It has been reported that Ibn Masʿūd ⦗Allah be pleased with him⦘ forbade his wife from employing such pre-Islamic incantations. She replied, “Once I went out and So-and-so caught sight of me; the eye nearest to him began to water—that is, it was struck by an evil, envious glance. Whenever I apply the incantation, the tearing stops, and whenever I leave it off, the eye weeps again.” Ibn Masʿūd said to her, “That is Satan: if you obey him he lets you be, but if you disobey him he pokes his finger in your eye. Had you done what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did, it would have been better for you and more likely to cure you: you would sprinkle water into your eye and say, ‘Remove the harm, Lord of mankind; heal, for You are the Healer; there is no healing but Your healing—a healing that leaves behind no ailment.’” (Ghayat al-Marām ⦗148⦘) The Shaykh comments: “Authentic; it is the completion of the preceding ḥadith in Ibn Mājah 3530.”

The Shaykh ﵀ then says in al-Ṣaḥīḥah under ḥadith 2972, whose wording is: “Incantations, amulets, and tawala are shirk”:

“I had already traced it in al-Ṣaḥīḥah 331, together with the route of Qays ibn al-Sakan as transmitted by Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Mājah, Ibn Ḥibbān, and Aḥmad, using the wording cited in the chapter-heading while omitting the story and the other variants. A matter has now arisen that obliges a detailed discussion here. I say: this route revolves around Yaḥyā ibn al-Jazzār → the nephew of Zaynab, the wife of ʿAbd Allāh → Zaynab, the wife of ʿAbd Allāh → ʿAbd Allāh … . The narrators disagree concerning its text, yielding many variants; I will limit myself to what must be clarified:

“In general, the reports differ in length. The longest is the version of Abū Muʿāwiyah recorded by Aḥmad and al-Baghawī; Abū Dāwūd produced an abridged form, and of similar length is the narration of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bishr in Ibn Mājah. Both state that Zaynab, the wife of Ibn Masʿūd ⦗Allah be pleased with them⦘, used to visit a Jewish man who performed ruqyah for her! To me this is extremely objectionable—could a noble woman Companion like Zaynab really have sought an incantation from a Jew? By Allah, that is one of the enormities. Praise be to Allah that the chain affirming it is not authentic to her. Equally objectionable is what appears at the end of Ibn Bishr’s version, where Ibn Masʿūd tells Zaynab, ‘Had you done what the Messenger of Allah did, it would have been better for you and more conducive to healing: you would sprinkle water in your eye and say, “Remove the harm, Lord of mankind …,”’ the well-known supplication. The mention of sprinkling is unique to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bishr; Abū Muʿāwiyah—who is more reliable and better memorised—does not report it, especially since there is disagreement about Ibn Bishr himself.…

“I say: a narrator of this standing is graded ḥasan only when uncontested; if contradicted, he is not accepted—how much more so when above him stands an unknown transmitter whose very name is unknown, upon whom most of the routes of this ḥadith depend. Some narrators have omitted him, either inadvertently or deliberately, because of his obscurity.”

The Shaykh ﵀ then added:

“In light of this clarification, investigation, and detail, I ask my esteemed brothers who may come across something in my earlier works that conflicts with what is written here to correct and amend it accordingly—such as my grading in Ghayat al-Marām of the ḥadith in Ibn Mājah, in which the two aforementioned objectionable additions occur. Thank you.”

Here ends the abridgement of the book.