Ibn Hajar reported a consensus permitting ruqyah consisting of passages from the Quran and Sunnah, as well as words whose meanings are known in Arabic. In this connection, he related conditions that themselves require further conditions. Other conditions, beyond those related by al-Hafiz Ahmad ibn Hajar, were also stated: before him, Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah had added one condition in Majmū al-Fatāwā, while his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah added two in Zād al-Maād and I'lām al-Muwaqqi'īn, bringing the total to six. This makes me question the validity of the reported consensus. Nevertheless, if this consensus is authentic, I shall be the first to uphold it and cast my own view aside. Al-Suyūtī and others followed al-Hafiz in this regard.
Although the conditions they mentioned are sufficient, few practitioners pay proper attention to them. It is evident that we are dealing with two kinds of practitioners, with perhaps no third category. The first consists of practitioners from Ahl al-Sunnah. Even those among them who consider ruqyah using material not reported in the Sunnah permissible nevertheless restrict their treatments to the Sunnah. This is well known of them, so there is no need to prolong the discussion with examples.
The second kind consists of charlatans and their imitators, most of whom are sorcerers. The spells they recite contain shirk and blatant disbelief—or, at the very least, words whose meanings are unknown. These people are numerous. There is no might or power except through Allah. Undoubtedly, they alone stand to benefit from the claim that ruqyah is, in principle, a matter of experience, for this enables them to deceive people and avoid being accused of leaving the fold of Islam.
As for Ahl al-Sunnah, the Sunnah suffices them, as I have said. Our religion is founded upon tawhīd (affirming Allah’s oneness), and in the cause of Allah we count our lives as nothing. By Allah, we seek through this only to uphold tawhīd and safeguard the sanctity of the creed. Take heed, then, O people of insight.