Writing and hanging amulets and talismans

Question: In Sudan some people go to the mufti or to a mutawwiʿ (a local religious practitioner) and say, “Write me a muḥāya, give me al-Fātiḥah, or compose an amulet that will make my affairs easier.” Is this permissible? Kindly advise us, and may Allah reward you.

Answer: A Muslim must safeguard his creed—the creed of tawḥīd that binds him to his Lord, forms the very foundation of his religion, and is the key to his happiness in this world and the next. He has to protect it from anything—words, deeds, innovations, or superstitions—that could harm or blemish it, by relying upon Allah, seeking His help, pinning his hopes on Him, and never calling upon anyone besides Allah to procure benefit or avert harm:

“If Allah touches you with affliction, none can remove it but He; and if He intends good for you, none can repel His bounty. He causes it to reach whom He wills among His servants, and He is the All-Forgiving, the Merciful.” (Qur’an 10:107)

As for what the questioner mentioned—going to a mutawwiʿ or to the one he calls a mufti and asking him to write al-Fātiḥah or to prepare amulets and talismans—this is impermissible, because it constitutes attachment to something other than Allah. Some of these talismans are outright acts of associationism when they contain polytheistic phrases, such as seeking help from jinn or devils, unknown names, or when they include disjointed letters. Amulets of this sort are considered shirk against Allah, and it is unlawful to write them or hang them, by the consensus of the scholars.

If the amulet or written charm contains passages from the Qur’an, then the sounder of the two scholarly opinions is likewise that it is not permissible to wear it, because the Prophet ﷺ—