الرقية الشرعية | الشيخ عبد العزيز الطريفي

Summary

The lecture presents ruqyah—healing through Qur’anic recitation and supplication—as a legitimate Islamic practice, while emphasizing that reliance should remain on God rather than on a particular healer. The lecturer distinguishes preventative remembrance from treatment after an affliction occurs and warns against practices he considers unsupported, excessive, or spiritually harmful.

Main Ideas

• The Qur’an and treatment: The lecturer describes the Qur’an as guidance and healing for spiritual and physical ailments. He cites reports that God has provided a remedy for every illness except old age, using this to affirm the permissibility of seeking treatment.
• Repentance and affliction: He argues that sins can be a cause of hardship and illness, so seeking forgiveness, repenting, obeying God, and avoiding sin are important parts of addressing affliction—not just treating its symptoms. He also notes that hardship may test or elevate a righteous person and expiate sins, so illness should not automatically be taken as proof of wrongdoing.
• Prevention matters: Regular remembrance and supplications are presented as protection before affliction occurs. The lecturer gives particular importance to morning and evening remembrances and advises learning supplications associated with specific situations, such as entering a home or another place.
• Ruqyah is permissible with limits: Ruqyah may use Qur’anic verses, prophetic supplications, or other understandable words, provided they do not involve shirk, unknown charms, or harmful practices. The lecturer also describes treatment of animals, possessions, and water as permissible when done through remembrance or legitimate supplication.
• Self-reliance in worship: Reciting ruqyah for oneself is presented as preferable. The lecturer says that repeatedly asking someone else to perform it may weaken reliance on God or foster attachment to the practitioner. He also recognizes that helping an afflicted person with ruqyah is permissible and commendable.
• Avoid exploitation and excess: The lecturer criticizes setting up a dedicated ruqyah business, cultivating dependence on a healer, charging exorbitant fees, or treating ruqyah as a path to status or income. He warns against violence toward patients, prohibited touching, questioning jinn, and relying on their claims.
• Recitation versus recordings: Recordings may help people listen, learn, or follow along, but they do not replace a person’s own remembrance, recitation, and supplication. The lecturer cautions against treating a continuously playing Qur’an recording as an amulet or substitute for worship.

Practices and Guidance

For General Protection

• Maintain morning and evening remembrances consistently.
• Say “Bismillah” when entering the home and before eating. The lecturer cites reports that this keeps Satan from sharing the home or food.
• Learn supplications associated with particular circumstances rather than relying only on general remembrance.
• Mention God when admiring one’s possessions or fearing the evil eye.

For Personal Ruqyah

• Recite Qur’anic passages and established supplications over oneself. The lecture specifically mentions Surat al-Baqarah, Ayat al-Kursi, and the two protective surahs, al-Falaq and al-Nas.
• For pain, place a hand on the affected area, say “Bismillah” three times, then recite a reported supplication seeking refuge in God’s might and power seven times.
• The lecturer also cites the supplication: “O Lord of mankind, remove the affliction and heal; You are the Healer. There is no healing except Your healing, a healing that leaves no illness behind.”
• Reciting the protective surahs into the hands, lightly blowing, and wiping one’s own body—especially before sleep—is described as a reported practice.
• Recitation over water, or writing Qur’anic words with a harmless material such as saffron, washing them into water, and drinking it, is described as permissible according to the lecture, provided the words are legitimate and the method causes no harm.

For Helping Another Person

• A person who knows an appropriate ruqyah may help someone who is afflicted. The lecture cites a report encouraging people to benefit one another.
• A healer may place a hand on the patient’s head, shoulder, or affected area while reciting. This does not permit touching private parts or touching a non-related woman.
• The lecturer advises against striking, strangling, or injuring someone believed to be possessed. Treatment, in his account, should be limited to established recitation and supplication.

For Suspected Evil Eye or Magic

• The lecture recommends the protective surahs and established supplications for suspected magic.
• If the person believed to have caused the evil eye is known, the lecturer describes a reported practice of having that person wash specified parts of the body and pouring the water over the afflicted person.
• He discourages going to sorcerers to undo magic, even when the person claims not to believe in them.

Practices the Lecturer Discourages

• Making a habit of seeking ruqyah from a particular practitioner or becoming emotionally dependent on that person.
• Turning ruqyah into a dedicated business or charging excessive sums.
• Asking jinn who caused an affliction or treating their statements as reliable; the lecturer warns that this can spread false accusations and discord.
• Performing ruqyah for an absent person by telephone or similar means. He says prayer for that person is appropriate instead.
• Treating Qur’an recordings as protection in themselves rather than listening attentively, reciting, and remembering God.

The lecture notes differing scholarly views on whether seeking ruqyah from another person is merely permissible, recommended, or less preferable than patience and self-reliance. Its practical conclusion is that ruqyah is allowed, but a person should avoid habitual dependence on practitioners and keep their trust directed toward God.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Speaker: Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Tarifi, identified as the lecturer by the video title.
• Primary sources cited: The Qur’an; sayings and practices attributed to the Prophet Muhammad; reports about the angel Gabriel.
• Hadith collections and works mentioned: Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, al-Muwatta of Malik, Musnad Ahmad, Sunan Abu Dawud, Jami‘ al-Tirmidhi, al-Bayhaqi’s works, Ibn Abi Shaybah’s al-Musannaf, al-Tabari’s works, Ibn Abd al-Barr’s al-Tamhid, and al-Shafi‘i’s al-Umm.
• Named transmitters and early authorities cited: Aisha, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri, Jabir ibn Abdullah, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud, Anas ibn Malik, Abu Hurairah, Usamah ibn Sharik, Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas, Hafsa, Khawla, Uthman ibn Abi al-‘As, and al-Shifa’.
• Scholars and early figures also mentioned: Ikrimah, Simak, Qatadah, Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib, al-Hasan al-Basri, Ibn Sirin, Mujahid, Abu Qilabah, and the legal authorities Malik, al-Shafi‘i, Ahmad, and al-Muzani.

The lecture attributes religious reports and legal positions to these sources; this summary does not independently assess their authenticity.