes to the treasury, and prayer is never performed over him; the one who conceals that, once killed, his heirs inherit from him, though they are not commanded to pray over him: if they do, they know best. Al-Hattab writes: the weightier view is that he has the zindiq's status: he is killed and his repentance is not accepted, unless he comes repenting of his own accord (Mawahib al-Jalil 8/267). Whoever does not practice magic himself but engages another to do it is severely disciplined. Al-Baji said: the sorcerer is not killed until it is established that what he does belongs to the magic Allah described as disbelief; Asbagh said: whoever knows its reality testifies to it; meaning: the fact is established by the imam, for it is a ground obliging killing, which cannot be pronounced until established and verified, like everything obliging killing. Whoever cuts off a man's ear or drives knives into a body: if it is magic he is killed in retribution; otherwise he is punished. The protected sorcerer is killed, unless they have caused harm to the Muslims by their sorcery: that then is a breach of the covenant; if he repents, no repentance avails him except through Islam. Malik said: if he thus bewitched the people of his religion he is disciplined, unless he kills one of them, in which case he is killed for that. Three views exist concerning the Christian who falls into zandaqa or is found to be a sorcerer: he is left in his state of zandaqa and sorcery, unless he causes harm to the Muslims by his sorcery, which breaks the pact; he is killed unless he enters Islam; he is killed even if he became a Muslim, for the zindiq has no accepted repentance. As for the sorcerer among the Muslims: he is killed, whether he bewitched a Muslim or a protected person.
As for undoing the magic: if done by a similar magic it is disbelief; if not by a similar magic but by verses or prophetic supplications it is not so; and hiring the one who undoes magic without sorcery is permitted (al-Bayan wa-t-Tahsil 16/443-444, adh-Dhakhira 12/133, at-Taj wa-l-Ikil 5/307, Mawahib al-Jalil 8/267, al-Sharh al-Kabir with ad-Dasuqi's hashiya 6/282-283).
The Hanbalis write: the sorcerer disbelieves by his learning and practice, whether he holds the magic forbidden or permitted, like the one who rides a donkey made of a broom that carries him through the air, or claims the stars speak to him; Allah said: "Solomon did not disbelieve, but the devils disbelieved, teaching people magic and what was sent down upon the two angels at Babylon, Harut and Marut, who teach no one without saying: we are only a trial, so do not disbelieve" (Surah al-Baqara 102).
The Muslim sorcerer is killed by the sword, according to what Jundub narrates from the Prophet (peace be upon him): "the sorcerer's punishment is a blow of the sword". And from Bujala ibn Abd: I was the secretary of Ju'd ibn Mu'awiya, the uncle of al-Ahnaf ibn Qays, when Omar's letter reached us one year before his death: kill every sorcerer and sorceress; narrated by Ahmad and Sa'id; in one report: "we killed three sorceresses in a single day"; and "Hafsa had her slave girl who had bewitched her killed"; narrated by Malik, and reported from Uthman and Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them). Likewise the Muslim who holds magic lawful is killed as an unbeliever, for he permitted a forbidden thing agreed upon and known by necessity. The protected sorcerer is not killed: Labid ibn al-A'sam bewitched the Prophet (peace be upon him) without being killed; association is graver than his magic and he was not killed for it; the reports came concerning the Muslim sorcerer, who disbelieves by his magic, while this one is an original unbeliever; unless the protected sorcerer kills a person by his magic and his magic is of the kind that usually kills: he is then subjected to retribution if he kills his counterpart, as if he had killed otherwise.
As for the one who bewitches by drugs, fumigations or potions without effect, he does not disbelieve and is not killed, for Allah described the unbelieving sorcerers as those who separate a man from his wife: disbelief is specific to them, and the other sorcerers remain upon the presumption of innocence; he is severely punished without killing, for he committed a disobedience; unless he kills by that act and it is of what usually kills: he is then subjected to retribution if he kills his counterpart, as if he had killed him otherwise; otherwise, the blood money. As for the one who invokes the jinn and claims he gathers them and that they obey him, he does not disbelieve thereby and is not killed for it, for it does not fall within the meaning of the text prescribing the sorcerer's killing; he is severely punished without killing, for the great disobedience committed; likewise the soothsayer, the diviner, the soothsayer who has a demon bringing him news, and the diviner who guesses and babbles, like the astrologer who reads the stars to infer events. The shaykh said: astrology is like arguing from celestial states toward earthly events, a form of sorcery; it is forbidden by consensus, and the earliest and the latest acknowledge that Allah, by the blessing of worship and supplication, wards off from the people of worship what the orbs are claimed to impose, and grants them rewards of the two abodes which the orbs cannot bring. The devotee, the reader of bird flights, the caster of pebbles, barley and divining arrows, and the reader of the shoulder blades: if he does not hold it lawful and believes nothing of the unseen is known thereby, he is disciplined and prevented; if he holds it lawful and that the unseen is known thereby, he disbelieves: he is summoned to repent; if he repents he is spared, otherwise he is killed. Incantation, amulet and protection by a talisman in a non-Arabic tongue are forbidden, as is an invocation in non-Arabic or by the name of a star, or what is placed upon a star by a figure or otherwise; there is no harm in undoing magic by something of the Quran, of remembrance, of oaths or of lawful speech.
Al-Bahuti writes: if the undoing of magic is by something of magic, Ahmad suspended judgment; he says in al-Mughni: Ahmad suspended judgment on the undoing, inclining toward permissibility. Muhanna asked him about the one to whom a bewitched person comes so that he may release him; he said: there is no harm. Al-Khallal said: he only disliked the act and saw no harm in it, as Muhanna clarified; this belongs to the necessities that permit the act, and the school holds its permissibility out of necessity (Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/235 and 6/238, Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/305-307). Ibn Qudama says: learning magic and teaching it is forbidden, with no known disagreement among the people of knowledge. Our companions say: the sorcerer disbelieves by his learning and practice, whether he holds the magic forbidden or permitted; there is reported from Ahmad what indicates that he does not disbelieve: Hanbal reported from him concerning the diviner, the soothsayer and the sorcerer: I see that he be summoned to repentance from all these practices, for in my view he stands in the position of the apostate; if he repents he returns; he was told: is he killed? he said: no, he is imprisoned, perhaps he will return; he was told: why do you not kill him? he said: if he prays he may repent and return; this indicates he did not declare him an unbeliever, otherwise he would have killed him; his statement "in the position of the apostate" refers to the summons. Abu Hanifa's companions say: if he believes the devils do for him whatever they wish he disbelieves; if he believes it is an illusion he does not disbelieve. Al-Shafi'i said: if he believes what entails disbelief, such as drawing near to the seven stars believing they do what he seeks, or holds magic lawful, he disbelieves, for the Quran pronounced its prohibition, established by mutawatir transmission and consensus; otherwise he is a transgressor without being an unbeliever, for 'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) sold her mudabbira slave girl who had bewitched her before a group of Companions: had she been an unbeliever she would have been an apostate liable to death and her enslavement would not have been permitted; and because magic harms people it does not take one out of Islam by itself, like harming them. Our proof is the word of Allah: "they followed what the devils recited over the kingdom of Solomon: Solomon did not disbelieve, but the devils disbelieved", that is, Solomon was not a sorcerer disbelieving by his magic; and their statement "we are only a trial, so do not disbelieve", that is, do not learn it lest you disbelieve by it; Hisham ibn Urwa narrates from his father from 'Aisha that a woman came to her weeping heavily and said: O mother of the believers, an old woman took me to Harut and Marut; I said: teach me magic; they said: fear Allah, do not disbelieve, you are at the beginning of your affair; I said: teach me magic; they said: go to that oven and urinate into it; I did, and I saw as it were a horseman clad in iron come out of me, fly and vanish into the sky; I returned and informed them, and they said: that is your faith; she related the rest of the story up to: by Allah, O mother of the believers, I have never done anything else and never will: is there repentance for me? 'Aisha said: I saw her weeping heavily; she went around the companions of the messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) who were numerous, asking them whether repentance was open to her; none answered her except Ibn Abbas: if one of your parents is alive, treat him kindly, and multiply works of goodness as much as you can; 'Aisha's view was contradicted in this by many Companions; Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said: the sorcerer is an unbeliever; it may be that the mudabbira had repented and killing and disbelief fallen away by her repentance, or that she bewitched her mistress in the sense that she went to a sorcerer who bewitched for her.
A section: the sorcerer's punishment is death, reported from Omar, Uthman ibn Affan, Ibn Umar, Hafsa, Jundub ibn Abdillah, Jundub ibn Ka'b, Qays ibn Sa'd and Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz; it is the view of Abu Hanifa and Malik. Al-Shafi'i held no killing for sorcery alone; this is the view of Ibn al-Mundhir and one report of Ahmad; the reason is that 'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) sold her mudabbira slave girl who had bewitched her: had killing been obligatory the sale would not have been lawful; and because the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "the blood of a Muslim man is not lawful except in three cases: disbelief after faith, fornication after marriage, and killing a life without right"; he had committed none of the three: his blood therefore had to be safeguarded. Our proof is what Jundub ibn Abdillah narrates from the Prophet (peace be upon him): "the sorcerer's punishment is the blow of the sword"; Ibn al-Mundhir said: Isma'il ibn Muslim transmitted it and it is weak; Sa'id and Abu Dawud transmitted it in their collections from Bujala: I was the secretary of Ju'd ibn Mu'awiya, the uncle of al-Ahnaf ibn Qays, when Omar's letter reached us one year before his death: kill every sorcerer; we killed three sorceresses in a day; it spread without disapproval, which makes it a consensus; Hafsa killed her bewitching slave girl; Jundub ibn Ka'b killed a sorcerer who bewitched before al-Walid ibn Uqba; and because he is an unbeliever he is killed according to the report they transmitted.
A section: is the sorcerer summoned to repentance? Two reports: he is not summoned, and this is the apparent sense of what is transmitted from the Companions: it is not transmitted from any of them that he summoned a sorcerer; and in the hadith narrated by Hisham ibn Urwa from his father from 'Aisha, the sorceress asked the Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him), who were numerous: is there repentance for me? none answered her; and because magic is a meaning in his heart that repentance does not remove, he resembles the one who has not repented. The second report: he is summoned; if he repents his repentance is accepted, for magic is not graver than association, and the polytheist is summoned; his knowledge of magic does not prevent accepting his repentance, Allah having accepted the repentance of Pharaoh's sorcerers and made them, in an hour, His allies; and because the sorcerer, were he an unbeliever who then entered Islam, would have valid Islam and repentance; repentance being valid from both, it is valid from either, like disbelief; disbelief and killing come only from the practice of magic, not from mere knowledge of it, as shown by the sorcerer who enters Islam; the practice can be abandoned through repentance, likewise the belief by which one disbelieves, like association. These two reports concern the establishment of the ruling of repentance in this world, namely the falling away of killing and its like; as for what is between him and Allah and the falling away of the hereafter's punishment, repentance is valid: Allah has closed the door of repentance to none of His creatures, and whoever repents to Allah has his repentance accepted, with no known disagreement.
A section: the magic whose ruling we stated is that counted as sorcery in common usage, like the act of Labid ibn al-A'sam when he bewitched the Prophet (peace be upon him) with a comb and a hair comb; we have related, in the expeditions of al-Waqidi, that the Negus summoned the sorceresses who blew upon Umara ibn al-Walid's member, and he lost his mind and went off with the wild beasts, remaining with them until the governorship of Omar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him); a man seized him; he said: let me go or I die; he did not release him and he died at once; it is related that a prince seized a sorceress; her husband came as if burning; they said: tell her to release him; she said: bring me threads and a door; she sat upon the door when they brought it and began tying knots, and the door flew off with her; they could not restrain her; this and its like, like the married man who ties knots and cannot fulfill his conjugal duty, is the disputed magic in the ruling upon its author; the one who invokes the bewitched and claims to gather the jinn and command them does not, outwardly, enter this ruling; the qadi and Abu al-Khattab counted him among the sorcerers.
A section: the soothsayer who has a demon bringing him news, and the diviner who guesses and babbles: Ahmad said, in Hanbal's report, concerning the diviner, the soothsayer and the sorcerer: I see that he be summoned to repentance from these practices; he was told: is he killed? he said: no, he is imprisoned, perhaps he will return; divination is a branch of sorcery, and the sorcerer is viler, magic being a branch of disbelief; he said: the sorcerer and the soothsayer have for ruling killing or imprisonment until they repent, for they obscure their affair; and Omar's hadith "kill every sorcerer and soothsayer" is not part of the religion's command; this indicates that each of the two has two reports: he is killed if he does not repent; he is not killed, for his ruling is lighter than the sorcerer's, over which there is disagreement: averting the killing is therefore more likely.
A section: the sorcerer among the People of the Book is not killed for his sorcery, unless he kills by it and it is of what usually kills: he is then killed in retribution. Abu Hanifa said: he is killed, by the generality of the reports already cited and because it is an offense that made the Muslim's killing obligatory, therefore the protected person's, like murder. Our proof: Labid ibn al-A'sam bewitched the Prophet (peace be upon him) without being killed; association is graver than his magic and is not punished by killing; the reports came concerning the Muslim sorcerer, who disbelieves by his magic, while this one is an original unbeliever; their analogy collapses through the belief in the disbelief of whoever pronounces it, and through the fornication of the married man: the protected person is not killed for it among them while the Muslim is. The Shafi'is: the sorcerer is not an unbeliever by sorcery, nor does killing become obligatory by it, unless what he bewitches with is disbelief: he then becomes an unbeliever by that belief and liable to death for the disbelief, not for the sorcery. An-Nawawi says: practicing magic is forbidden, among the major sins by consensus; the messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) counted it among the seven destructive sins, as already explained in the book of faith; in sum: it is sometimes disbelief and sometimes not, but a great disobedience; if it contains a word or act entailing disbelief he disbelieves, otherwise not; learning it and teaching it is forbidden; if it contains what entails disbelief he is an unbeliever, otherwise he is not: he is disciplined and summoned; if he repents his repentance is accepted (Sharh Sahih Muslim 14/176, al-Hawi al-Kabir 13/165-166, al-Mughni 9/34-37).
The jurists disagreed about the one who bewitches another and kills him by his sorcery: is retribution exacted from him or not? The majority of jurists, the Malikis, the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis: whoever kills another by magic is subjected to retribution; among the Malikis this is established by testimony or confession. The Shafi'is and the Hanbalis: this, if his magic kills its like usually: retribution becomes obligatory upon him, for he killed him by what usually kills, resembling killing by the knife; if his magic is of what does not usually kill, or of what may kill or not, blood money applies without retribution among the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis, for it is the intention of the accident, resembling the blow of a stick. The sorcerer who says "I do not know it to be a killer" is not believed on the sound view among the Hanbalis, for it contradicts the outward. The Shafi'is and the Hanbalis, on one view, accept his statement: lightened blood money if he says "my magic does not kill", aggravated if he says "it sometimes kills and sometimes not", safety being preponderant. The Hanbalis: if his killing becomes obligatory it is a legal punishment; it has been said: he is killed in retribution; the slain one's blood money is due from the sorcerer's estate, as if he had died or killed other than the bewitched one, for he is killed as a legal punishment and not in retribution on the school's sound view (al-Mughni 8/212-213, al-Kafi 4/16, al-Insaf 9/441, Kashshaf al-Qina' 5/600, Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/11, Matalib Uli an-Nuha 6/10, al-Muhadhdhab 2/177, al-Bayan 11/348-349, Sharh Sahih Muslim 14/176, Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil 8/30, Tahbir al-Mukhtasar 5/261, az-Zarqani's Sharh 4/407).
The Hanafis write: the sorcerer who kills by his magic while not believing its efficacy, if he is himself the agent, has killed without a blade: if he repeats it he is killed on the principle of deterrence, for his pursuit of corruption upon the earth; if his act does not repeat, the blood money is upon him like killing without a blade; if the bewitched one takes hold of the means himself, there is no retribution against the reasonable author of the cause, like the one who hands poison to another who eats it (al-Quduri's Tajrid 11/5825, Umdat al-Qari 21/267).
Undoing magic is achieved in two ways: one agreed upon, the other disputed. The first: undoing magic by the Quran and supplications: the scholars know of no disagreement on its permissibility. The second: undoing magic by magic; the jurists disagreed: is it permitted or not? The sound view among the Hanbalis and others: undoing magic by magic is permitted. Ibn Qudama says: whoever neutralizes magic, if by something of the Quran, of remembrance, of oaths or of lawful speech, there is no harm; if by something of magic, Ahmad suspended judgment. Al-Athram said: I heard Abu Abdillah asked about a man who claims to neutralize magic; he said: some people granted a license for it; Abu Abdillah was told: he puts water in a cauldron, plunges his hand into it and performs such a rite; he withdrew his hand in disapproval and said: I do not know what this is; he was told: do you then see that such a one be used to neutralize magic? he said: I do not know what this is. Muhammad ibn Sirin was asked about a woman tormented by sorcerers; a man said: I trace an inscription upon her, drive the knife at the crossing of the inscription and recite the Quran; Muhammad said: I know of no harm in the recitation of the Quran in any state, and I know nothing of the inscription or the knife. Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib was asked about the man kept away from his wife who seeks someone to treat him; he said: Allah only forbade what harms and did not forbid what benefits; he also said: if you can benefit your brother, do so; their statements indicate that the reciter and his like do not fall under the ruling of the sorcerers, for they are not named by that, and it is of what benefits and does not harm (al-Mughni 9/36-37, al-Kafi 4/166).
Al-Bahuti writes: if the undoing of magic is by something of magic, Ahmad suspended judgment; he says in al-Mughni: Ahmad suspended judgment on the undoing, inclining toward permissibility; Muhanna asked him about the one to whom a bewitched person comes so that he may release him; he said: there is no harm; al-Khallal said: he only disliked the act and saw no harm in it, as Muhanna clarified; this belongs to the necessities that permit the act, and the school holds its permissibility out of necessity (Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/235 and 6/238, Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/305-307). Ar-Rahibani writes: lawful is the undoing by the Quran, remembrance, oaths and lawful speech; and lawful also by a magic, out of necessity (Matalib Uli an-Nuha 6/305).
Ibn al-Qayyim and others hold it forbidden. Ibn al-Qayyim says: the Prophet (peace be upon him) was asked about the nushra and said: "it is of the work of Satan", mentioned by Ahmad and Abu Dawud; the nushra is the undoing of magic from the bewitched one; it is of two types: undoing a magic by a similar magic, and this is the one of Satan's work, magic being of his work, the undoer and the undone drawing near to him by what he loves; and the nushra by incantation, protections, supplications and lawful medicines: this is lawful, indeed recommended; upon the blameworthy type is carried al-Hasan's statement: "only a sorceress undoes magic" (I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 4/396).
Imam al-Bukhari titled a chapter: can the magic be extracted; Qatada said: I said to Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib: a man suffers from a spell or is kept away from his wife: may it be undone or neutralized for him? he said: there is no harm; they only intend the remedy: what benefits people has not been forbidden (Sahih al-Bukhari 5/2275). Ibn Battal says: the predecessors disagreed: is the sorcerer asked to undo the magic of the bewitched one? Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib permitted it, as al-Bukhari relates; al-Hasan al-Basri disliked it and said: none knows that but a sorcerer, and going to the sorcerer is not permitted, according to what Sufyan narrates from Abu Ishaq, from Hubayra, from Abdillah ibn Mas'ud: "whoever walks to a sorcerer or soothsayer and believes him in what he says has disbelieved in what was sent down to Muhammad (peace be upon him)". At-Tabari says: in my view these are not equivalent: asking the sorcerer to untie the magic is one of the means by which he may harm one whose harm is not lawful, which is forbidden without restricting the treatment to one form or another, whether the healer be a God-fearing Muslim or a polytheist sorcerer, so long as the means of treatment is not forbidden; the Prophet (peace be upon him) permitted treatment and commanded his community saying: "Allah has not sent down a disease without sending down its cure, known to whoever knows it and unknown to whoever does not"; it is the same whether he knows it and undoes it at a sorcerer's or elsewhere; the meaning of his prohibition of going to the sorcerers is believing what they say, on the part of one who knows they are sorcerers or soothsayers; whoever goes to them for other than that, knowing their state, is not forbidden to go (Ibn Battal's Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari 9/445). Al-Qurtubi says: they disagreed: is the sorcerer asked to undo the magic? Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib permitted it, as al-Bukhari relates, and al-Muzani inclined to it; al-Hasan al-Basri disliked it (al-Qurtubi's Tafsir 2/49). Al-Qarafi says: the predecessors disagreed: may the sorcerer be asked to undo the magic? al-Hasan al-Basri disliked it, for it is an act of sorcery; he said: none does that but a sorcerer, and going to the sorcerer is not permitted, according to what is reported from Ibn Mas'ud: "whoever goes to a soothsayer or sorcerer has disbelieved in what was sent down to Muhammad (peace be upon him)"; Ibn al-Musayyib permitted it, seeing it as a form of treatment, thus specifying the verse "teaching people magic"; al-Bukhari mentioned it (al-Furuq 4/295). Ibn Hajar says: some scholars permitted learning magic for one of two reasons: distinguishing what is disbelief in it from the rest, or removing it from the one who fell into it. The first involves risk only from the side of belief: belief being safe, knowing a thing in itself entails no prohibition, like knowing how the idolaters worship their idols; the sorcerer's manner of acting is only the narration of a word or deed, unlike practicing it. The second: if it cannot be accomplished, as some claim, except by a form of disbelief or transgression, it is unlawful in principle; otherwise it is permitted for the meaning mentioned. Ibn Hajar adds: al-Bukhari titled the chapter with the interrogative, signaling the disagreement, and opened with what he relates from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib on permissibility, signaling his preference; the statement "by a spell" designates the charm; "or is kept away" means prevented from his wife; the lawful Arab nushra and the recipe of seven green lotus leaves pounded between two stones, steeped in water with recitation, are mentioned in the books of Wahb ibn Munabbih; Ja'far al-Mustaghfiri reports other recipes, like the axe heated in a faggot or the infusion of spring roses; Hashid said: I learned these two recipes in Syria, and this Hashid is a transmitter of al-Bukhari's Sahih (Fath al-Bari 10/224-225 and 10/333-334).
The jurists disagreed about the woman who apostatizes: is she killed, imprisoned or enslaved? Three views exist:
The first view: she is enslaved and not killed; reported from Abu Hanifa in one report, and from Ali, al-Hasan, Qatada and Omar ibn Abd al-Aziz: Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) enslaved the women and children of the Banu Hanifa and gave one of them to Ali, who fathered Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya by her; this took place before a group of Companions without disapproval, which makes it a consensus (Badai' as-Sanai' 7/135, al-Mabsut 10/108, al-Bahr ar-Ra'iq 5/140, Tabyin al-Haqa'iq 3/285, al-Ikhtiyar 4/155, Mukhtasar Ikhtilaf al-Ulama 3/502).
The second view: she is compelled to Islam by imprisonment and flogging, not killed: she is imprisoned until she enters Islam; if someone kills her he incurs nothing. The manner of imprisoning the woman: the judge imprisons her, then brings her out each day to present Islam to her; if she refuses he lashes her, then presents Islam to her; if she refuses he imprisons her; he does so each day forever, until she enters Islam or dies; this while she is in the land of Islam: the Hanafis' view, by the Prophet's prohibition (peace be upon him) of killing women, and because she is not killed for original disbelief, therefore not for the supervening kind, like the child. If she joins the land of war after her apostasy, her capture becomes lawful (Badai' as-Sanai' 7/135, al-Mabsut 10/108, al-Bahr ar-Ra'iq 5/140, Tabyin al-Haqa'iq 3/285, al-Ikhtiyar 4/155, Mukhtasar Ikhtilaf al-Ulama 3/502).
The third view: she is like the man: summoned to return to Islam, otherwise killed; reported from Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him); the view of the majority of jurists, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, and of al-Hasan, az-Zuhri, an-Nakha'i, Mak'hul, Hammad, al-Layth, al-Awza'i, Ishaq and Ibn Hazm. The proof is the Prophet's word (peace be upon him):
The blood of a Muslim man who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the messenger of Allah is not lawful except in one of three cases: the married adulterer, a life for a life, and the one who forsakes his religion and parts from the community.
narrated by al-Bukhari (6878) and Muslim (4468)
And the generality of the Prophet's word (peace be upon him): "whoever changes his religion, kill him" (narrated by al-Bukhari (3017)); the term "whoever" covers the masculine and the feminine: it is a generality embracing men and women, the Prophet (peace be upon him) not having distinguished the woman from the man. Ibn al-Mundhir says: disbelief being among the greatest sins and the gravest offense the Muslims, men and women, have committed, and Allah having rulings in His Book and punishments barring disbelief which He imposed upon His servants, among them fornication, theft, wine, the punishment of slander and retribution, and the rulings and punishments below apostasy binding men and women by the generality of the Prophet's word (peace be upon him) "whoever changes his religion, kill him", how could anyone be permitted to separate the greatest of sins and cast it away from the women while binding them to what is below it? This is a manifest error (al-Awsat 13/472-473, Ibn Battal's Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari 8/573-574). Ibn Qudama says: she is a person under the legal charge who changed the religion of truth for falsehood: she is killed like the man; as for the Prophet's prohibition (peace be upon him) of killing the woman, it refers to original disbelief: he said it upon seeing a slain woman who was an original unbeliever; that is why he forbade the men he sent toward Ibn Abi al-Hawqat to kill women, with no apostate among them; original disbelief differs from supervening disbelief, as shown by the man being accepted upon his return, the monks of the monasteries and their chiefs not being killed, and the woman not being compelled to leave her religion by flogging or imprisonment, unlike supervening disbelief; the child is not under the charge, unlike the woman; as for the Banu Hanifa, it is not established that those enslaved among them had professed Islam beforehand, and the Banu Hanifa did not all enter Islam: only some of them, apparently men; among them those who persisted in Islam like Thumama ibn Athal, and those who apostatized, like the Hanafite false prophet (al-Mughni 9/16; see also al-Istidhkar 7/151-155, Bidayat al-Mujtahid 2/343, adh-Dhakhira 12/41, al-Qurtubi's Tafsir 3/47-48, al-Fawa'id ad-Dawani 2/202, al-Ishraf 2/240, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyya 59-60, Fath al-Bari 2/269, al-Hawi al-Kabir 13/150 and 13/155, Sharh Muslim 12/208, al-Indjad fi abwab al-jihad 587 and 597, al-Kafi 4/157, al-Muhalla 11/188-191).
These texts belong to the classical law of the schools, conceived within a state that investigates the case, hears the defense, requires proof, removes doubt and summons to repentance: none of the cited authors grants an individual the right to inflict anything. The positions differ sharply between schools, down to the cases of the woman and the sorcerer, and they are reported here without settling them. In the contemporary context no state applies these punishments as such, and the Muslim living in a modern country is bound by its laws; a change of religion is not a penal offense there. What remains of the corpus: the religious gravity of renouncing the faith, the constant call to repentance, and the fact that all the schools hold sincere repentance to erase the penal status.