Religious moral retrogression and deterioration are associated with the appearance of sorcery and conjuring. For example, the stage of religious weakness which the sons of Israel had reached led them to the stage of horrible degradation within this dangerous vortex.
Magic was also common during the time of Pharaoh and his people and was a sort of science that had its rank and its influence in people’s hearts. This was true to the point that they had a high regard for the makers of magic and for those who specialized in it, and venerated them. Because of this they were all destroyed.
The Almighty told us how the Jews abandoned the Scripture and followed the books of the Talmud and what had been told to them by the devils and magicians.
God says: “And when an apostle came to them from Al’lah confirming what was with them, a party of the people of the Book cast off the Book of Al’lah…”: that is, they relinquished Al-Torah, and their scholars turned away from God’s words. Furthermore, this occurred “…behind their backs as though they know nothing”: that is, it took place in such a way that it was as if they did not know anything about it. They did this because they were controlled by their whims, due to their lack of belief in Al’lah, other than whom there is no God; though the fact is that if man believes and recognizes God’s Attributes, he will oppose his lust and overcome his evil inclinations.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 2, Al-Baqara (The Cow), verse 101
In African societies, conjuring was considered to be one of the pillars of the combinations or the main tribes, and was like the sanitary office or the clinic, used to remedy people’s ills and cure them.
But recently, since the Middle Ages, when magic began to spread in Islamic societies, the heralds of Islam entered a real war against it. They set about disclosing its reality and warning people about it in line with what the Almighty God revealed in the Holy Qur’an, when He notified us and warned us of Satan’s enmity through the story of our master Adam (pth): as the messenger (cpth) mentioned in the noble saying: “A magician’s penalty is to be killed with a sword.”[29]
AL-imam Al-Shafi’ei said: “a magician should be killed if he performs something that leads us to unbelief by magic.” As he said: “None dares to make magic except an unbeliever.”
AL-imam Al-Nawawi said: “Making magic is forbidden and with one accord, it is considered one of the great sins. So, learning or teaching it is also forbidden.”
So is it for the societies of Europe. Their ancient culture was absorbed in a conflict between magic and the church. They used to burn witches and conjurers, and would destroy the villages in which it was known that the teaching and practicing of magic was common.
There is a form of magic called white magic. In this type, the magician uses unbelieving jinns to bewitch people’s eyes and make them see unreal things which appear to them to be preternatural.
In general, this white magic has a big role in drawing the admiration of a lot of people.
This was known in the past. The Holy Qur’an mentions it at the point when, after Pharaoh’s challenge, our Moses said to the magicians: “He said: ‘Throw ye’. And when they threw down (their staffs), they bewitched people’s eyes and terrified them by showing a great (feat of) magic.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 7, Al-A’raf (The Heights), verse 116
In fact, a magician can only bewitch the eyes of people who are negligent in remembering God. Such kinds of magic were widespread in India and in other countries. That is why those countries became weak and poor and reached their current degree of degradation. Despite their large populations, they turned into easy morsels in the hands of the great powers with small populations.
In his book, the traveler Ibn-Battootah mentioned many situations which he had seen, all depending on magic. This issue continued to grow in importance until, in this age, people and groups of magicians appeared who display their magic deeds to people.
Despite the recent success of medicine, and despite the messenger’s commands (cpth) relating to the field of treatment and the cure of illness (such as the noble cupping which leads to great results in the case that it is applied in accordance with its correct rules and norms);[30] nonetheless, we find that some people spend a lot of money for an incantation or for a sitting of suggestion, just as we find others who tend to pay more, even to the point of borrowing money, for magic writing and lines.
Societies all over the world, both rich and poor, are implicated in these trends, but they still remain within certain limits. Yet this belief and this inclination to magic and conjuring have now found access to the means for an increase in publicity through modern methods of communication and the Internet.
For example, you can find trade pages to meet all purposes and needs in modern mass communications media, such as how to plant seeds of love and reconciliation between two people, or how to do the opposite; and also methods for treating and subjugating people, for achieving superiority over them, and ways to use spells.
As for the costs of such spells and prescriptions, they can be paid by credit card. Similarly, the use of express mail order services means that magic medicines, writings, and spells written on folded pieces of paper can all reach people easily, accompanied with the exact directions of use and instructions for their application.
All of these are but extortionate ways of making money and having control over spirits that shun God and are unmindful of remembering Him.
A new field study – carried out by Dr. Mohammad Abdul-Azeem in the Center for Criminal Research in Cairo – shows that there are about thirty thousand people in Egypt who claim that they can foretell the future (including telling fortunes, divination by use of cups and palmistry), as 70% of Egyptians believe in the supernatural ability of these people to know the hidden future events that are fated for people, with their expertise also extending to other abilities such as treating their ‘patients’ through their souls.
A group of social scientists in Egypt said that Egyptian and Indian movies circulate awareness of quack magicians through tens of their films.
Other than that, there are the old narrative books such as the story of Saif Ibn Yazan, and of Hamza Al-Bahlawan, and other tales from The Thousand And One Nights, which are all illusive tales that ascribe agency to magicians and publicize sorcery.
The findings of the study show that about 50% of Arab women believe in magic, and there are about half a million charlatans that practice their charlatanry both openly and secretly in the Arabic world.
On the other hand, the Arabs spend more than nine thousand million dollars a year on sorcerers. But on this issue, the most serious problem is that this disaster is still not restricted to a specific country, but has spread across nearly all of the Arab countries.
In spite of all these bitter facts, from which all humanity suffers because of their deviation from God’s open way and His straight Statute, in this domain, the Arab countries do not have a bigger share than the developed European ones.
Magic rages there in all its different forms, and it is widespread among large groups of European compatriots; yet due to materialism’s dominance over their minds, it does not have that great an effect.
Thus, they live between two evils: the control that materialism has over their minds, and the efficiency of magic and magicians, which is lighter and weaker.
Accordingly, magic – including the people who practice it or advocate it – does not spread unless the religious moralities of people disappear and their tendency turns toward forbidden things and fornication. In this case, the devil becomes active and it becomes easy for him to catch his prey.
It is not only individual people that he controls; he controls entire communities and makes them fall under his influence through the use of any of the available forms of such magic, as happened to people in the past, such as those of Pharaoh, Lord of Stakes (i.e the great Pyramids). This is one of the problems of this age.
The phenomenon of magic and conjuring has become widespread and is continuing to spread in the age of material progress due to the weakness of the lofty religious side of our spirits. It has its ceremonies in the most developed nations in the world, just as it has its associations, institutes, and unions.
Moreover, conferences and symposiums are held for it, and particularly notable are the deceitful sessions of conjuration wherein it is claimed that the spirits of dead people are in attendance, whereas, in reality, it is the jinn-companions of the dead who surely attend in spirit rather than in body.
However, materialism is more effective in those nations.
So we see that there are many factors which have caused such a wide spreading of magic across the globe, alongside its makers and those who attend sessions of magic. However, the main factor is the abandonment of God’s Legislation and the following of one’s deadly whims.
Thereby the magician’s inclinations and wishes correspond to the destructive bent of the devil, and they agree to draw those who go to them and who trust them to the way of aberration and everlasting ruination.
God says: “And their brothers…”: that is, the devils’ brothers; “…supply them with error with no delinquency”: that is, they do their best to influence people and lead them to that which causes evil.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 7, Al-A’raf (The Heights), verse 202