The authentic hadith of Abū Saʿīd cited earlier describes Gabriel’s healing invocation for the Prophet ﷺ, which includes:
“In the name of Allah, I recite a healing invocation over you against everything that harms you, against the evil of every soul or envious eye. May Allah heal you.”
This includes seeking refuge from the evil of the envier’s eye.
It is well known that his eye does not exert an influence by itself. If he were to look at someone heedlessly, paying him no attention, just as he looks at the earth, a mountain, or anything else, he would have no effect on him. But when he looks at him with his wicked soul aroused, grown venomous and inflamed, becoming wrathful, malicious, and envious, that state gives his gaze its effect. It then affects the person envied in proportion to that person’s weakness and the strength of the envier’s soul. It may ruin and destroy him, like someone who aims an arrow at an unprotected man and strikes him in a vital spot. Or it may strike him down and make him ill. The experiences of ordinary people and those of distinction alike are too numerous to recount.
This eye exerts its influence only through the wicked soul. In this respect, it resembles a snake whose venom takes effect when it bites in an agitated state. It assumes a state of anger and malice, and that state produces venom within it, which then affects the person bitten. In some kinds of snake, this state may become so powerful and intense that it takes effect through a mere glance, destroying sight and causing miscarriage. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned this concerning the short-tailed snake and the two-striped snake, saying:
“Kill them both, for they destroy sight and cause miscarriage.”
If this is true of snakes, what, then, of evil, wrathful, envious souls when they assume their wrathful state, become venomous, and direct themselves towards the person envied in that state? By Allah, how many have been killed! How many despoiled! How many once healthy people have become bedridden and wasted away, while their physician says, “I do not know what his illness is.” He speaks the truth. This illness does not belong to the science of bodily constitutions. It belongs to the knowledge of spirits, their attributes and states, their effects on bodies and their constitutions, and the way bodies respond to them.
This is knowledge possessed only by a select few; those whose perception is veiled deny it. No one knows this influence, its connection with the bodily constitution, and the latter’s response to it unless he has some experiential knowledge of it.
Are bodies anything but pieces of wood cast aside? And do responsiveness, influence, and the occurrence of what