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Recordings › Magic: Myth and Reality in Islam by Mufti Abu Layth · 15 Apr 2018 › Segment 3 of 9

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Magic in the Quran: Musa and Pharaoh's magicians, an illusion

imaam imams prayer leader muftis hasan hadith hasan li-ghayrihi hasan li-dhatihi hasan sahih sihr sihar jadu jadoo kala jadu sorcery koran quraan al-quran ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat ulama ulema ulamaa shaykh sheikh shaikh sheik shuyukh salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam peace greeting barakah baraka barakat barkat baraqah

LessonRecorded 15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and SuperstitionsSegment 3 of 9 in the recording2018-04-15b-S03

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This segment10:13 to 15:23 · 5 min 10 sGeneral teaching

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In the Quran the magic of Pharaoh's magicians was only an illusion; Musa's fear was a natural human reaction, not proof that the magic was real.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth says the claim of any fantasy magic is absurd, and that the Quran's verses on magic mostly concern Musa, in whose time magic was the thing of the age. He cites Musa calling their work only the plot of a magician, the showdown set for the forenoon, which he links to commentators' explanation that quicksilver reacts to sunlight, and the verses saying the ropes only seemed to move and that they bewitched the eyes of the people. He notes that Musa felt a slight fear, which, citing al-Razi transmitting from Hasan al-Basri, he calls a natural fear like being startled by a creaking floorboard, while the magic remained an illusion. He says scholars including, reportedly, Abu Hanifa, and later Ibn Ashur and the shaykhs of al-Azhar such as al-Maraghi [?] and Shaltut [?], held that it was only illusion.

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Position stated

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Mufti Abu Layth says the claim of any fantasy magic is absolutely absurd.

In his words

“so this is what magic in essence was and how it was now the claim for any fantasy magic is absolutely absurd”

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Transcript

machine10:13 to 15:23 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
9:34

people would use remember they may believe that it's blessing but today we've actually got explanations of how they work and the third one category is what they call shot weather which is like illusions and trickery and like magic tricks that you see on stage and illusionist Derren Brown and people like this doing all these kind of tricks that look Wow and amazing except you know today these people will tell you they may not tell you how they did the trick but they'll tell you this is a trick yeah this isn't like like you heard the sheriff say they turn paper into money and do all of this and turn something into an iPhone and but it doesn't really work like that that's and that's common

10:12

sense okay just - so this is what magic in essence was and how it was now the claim for any fantasy magic is absolutely absurd now when we take a look at the Quran there is a verse and I'll come back to that and the sheriff already spoke about that one the heart and marut kind of verse but looking at the other verses that are all speaking about the about magic they're usually to do with moosa aleihsalaam because magic was such a big deal in his time such a big deal it was the thing of the age the magic and and

10:51

when moosa aleihsalaam addresses them that he says that look all you've done is this is just a kid or sir here so the attitude to it said is it's thing like this is just a plot or the work of a magician well I usually hear Ohio utter magicians I mean and this doesn't mean you flee as in success success success in the Archaea and stuff like this it means like it doesn't mean anything but what does this even mean like it's nothing that what you've kind of brought here and you see Allah uses the verse in the Quran that when they

11:31

did the magician said okay we're gonna do let's have an event let's have a showdown Clash of the Titans is going down so they're so they said we're gonna have this and Pharaon said call the you know that Don Sahara and they came and the Don magicians and they set a time as well they were very specific with what time da ha has to be early morning and I'm a first sitting right because a lot of what they were using was things like Quicksilver which reacts to the sunlight at a particular time more strongly and so it's interesting how they explain this but now they have this this magic

12:09

thing and they do this and and Allah mentions what you hate yellow Olay him that well you hate you know that this is only a hi al this isn't it doesn't really have any kind of reality to it that you hate yellow la him in Sahara him and Natasha it looks like they are animated and moving that's in another verse Allah says was Sahara our union nurse that they did magic on the eyes of people once again referring to that but I wanted to and Musa Alisa I'm addressing this as well with this whole thing of look at your attitude

12:48

I bring you half a car I bring you I talk alone a little Hawk tale Imagi I come that is that how you treat the truth when it comes to you is that you say to it as a Sahara nada but this is just magic the magic meant just nonsense now an interesting point here to mention is that a lot of this depends on the ominous effect the ominous culture that we get scared like when we see something so you heard a story earlier on you know people

13:27

couldn't explain this they saw you know somebody the great Indian rope trick and and they freaked out now it's this freaking out that plays into this culture but this freaking out is in a way very human and I think it's important that Allah mentions this in the Quran then but you know that they did this for Oh Josephine FC here see Fatima Musa Musa al-salaam got afraid slightly when they did this it wasn't that that you see some of them for Syrian said that oh maybe got scared because people are gonna start listening

14:06

to them but you see like for Adina Razi transmits from Hassan was sorry that this was a hobby ie it was a natural fear and that's okay that you can you can be afraid like if you see something you freaks you out rationally you see look you can walk down in your house you can no nobody else is here and then all of a sudden a floorboard creaks now you can know nobody's there rationally you can know it but you freaked out you could think is it paranormal activity am i starting in starring in Episode

14:43

five or whatever is the thing is you see it's natural you can think like that that's so this is important that Allah mentioned that to show that people will be afraid but it was still a high al it didn't make it real it was still a high L just to kind of highlight that and many Allah my you heard people the chef mentioned the names of allah ma addressed this some allah ma have highlighted that this was the understanding of imam abu hanifa as well that way highlighting that there is no you know it's just an illusion nothing beyond that there were people obviously you've heard quotes from even haslam a voice hapless for a Eenie

Paragraphs overlapping 10:13 to 15:23. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

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Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2018-04-15b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pifqxkwyrwg/s/3/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, April 15). Magic in the Quran: Musa and Pharaoh's magicians, an illusion [Video, segment 2018-04-15b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pifqxkwyrwg/s/3/
Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "Magic in the Quran: Musa and Pharaoh's magicians, an illusion." Video, segment 2018-04-15b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 15, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pifqxkwyrwg/s/3/
BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-04-15b-S03,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Magic in the Quran: Musa and Pharaoh's magicians, an illusion}},
  year = {2018},
  month = {4},
  date = {2018-04-15},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pifqxkwyrwg/s/3/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pifqxkwyrwg/s/3/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2018-04-15b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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