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Response to Those Who Defend Ta’weez

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

I came across an article that a sister forwarded to me in order to prove the permissibility of wearing ta’weez. I have gone through this article and I have collected the points I want to discuss. We will, in sha’ Allāh, answer each of the claim that the article contains. The answer will be based on the principles of fiqh. Because the author quoted aḥādīth and statements from the scholars, we have to bring a stronger and more authentic evidence to disprove their claim. We are going to do this in bullet-point fashion to keep this post short, so we recommend you read the aforementioned article first.

Disclaimer: This is not a war and we are not doing this in order to win the argument. It’s matter of deen and we have to be careful with our intention. Our intention is purely to defend the true teachings of Islam and to spread the truth based on the authentic evidences.

  1. Ayah 17.82 says

    And We send down of the Qur’an that which is healing and mercy for the believers

    We have certainly no doubt in any ayah of the Qur’an. The question here is, how is it healing? Weather hanging it around the neck is healing? When we get a medicine from pharmacy, do we hang it around the neck or we eat/drink it? Likewise, linguistically “Qur’an” means “something that is recited” – hence Qur’an is healing when it’s recited over the sick. This has been proven by actions of Prophet ﷺ in several authentic aḥādīth [in fact those aḥādīth are mentioned below]

  2. Same answer applies to the next ayah referred to (i.e, 41:44)

  3. Post contains a ḥadīth

    عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ، قَالَ: قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ: عَلَيْكُمْ بِالشِّفَاءَيْنِ: الْعَسَلِ وَالْقُرْآنِ

    Although the reference is not correct, the correct reference is Sunan Ibn Majah 3452 1 and it’s a da’eef (weak) ḥadīth. Nevertheless, if we still use this ḥadīth as evidence to support amulet, Do we take bottle of honey and hang around our neck? No, we drink it! Similarly, how do we benefit from Qur’an? We benefit by reciting it, not by hanging it around our neck. So this is not a supporting evidence.

  4. Another ḥadīth quoted

    Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-‘As:

    The Messenger of Allāh (Peace be upon him) used to teach them the following words in the case of alarm: I seek refuge in Allāh’s perfect words from His anger, the evil of His servants, the evil suggestions of the devils and their presence. Abdullah ibn Amr used to teach them to those of his children who had reached puberty, and he wrote them down (on some material) and hung on the child who had not reached puberty. – Sunan Abi Dawood 3893 2

    Again, this is a da’eef ḥadīth. (In addition to that, the author himself said, Abu Eesa (Imam Tirmidhi) said it’s hasan ghareeb – which means strange ḥadīth). Following is analysis of this ḥadīth:

    There are some reservations about this isnaad of this hadeeth, because it is one of the reports narrated by Muḥammad ibn Ishaaq, who is mudallis (i.e., he used vague words in order to give a false impression) and he narrated by saying ‘an (“from”, instead of “I heard” and so on).

    Imam At-Tirmidhi said: This is a hasan ghareeb hadeeth (as also mentioned in the original post)

    Ash-Shawkaani said in Fath al-Qadeer (3588): Its isnaad includes Muḥammad ibn Ishaaq, concerning whom the scholarly opinions are well known (i.e, not reliable).

    Al-Albaani said: It is hasan apart from the words “‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr used to teach these words…” Saheeh at-Tirmidhi (3528). See also as-Silsilah as-Saheehah (1/529); at-Ta‘leeq ‘ala Musnad Ahmad, ar-Risaalah edition (11/296); an-Nahj as-Sadeed by ad-Dawsari, no. 111.

    Based on that, what is narrated about ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr (may Allāh be pleased with him) hanging this supplication around the necks of his children is not correct, because the isnaad of this addition to the hadeeth is not saheeh.

  5. No problem with the ḥadīth where they said “When a person who was sick or in some distress they would go to the Prophet (may Allāh bless him and grant him peace) who would then place his hand on the area of pain and recite a du’a’ and then blow onto him”.(also no problems with two ḥadīths followed – 1. Jibreel ﷺ and 2. `Ayesha may Allāh be pleased with her) Our question is, how do these aḥādīth justify ta’weez? – we know performing ruqya (i.e, what is mentioned in these two aḥādīth) is allowed but our topic of discussion is ta’weez (i.e, hanging string or amulet around the neck or any part of the body)

  6. When referring to Imam an-Nawawi’s statements from Sharh of Sahih Muslim – the author was trying to refer to ḥadīth of seventy thousands who will enter paradise without reckoning. It’s mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari 6472  3 (and many other places within Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim and other books of aḥādīth) but notice this ḥadīth is further explained in Sahih Muslim 218b 4 – our question is, does this justify use of ta’weez or renounce it?

  7. Concerning the ḥadīth of Amr ibn Shu’aib, question here is, we know the duʾāʼ before sleeping but does the action (i.e, putting around children’s neck) got backing of permissibility from Messenger of Allāh ﷺ? – Also we are not sure about the classification of this ḥadīth (i.e, whether it’s authentic or weak)

  8. Two aḥādīths relating to incantations, we ask, does this mean we take ayah of Qur’an and hang it around the neck? These are words that are recited, and in our deen we recite Qur’an for such purposes and seek cure using reciting of Qur’an (this practice is called ruqya in arabic and is authentically proven from sunnah as mentioned in al-Bukhari 5 – this word is also used in Qurʾān 6)

  9. The author used reference Al-Musannaf ibn Abi Shayba, 5.439 and answer to that is clearly provided in post by brother Muḥammad Tim Humble  7 quoting:

    How many of you looked at that list of people and believed them all to be from the companions? By Allāh, there is only one companion mentioned in that whole list; all the rest are from the generations who came after them.

    Furthermore, all of the narrations from that companion are weak. They contain Muḥammad ibn Is-haaq, who is someone whose narration is not accepted unless he clearly states that he heard the ḥadīth directly from his teacher (the Arabic term is: mudallis), which in this case he did not.

    So, let me say explicitly that there is not one single companion from the companions of the Messenger of Allāh (may the peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him, and may Allāh be pleased with them) who allowed ta’weez of any kind, whether from the Qur’an or not!

    Let us quote the author of the Musannaf in full:

    “The Chapter of those who allowed the hanging of Ta’weez” “The permissibility of this was reported from Sa’eed ibn al-Musayyib, ‘Ataa’, Mujaahid, Abu Ja’far al-Baaqir, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr, Muḥammad ibn Seereen, ‘Ubaydullah ibn ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar, and ad-Dahhaak and IT IS NOT AUTHENTIC from ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr, ad-Dahhaak, Mujaahid, and Ibn Seereen, and the rest are authentic.”

    The author himself says that there is no companion who this is authentically reported from, and that half of the taabi’een mentioned are also not authentic. This is in the very same passage that the author of the post quoted – so why did he choose to stop just before the part where the author says that it isn’t authentic?

The author also used sayings of various scholars in Islam but we are not going to go through each one of them. The reason being, our deen is not based on what scholars say, our deen is based on Qur’an and authentic sunnah. If saying of scholar is in-line with Qur’an and sunnah, we take it, if not, we reject it, because our religion is based on daleel (evidence). And we have given enough evidences to answer all the aḥādīths mentioned in the post.

With that said we would still like to mention there is no such mention of ḥadīth mentioned in post in Tafseer Ibn Kathir 23:97. Below is photo of the page of tafseer of this ayah (Darussalam Abridged) – this means one of two things, original copy may had it and because it’s a weak narration Darussalam excluded it from abridged version, or author got it from somewhere who fabricated it.

Tafseer Ibn Katheer Surah AL-Mu'minoon p.688

I have written an article previously with evidences about why wearing ta’weez is dangerous and not permitted in Islam, please read that article for more details Danger of Wearing Ta'weez 8

Most of the people use ta’weez to protect themselves from magic, jinn possession and/or evil eye. If you are suffering (or have a fear) from one of these please refer to article Treatment of Black Magic 9

. In this article, I explained all of these in details and how to seek cure. NOTE: This article is based on a PDF (Titled: Reality of Magic and It's Cure in Islam) that was proofread by brother Muḥammad Tim Humble (Hafizaullah).

We pray that Allāh Glory be to Him keep us on the straight path.

  1. ^   Sunan Ibn Majah 3452 – Da’eef
  2. ^   Sunan Abi Dawood 3893 – Da’eef
  3. ^   Sahih al-Bukhari 6472
  4. ^   Sahih Muslim 218b
  5. ^   Sahih al-Bukhari 2276
  6. ^   Surah Al-Qiyaama 75:27
  7. ^   http://muhammadtim.com/taweez
  8. ^   https://amrayn.com/articles/ruqya
  9. ^   https://amrayn.com/articles/ruqya