—said: “Incantations, amulets, and love-charms are acts of associationism.” The amulets (tamāʾim) are the pouches and talismans that people hang up to ward off harm, cure illness, and the like. This ruling is general: it applies to everything that is hung up, even when it contains verses from the Qur’an, because it causes the heart to cling to something other than Allah, opens the door to hanging objects that are outright unlawful, and entails showing disrespect toward the Noble Qur’an. When the Qur’an is written in this fashion—as pouches, talismans, and amulets—and then suspended on children or on people who do not safeguard themselves from impurity or who enter filthy places, it is being exposed to humiliation.

In sum, the Muslim must avoid all such practices. The conduct that is confirmed by authentic hadiths is to recite directly over the sick person; this is the prescribed ruqyah (therapeutic recitation). Either the reciter comes and reads over the patient or over the affected area, or the patient himself recites over his own body—and this is better and more complete. That is what is legislated.

As for writing charms and hanging pouches, talismans, and amulets, it is impermissible for a Muslim to deal with them at all. Those who manufacture such items are not to be trusted with the Muslims’ creed, nor with what they insert into these objects. Most of them are ignorant, unable to distinguish truth from falsehood, while some are deliberate deceivers who aim to mislead people and swindle them—exciting their hopes in order to take their money and strip them of their wealth.