; and Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Wahb narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Ḥarb narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd narrated to us; al-Zuhrī reported—from ʿUrwah, from Zaynab bint Abī Salamah, from Umm Salamah—that
“The Prophet ﷺ saw in her house a young girl with a dark mark on her face and said, ‘Seek ruqyah (therapeutic Qur’anic incantation) for her, for she has been struck by the evil eye.’”
Al-Bukhārī (1) transmitted this ḥadith on the authority of Muḥammad al-Dhuhlī.
I also possess Muḥammad ibn Ḥarb’s report with a higher isnād (chain of transmission) concerning the characteristics of the hypocrite.
18 – The Barmakid Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar, the royal vizier
He was the son of the great vizier Abū ʿAlī Yaḥyā, son of the vizier Khālid ibn Barmak the Persian.
Khālid counted among the foremost men of his time, rising to the highest ranks under Abū Jaʿfar. His son Yaḥyā attained complete pre-eminence and great dignity, to the point that the Caliph al-Mahdī entrusted his own son Hārūn al-Rashīd to him; Yaḥyā reared and educated the boy with excellence. Then, when the caliphate devolved
(1) Bukhari, Sahih, Book of Medicine, 10/171-172, chapter “Ruqya (incantation) for the evil eye”; also Muslim, Sahih, no. 2197, Book of Greetings, chapter “The recommendation to treat the evil eye with ruqya.” Transmitted through Abu al-Rabiʿ Sulayman b. Dawud from Muhammad b. Harb with this same isnad.
Al-safʿa: according to Ibrahim al-Harbi it is a dark patch on the face; al-Asmaʿi says it is redness overlaid by blackness; others describe it as yellowness, or black mixed with another colour. Ibn Qutayba summarises: a shade that differs from the normal complexion.
Al-nadhra denotes the evil eye, i.e. a person who has been struck by an envious glance.
(*) Khalifa, Tarikh, p. 458; Ibn Qutayba, Al-Maʿarif, p. 382; al-Tabari, Tarikh, 8/252, 255, 262, 266, 291, 300 (events of the year 187); Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, Al-ʿIqd al-Farid, 5/53; al-Jahshiyari, Al-Wuzara wa-l-Kuttab, p. 204; al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 7/152; Ibn al-Athir, Al-Kamil, 6/140, 151, 152, 161, 168, 175, 184; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-Aʿyan, 1/328, 346; al-Dhahabi, Al-ʿIbar, 1/298; Id., Duwal al-Islam, p. 118; Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 10/189, 194; Ibn Taghri Birdi, Al-Nujum al-Zahira, 2/123; Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 1/311; Commentary on Ibn ʿAbdun’s Qasidah, p. 222.