Does magic have a reality?

In the last part of Sharh Usul I'tiqad Ahl al-Sunna, al-Lalaka'i has two consecutive chapters, "What has been transmitted on magic having a reality" and "What has been transmitted on how magic works", placed among the chapters on matters of the unseen and of creation that are to be believed. ^{1 2}

Al-Lalaka'i opens the chapter with the verses on the devils teaching people magic in Surat al-Baqara and on the coming of the sorcerers and their "great magic" in Surat Yunus and al-A'raf, and then says that Umar, Uthman, Jundab, Aisha and Hafsa ordered the sorcerer to be killed. ¹ He transmits Aisha's hadith that the Prophet was bewitched until he imagined he had done things he had not, with the account of Labid ibn al-A'sam, the comb and the combings, and the well of Dharwan; the Prophet said that God had cured him and that he disliked stirring up harm against anyone, and the two chapters of seeking refuge were revealed; he attributes it to al-Bukhari and Muslim. ³ Then he gives the hadith "Avoid the seven destroying sins", magic among them, and Ibn Abbas's hadith "Whoever learns a branch of astrology learns a branch of magic", which the editor judges sound through a corroborating chain though the author's own chain is weak. ⁴ He relates from Bajala that a letter of Umar reached them a year before his death: "Kill every sorcerer and sorceress", and that they killed three sorceresses; he attributes it to al-Bukhari. ⁵

In a note to the chapter the editor, Nash'at al-Misri, explains that magic (sihr) in the language is what is hidden and subtle in its cause, and in technical usage is spells, incantations and knots that act on hearts and bodies, causing illness and death and separating a man from his wife; he argues from the verse on separating spouses and from the verse on "those who blow on knots": were magic unreal, God would not have commanded seeking refuge from it. ¹ He then reports the view that magic is tricks and deceptions by which the sorcerer makes things appear other than they are, like a mirage seen as water, attributes it to the theologians of the Mu'tazila and others, and rejects it as contrary to what is mass-transmitted from the early generations and agreed by the jurists, quoting al-Nawawi: "The sound view is that it has a reality; the majority held this firmly." ¹ He adds that magic is forbidden in the laws of all the prophets, and that scholars differed over whether the sorcerer is an unbeliever: a group of the early generations, Malik, Ahmad and Abu Hanifa held that he is; al-Shafi'i said the sorcerer should be asked to describe his magic, and if he describes what entails unbelief – such as the Babylonians' belief in drawing near to the seven planets – he is an unbeliever, and if not, he becomes one if he holds it permissible. ¹

In the next chapter al-Lalaka'i relates from Aisha the story of a woman of Dumat al-Jandal who came after the Prophet's death weeping and asking about a magic she had become involved in; she described a journey to Babylon and meeting two men hanging by their feet who warned her, "We are only a trial, so do not disbelieve." ² The editor judges its chain weak because it includes Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi al-Zinad, quotes Ibn Kathir's remark that the chain to Aisha is good, and says this is open to question. ² In the previous chapter al-Lalaka'i also gives a report from Aisha about a woman who asked whether she might "tie up her camel" – explained as meaning her husband – and Aisha rejected it; the editor notes that al-Albani judged it weak. ⁵

The Mu'tazili view is given here through the editor's note and needs their own texts; the jurists' positions on punishing sorcerers from the books of the schools, and academic studies of magic in Muslim societies, have not yet been added.