Recordings › There is no jinn possession in Islam (reply to Sh Omar Suleiman's video) | Mufti Abu Layth · 21 Nov 2020 › Segment 9 of 10
Is the jinn exorcism and ruqya industry a fraud?
imaam prayer leader shafi shafei shafiite shafi'i school muftis mutazilite mu'tazilah djinn jinnat jinni ruqyah ruqyaa ahl al-sunnah ahl as-sunnah ahlus sunnah ahl al-sunna sunnis ulama ulema ulamaa shaykh shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhsA fraudulent industry, the Mu'tazila who were never possessed, and al-Jahiz's story
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This segment43:12 to 49:49 · 6 min 37 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenThe ruqya industry is largely a fraud drenched in abuse; the Mu'tazila, who rejected possession, were never afflicted, and al-Jahiz already recorded a practitioner using a possession claim to explain away a lost virginity.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says the exorcism industry is probably worth a billion dollars and is submerged in physical and sexual abuse, supported by imams irresponsible enough to certify that demons possess people; he asks why jinn never possess non-Muslims and why the first world is as it is if Muslims alone can unlock the jinn world, and calls the whole thing a fraud to beware of. He says the Sunni scholars he has quoted, al-Shafi'i, al-Tahawi and Ibn Hazm, did not accept it, and that the Mu'tazila never accepted it either; al-Jahiz and others observed that no Mu'tazili was ever afflicted by a jinn because they did not believe in it. He says most practitioners of ruqya are fraudulent and the rest sincere but deluded, and that people who believe demons spend years making someone catatonic can only blame their own credulity. He recounts al-Jahiz's story of an unmarried woman who was no longer a virgin and received a proposal in an age that demanded virginity: a jinn-practitioner took her money, told her family she was possessed, and said the jinn would damage whichever opening it left by, the teeth, the eye or the hymen, so the family chose the last, the practitioner performed his ritual, and the lost virginity was explained. He says he was disappointed to see Omar Suleiman promote this kind of nonsense, but that it is what the market supports.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the exorcism and ruqya industry is largely fraudulent and drenched in abuse, and he cites al-Jahiz's observation that no Mu'tazili, who rejected possession, was ever afflicted by a jinn.
“the bulk of them are utterly fraudulent right maybe some of them are sincere and just delusional”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine43:12 to 49:49 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
right these one two narrations they bring are all problematic naive they bring that popular one about negative thoughts and they try to blag it that is to do with jin possession this is a it's probably a billion dollar industry the amount of abuse that goes on from physical to sexual abuse the amount that goes on on the back of this the this industry it is drenched it is submerged in abuse and it's supported by all of these imams who are irresponsible enough to actually certify and rob a stampy
to say well actually demons do possess people why don't they possess normal people why don't they possess non-muslims you don't see them jumping around having epilepsy just because you know what why is that why is the first world the way it is i mean if all these muslims have jinns and everything why don't they ju you know why aren't they in that position and they seem to know how to unlock the gin world it's so stupid the amount of nonsense that happens through all of this i'm telling you is nothing but a fraud beware of it
do not allow you know even these imams you get smiling and doing all this thing it is nothing but bs okay demons cannot you see it's interesting i tell you something you know historically the mata zilla they were i mean they by the way people will say which scholars rejected this concept i've quoted to you scholars i've quoted to imam shafa he's saying anybody who claims to have seen a jinn we refuse to accept his testimony in islam imam tahawi is saying that they cannot cause actual harm
quoted ibn hazem i quoted to you this problematizes this you've got all of these scholars are sunni scholars they don't accept this stuff right but yes there was also a sec the mata zilla they never used to accept it now what's interesting is there was never a matazili who was afflicted by a jinn you know with a hadagen story then
it's interesting that jaahi then all these people mention this say that how come the mata zilla don't get the jinn because they don't believe in it it's so stupid and they just you know this jahid actually mentions uh an interesting story he says that there's this uh lady who she uh goes to this particular there's this ex these rockies are all chatting honestly they are i would say the bulk of them are utterly fraudulent right maybe some of them are sincere and just delusional
uh that you know they seem to but it is utterly a lie the whole industry is all about making money right it is on the back it has no legitimacy to it right you are utterly you are only can blame yourself for believing them because you know if you're that stupid to believe that demons possess people and all they do is just make them go like this oh catatonic schizophrenia for like years [Laughter] the jinn's got nothing better to do right that is just you know you can only blame your own stupidity right you have to have you know for
accepting that uh but coming back to that story that ja says so anyway he mentions this story that um this lady is so she she she has she's not married she has sex with someone and so she's not a virgin now uh she she gets a proposal but at that in that day and age as well they were quite strict that the girl has to be a virgins [Laughter] so she's she's like oh oh my god what do i do what do i do so she goes to this jin baba who says that uh okay i've got the solution for you uh so he obviously
takes some money from her and then he calls her family and he says look she's possessed i've done this test on her and she's possessed and they go oh really damn you know we need to please please please take the gin out please do that we'll pay you and we'll give all this money so okay he says well okay i can but you know this is a powerful chin so they go oh please he says the problem is the jinn wherever it will exit the body it will cause some harm so he says i've got to make it come out of some
cavity so he says if i bring it out the mouth if i pull it out the mouth it will probably break all her teeth uh if you know if i pull it through the eye it will damage the eye he says i could pull it out from her vagina he says i could bring it out from there ah where does the gin reside he's residing i mean we know that since you know we know that's where men are trying to get into but jin
you so anyway he says that you know i could i could pull the gin up from the vagina but if i do that then it means that she will it will kind of obviously as it exits it will ruin her her hymen her virginity so they go yeah that's the yeah let's go with that option that's like the easiest so eventually jahiz writes that that's the option they chose so he goes yeah okay i'm doing the um hocus pocus powering me
[Music] and then it's like oh well you know she's lost her virginity and then basically it was happy families after that so this is the kind of nonsense people and i was very disappointed to see sheikh umar suleiman promoting this kind of nonsense but then it is what it is and you know with uh teaching where the market is it supports uh it supports that and i tell you these people can i'm asking you know what i will accept from any of these shares if they want a dialogue they want to debate on it agile come on
Paragraphs overlapping 43:12 to 49:49. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2020-11-21-S09, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/6apj1fumn24/s/9/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, November 21). Is the jinn exorcism and ruqya industry a fraud? [Video, segment 2020-11-21-S09, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/6apj1fumn24/s/9/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "Is the jinn exorcism and ruqya industry a fraud?" Video, segment 2020-11-21-S09, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded November 21, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/6apj1fumn24/s/9/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2020-11-21-S09, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Is the jinn exorcism and ruqya industry a fraud?}}, year = {2020}, month = {11}, date = {2020-11-21}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/6apj1fumn24/s/9/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/6apj1fumn24/s/9/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2020-11-21-S09, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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