How Does Envy Take Effect?

Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

“There is no doubt that Allah, Glorified is He, created different powers and natures within bodies and spirits, and endowed many of them with properties and qualities that produce effects. No rational person can deny that spirits affect bodies, for this is something witnessed and perceived. You see how a person’s face flushes deeply when someone whom he holds in awe and before whom he feels shy looks at him, and how it turns deathly pale when someone he fears looks at him. People have witnessed some individuals fall ill from another’s gaze and lose their strength. All of this occurs through the influence of spirits. Because the spirit is so closely connected to the eye, the act is attributed to the eye; yet the eye is not the true agent—the effect comes from the spirit. Spirits differ in their natures, powers, qualities, and distinctive properties. Thus, the envier’s spirit plainly harms the envied. This is why Allah, Glorified is He, commanded His Messenger to seek refuge in Him from the envier’s evil.

“The envier’s power to harm the person he envies is something denied only by one estranged from the realities of human nature. This is the basis of harm caused by the evil eye: the wicked, envious soul assumes a wicked and harmful quality. Some such souls acquire a quality so intense and powerful that they can cause a miscarriage, while others can cause blindness. The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said concerning the short-tailed snake and the snake with two stripes: ‘They take away sight and cause miscarriage.’ (1)

“Some souls, by their very quality, affect a person merely upon seeing him, without any physical contact, because of the intense wickedness of that soul and its harmful, evil quality. Effects do not depend upon physical contact, as imagined by those whose knowledge and understanding of nature and the Sacred Law are limited. Rather, effects may occur in different ways: at times … through contact, at times through a face-to-face encounter, at times through sight, at times through a spirit directing itself toward the person it affects, at times through supplications, healing recitations, and invocations seeking refuge, and at times through mental suggestion and imagination … The soul of one who casts the evil eye does not require vision in order to exert its influence. He may even be blind: something is described to him, and his soul affects it although he has not seen it. Many who cast the evil eye affect its target merely from a description, without seeing it … These are arrows that issue from the soul of the envier and the one who casts the evil eye … directed toward the envied and the target of the evil eye; they sometimes strike him. If