For those interested in this topic, please read The Exorcist Tradition by Dr Bilal Philips. (Can be purchased from amazon.com) After interviewing almost a dozen exorcists / ruqyah practitioners, you can conclude that while demonic possessions, magic and the evil eye do exist and can be treated quite effectively with ruqyah, true cases are rare. The majority of the people who go to these practitioners usually have psychiatric, social or neurological problems. The author is right on the money. Seek medical treatment first, then a ruqyah practitioner.

However, I would also recommend the author to search the term “jinn” on youtube or listen to the Anneliese Michel tapes or better yet attach himself to a Ruqyah practitioner like he would a medical term. It would open your eyes on the topic.

totally liking your pragmatic view of *why* we shouldn’t really encourage this mindset. not really against religious methods, but let me know if someone is known to cure autism yet by this method.

yes, maybe God will indeed bring about with His Might the solution in a direct manner. or, maybe He is saying, “I chose to give you the cure, by bestowing my Knowledge on some of your people about your ailment, and it is better for *your* personal development to embark on the effort to find this cure from among them.” why we don’t consider this perspective more often, i don’t know.

i totally agree with the final paragraph of the article. proper practitioners, whether in physical medicine or religious healing, will not be averse to admitting when they don’t really know but will try something. crucially, they will invest time to understand the problem, i.e. they will *diagnose* first. but a lot of non-practitioners like to tell people in difficulty “oh, repeat this ayat” like a talisman or magic incantation cure-for-all. they don’t have skin in the game, it doesn’t affect them if it doesn’t work. but the danger to the afflicted when, say, it doesn’t cure their child’s autism, particularly when they haven’t also been encouraged to develop a relationship with Allah, is not inconsiderable.

Just read this article and agree with the balance it is striving towards.

Matters of the mind are trickier to navigate through, scientifically and particularly from a religious point of view. Certainly no one would question that we resort to clinical medicine to heal any bodily harm or illness that we might face, and this reliance wouldn’t be deemed as weak Eeman. Bring in mental health and the above conversations ensue.

What this reminded me of however was an entirely different matter with the exact same ‘diagnosis’. A dear relatives marriage was on the rocks. A history of mental abuse on part of the husband and a completely submissive wife. The wife was starting to reach her limits and wanted the matters resolved. Husband agreed. They went to find out if there was black magic/evil eye on them. Lo and behold there was! They went about th procedures, halal ones, not bid’ah too. And they had a small period of relative calm. Only to realize the husband still had the same coping mechanisms. He still resorted to silent treatment before blowing up and blaming the wife for everything under the sun. And she was still struggling with everything that that triggered in her.

An educated reliable imam would have dealt with those personality traits that were the root cause of their problems. As would have a marriage counselor. But the blame game, as you put it, absolved every one of taking responsibility for what they were bringing to the relationship.

A very different aspect of societal life….

May Allah grant us the wisdom to maintaining such balances. And our generations to come. Allah protect our eemans. Forgive us our sins.. And be pleased with us. Aameen

Wassalaam

I meant Islam and medicine, sorry about the typo!

Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh

I agree with you on this point Othman. Also, ruqya must be within the confines of Sharia and should not become bidah or worse, shirk.

To briefly answer your question about the order of things, which one comes first, the roqya or the medical intervention, and you will probably be sensitive to the answer isA the way I am:
Muslims are not all alike in their understanding of their deen. Some Muslims got the chance to read books, go to halaqat, lesson to lectures and to develop some basic understanding and connection with this religion. Other Muslims are at a much more basic stage, where they are not as much in tune with the nuances of the Islamic creed. Think about this spectrum of people that we are working with and keep that in mind please as you read the rest of my reply.
When someone goes to a healer/imam/religious figure with a conversion disorder or an unremitting somatization disorder, or with dissociative fugue,etc,,, and the patient is told that this is most likely a “religious phenomenon” we are giving this clinical picture a religious label. And whether consciously or not, we are creating a dyad of a patient-physician relationship here where the physician here is the imam or in the heads of many, Islam. If the roqya fails, then this means in the heads of many of these patients that Islam has failed!! Medicine fails many times, and people can change their doctors, but this does not have a grave outcome on people’s religious beliefs.
Hence, my notes on the order of things. Most spiritual healers, do not give a crush course in aqeedah, or the ISlamic ruling on roqya. Most of them do not say that there is a great chance that this is actually not religious. Many of them are criminal and ignorant enough to actually give a diagnosis of jinn or possession or whatever the case is and go on with treatment that turns out to be refractory, and then they fail, and in the mind of the patient, Islam fails.
Hope I made my point clearer..
Othman

I actually meant that your article, specifically the point you’re making, is an excellent reminder for me (and all readers) to look deeply into our attitudes/thoughts to make sure that we aren’t resorting to “the blame game.” My apologies if that didn’t come across as intended in my initial comment. I commend you for writing such an insightful article, MashaAllah.