The devils ally themselves with those who do what they love: associating partners with Allah, wickedness, and disobedience. Sometimes they tell such a person about certain hidden matters so that he may disclose them to others. At other times, they harm someone he wishes to harm, by killing him, making him ill, or the like. Sometimes they bring him whichever person he desires. Sometimes they steal people’s property for him—money, food, clothing, and other things—and he believes these to be miraculous gifts granted to Allah’s allies, when they are merely stolen goods. Sometimes they carry him through the air to a distant place.

Among them are people whom they take to Mecca on the afternoon of the Day of Arafah and then bring back. Such a person believes this to be a miraculous gift, although he has not performed the pilgrimage as Muslims do: he has neither entered ihrām (ritual consecration), nor recited the talbiya (pilgrimage invocation), nor circumambulated the House, nor traversed the distance between al-Safā and al-Marwa. It is well known that this is among the gravest forms of misguidance.

Some go to Mecca to circumambulate the House without undertaking an ‘umra (lesser pilgrimage) in accordance with Islamic law, and do not enter ihrām when they come abreast of the mīqāt (prescribed boundary for entering ihrām). It is well known that anyone intending to perform pilgrimage rites in Mecca may not pass beyond the mīqāt without entering ihrām. Even if he intends to go there for trade, to visit a relative, or to seek knowledge, he is likewise instructed to enter ihrām at the mīqāt. Is this obligatory or recommended? Scholars hold two well-known opinions on the matter.

This is a broad subject. It includes sorcery and soothsaying, and it has been discussed at length elsewhere. The idol-worshipping polytheists, and those Christians and innovators within this community who resemble them, have so many accounts of such things that describing them would take a long time. No one habitually invokes a dead person and seeks his aid—whether a prophet or someone else—without having heard accounts of such things that have contributed to his misguidance.

Likewise, those who invoke them in their absence and seek their aid see someone who has their appearance, or whom they believe to have their appearance. He says, “I am so-and-so,” speaks to them, and fulfils some of their needs. They then suppose that the deceased person whose aid they sought is the one who spoke to them and fulfilled their request, whereas it is merely one of the jinn and devils.