in the Lord of daybreak” and “Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of humankind”—these two surahs. (1)
The Hadith of Abū Sa‘īd al-Khudrī (may Allah be pleased with him)
Abū Nadrah reported that Abū Sa‘īd al-Khudrī said: Allah’s Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) used to seek refuge from the evil eye of the jinn and the evil eye of human beings. When the two surahs of refuge were revealed, he adopted them and left aside everything else. (2)
It has also been narrated that Abdullah ibn Mas‘ūd (may Allah be pleased with him) would say: The Prophet of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) disliked ten practices: yellow coloring—that is, the scented dye known as khalūq; altering gray hair; dragging the lower garment; wearing a gold ring; displaying adornment where it did not belong; playing with dice; performing ruqyah except with the surahs of refuge; tying amulets; withdrawing semen “to somewhere other than its proper place”—or: “outside its proper place”; or: “away from its proper place”; and having intercourse with a nursing mother, thereby harming her infant, though he did not declare it unlawful. (3)
This report, however, is not authentic. Ruqyah by means other than the two surahs of refuge is reliably established through reports reaching the level of mass transmission in meaning. That position might nevertheless be supported by the hadith of Abū Sa‘īd: “He adopted them and left aside everything else.” Yet this latter wording is more precise.
The mere coordination of these matters in one list does not mean that they all share the same ruling. Accordingly, if the statement of Ibn Mas‘ūd (may Allah be pleased with him) were authentically established from him, his words concerning the surahs of refuge should be understood to mean that the “dislike” mentioned here does not constitute a legal injunction to refrain from seeking refuge through anything else—that is, the term is not being used in its technical sense. Rather, it means leaving the other formulas aside, as Abū Sa‘īd (may Allah be pleased with him) said.