# Are the hadith about the evil eye authentic? *The hadith on the evil eye examined* - URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/mnpgdvjs2nk/s/8/ - Date: 2020-11-15 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: There is NO evil eye in Islam (Detailed Overview) | Mufti Abu Layth (56:07–1:08:18) - Status: general teaching - Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnpGDvjs2nk&t=3367s - Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/mnpgdvjs2nk/ **Topics:** Magic, the evil eye and superstition; Narrator criticism; Text criticism, reason and the Quran **Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** No: he says the evil eye hadith rest on weak or criticised narrators and odd reports, and a belief so important would have come from many companions and the Quran. He calls them baseless. **Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith on the evil eye are baseless and all problematic. **Evidence, his words at 1:06:33:** “it was something that was necessary and we don't find it so the ahadith are baseless they're all problematic” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnpGDvjs2nk&t=3993s) ## Longer summary Mufti Abu Layth says that a crucial belief not found in the Quran should be treated as suspect, citing Imam Malik's caution about things found only in hadith. He says the main report, that the eye is real, comes from Abu Hurayra through Abd al-Razzaq from Ma'mar [?], also containing a ban on tattoos that many Malikis do not hold, and cites criticisms of Abd al-Razzaq by al-Daraqutni, Abu Hatim and others. Another chain from Ibn Abbas runs through Wuhayb [?], said to have suffered dementia in old age, and Muslim ibn Ibrahim [?], from whom Imam Ahmad reportedly wrote nothing, and he notes Ibn Abbas spent little time with the Prophet as a boy. He then discusses the report in al-Muwatta and elsewhere of Sahl ibn Hunayf and Amir ibn Rabi'a, in which one admires the other's thigh, the latter falls ill and is cured when the admirer bathes, pointing to its sexual wording, confused versions and a cure nobody practises, and suggests Malik included it to show it was strange or because it was then considered science. He concludes the hadith are baseless, and that the remedies preachers prescribe, such as reciting something 41 times, work only in the mind. ## Sources and names cited - Imam Malik - report: the evil eye is real - Abu Hurayra - Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani - Ma'mar ibn Rashid [?] - al-Daraqutni [?] - Abu Hatim al-Razi - Abu Dawud - Ibn Abbas - Aisha - Wuhayb [?] - Muslim ibn Ibrahim [?] - Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal - al-Muwatta - Sahl ibn Hunayf - Amir ibn Rabi'a - Shaykh Hassan Ali ## Transcript (machine tier, 56:07–1:08:18) [55:28] does nothing else you know is that only when the and does the evil eye how come it didn't work the first time but now it's going to work and by the way when you set the set off from kanan or whatever there's no evil eye all this way hundreds and hundreds of miles there's no evil eye even on the on the road to memphis there's no evil eye oh but once you approach the gate [Laughter] the the one eye is gonna be incredibly active right so this is the the thing that [56:07] it makes absolute zero sense it is not that is not what yahoo balayam was saying at all so i just want to be incredibly clear on that as to the hadith now so the quran mentions nothing now there are certain ahadith that have been transmitted now i want to highlight something you see when you find um [56:34] when you find something that is not in the quran and it's such a crucial belief you need to be you need to see suspiciously it's very suspect and this is what imam malik said he said be very weary of things that do not you do not find them you only find them in these hadith so there are certain hadith generation and generally the hadith come from mainly from abu huraira uh it's the same kind of hadith that is being used in different sources where he says that the i [57:13] is true is a reality and it also comes with the prophet said tattoos are haram that's in its fuller hadith which is strange because according to many malikis very clearly tattoos are not haram okay so it already contradicts that hadith but okay so abu hurairah and from him it the chain is is coming through abdul razak from now we already know and this is in bukhari it's going to be in the the same hadith you'll find it in muslim you'll find it scattered but this is one of the core pillars upon what this whole [57:51] hadith thing is built on there's only mainly a few uh narrations only a few people transmit even though think about it the evil eyes everywhere yet only a few people and one of the main people is always who comes towards the end of islam right but yet he seems to know this now abdul razak by the way just so we're clear just so you are familiar with him um darkne even though he is generally reliable but he's somebody who makes a lot of mistakes when transmitting from okay [58:31] says that many narrations from abdul razak from mahmud are fabrications okay our fabrications what does abu hatim say about him he says you can write his hadith but you can't use it as an evidence okay now abu dhabu says that he would present certain false narrations [58:57] puts him in his and says somebody who got uh you know he um he says anybody that wrote took from him in his old age is is massively problematic now this is one of the main narrations the other narration that you get some come through people like um they come through ibn abbas or they come through uh there's one uh odd narration coming from aisha but with the same link and that you see it through wahabe this person who once again is uh problematized for he gets dementia in his old age abu [59:36] dhawud says that you know he's somebody who suffers from dementia in his old age um other people highlight that as well so that's the other chain coming from ibn abbas and the interesting thing is look you know with the ibn abbas it's it's important to realize that [1:00:03] it's important to realize that ibn abbas radhilan although he's you know a glorious companion during the lifetime of the prophet he spends very little time in the prophet's company because he's a he's a little boy he's he's very young and he's in makkah it's only during the fat of mecca that he spends some time with the profit and there's a disagreement how much time he spends with the profit some people said that they only put it down to so many weeks and some you know at most a few months other people stretched it into several months he spends with the [1:00:42] prophet but that's all he spends with the prophet because he's very young at that time now prior to that he lives in makkah he's not in madina so it's only after the conquest of mecca that he's united with the prophet salallahu and then he spent some time because the prophet uh marries his aunt and then he spends some close time when the prophet is is getting married and things like that with the prophet and then there's a dispute how much does that time stretch to nevertheless the interesting thing is well you know are the uh is this it one odd narration here from [1:01:20] uh ibn abbas what about every shouldn't this be something every companion should be talking about since it afflicts everybody and then let alone that you see in his narrations um another person that come pops up is you will see muslim ibn ibrahim now that's also one of the people in the chain transmitting from ibn abbas as well as wahib uh you'll get a muslim ibrahim who people even imam abu dawood has highlighted but imam ahmad also transmits it from him uh transmits it as well but [1:02:00] has highlighted it that he was asked what do you say about muslim ibn ibrahim who's in this chain that's transmitting from ibn abbas he says that i would did not write a single thing from him then you have another narration as well from sahalib nahuneef now this narration appears in the muatta and it appears with several versions of it in muslim ahmed as well now this is to do with two companions they are sahalib and you've got uh amir rabia and they are basically trying to they're coming they're on some journey and they want to take a bath they want [1:02:40] to take a quick wash and imam malik brings this in his mother but my understanding is imam malik brings it to show you that this is strange it's weird so in this narration but imam ahmad brings it with many other narrations as well to it where basically there's other things there's some this confusion in this narration as well by the way one says oh he puts this uh he takes his clothes this kind of garment basically what's happening is they're going to shower one of them goes and he gets undressed the other one sees him and says wow i've never seen thighs as amazing as yours and basically [1:03:19] sexual so sexy and appealing and it's in a sexual way it's not in a strong like wow those thighs are strong he's saying in a in a sexy way that he says like oh like even a virgin girl who doesn't have thighs as you know amazing as yours so it's in a very kind of sexual connotation uh which is really strange that this is the hadith and then what happens incredibly ill and he he can't kind of do anything he can't move and and then they tell the prophet and in this narration the prophet says oh [1:03:58] you know what's wrong you afflicted him with the evil eye why don't you take a bath so he takes this bath and now he's better because and then this is the narration as this part is in a narration by ibn abbas as well that oh if you you know with the evil eye ask that if people ask you to take a bath apparently the cure is that the one the fascinator the one who gives the evil eye if he takes a bath somehow it kills the spell which is crazy because no muslims practice that part have you ever heard somebody going to somebody say take a bath [Laughter] because you've given the evil eye but [1:04:37] apparently that's what in this hadith and then there's other strange wording and some versions know uh ahmed ibn is taking off to his clothes which is confusing because it's the other person who's taking it off but uh and in some narrations they are both looking for hammer they're looking for hammer which is a strange word to be using here because uh hammer normally means alcohol but they're saying no hammer this is the finding a place which is a uh a kind of like a shelter to take a bath um we're using the word they're not using the word satar or shajar or tree or something they're using the word hammer which [1:05:15] normally means alcohol but anyway like really oddities about this hadith which people don't normally use those kind of words so this is the other narration of sahalin hanef that they're resting this on an incident an anecdote which by the way the the result of taking a bath nobody practices that nobody practices that who practices oh i think he gave the evil eye can you go and the fascinator go and take a bath and how does that cure the the rays the arrows that have been fired so imam malik bringing this i feel in my understanding that there's two ways of looking at this [1:05:55] one that imam malik is bringing this to because he brings many hadith to show that i'm aware of this but this is strange and he's telling you the other thing is it could have been that because this was seen as the science of the age that people accepted that maybe these incidents you know here they are they're strange but they're here why do we not why do i not believe that the prophet salallahu said this because if this was authentic from the prophet then i can guarantee it would have come to us flooded by so many companions and we would have found it in the quran [1:06:33] because it was something ubiquitous and it was something that was necessary and we don't find it so the ahadith are baseless they're all problematic their what whether it's going to be abdul razak from mahmud which transmits fabrications whether it's going to be wahabe who kind of mix messes up in his you know later on abdullah will transmit in that whether it's going to be muslim ibrahim [1:07:01] you know i don't write anything from him um these are these are the kind of chains or whether it's this anecdote of these two companions on a journey one day and then this confusion on you know okay who's getting undressed and then there's confusions on what what it was you know strange words like oh they're both looking for hammer which you know alcohol but no no it's not alcohol it's shelter they're looking for shelter to take a bath and then he somehow is so fascinated by his thigh because it's more prettier than the thigh of a virgin girl which is incredibly strange i don't [1:07:41] know why that that would even be appear because that is not really made oh because it's white skin it's so it's mentioned in some of the narrations his thigh is so white it's so sexually appealing i find this incredibly weird and then the result by the way the the cure is something which nobody practices anyway so if they're going to use this then they ought to be using the cure which nobody practices nobody says that the people with the iron meter they use all these kind of rituals as you heard hassan ali uh going on about spreading this superstition trying to say well this is what we do we ## Cite Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment mnpGDvjs2nk/s/8. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/mnpgdvjs2nk/s/8/ Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. 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