Likewise, anyone who denies it and says, “There is no such thing as sorcery; sorcery has no reality,” and the like, has repudiated what is found in the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

Question: When we speak of “belief,” does this include believing that sorcery is actually practiced, or believing that it is lawful?

Answer: “Belief” (tasdīq) may refer to confirming the reality of sorcery—its existence, its harmfulness, and the fact that it truly occurs. This, as we have said, is obligatory: one must acknowledge that sorcery exists, that it causes harm, that it is disbelief, and one must hold the conviction that it is disbelief and misguidance.

Question: So the belief that is forbidden is, as you have stated, to believe that practising sorcery is permissible or to accept what the sorcerer claims?

Answer: Yes. It is to believe the sorcerer when he claims knowledge of the unseen, or to regard sorcery as something good, permissible, or merely another craft among crafts.

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Belief in Sorcery

Question: How sound is the ḥadīth that says, “Three will not enter Paradise: the habitual wine-drinker, the severer of ties of kinship, and the one who believes in sorcery”? And what exactly does “belief in sorcery” mean? Is it believing in the sorcerer’s power, or believing that what the bewitched person perceives has actually changed even before he was bewitched? Please clarify this issue. May Allah reward you.

Answer: As for the ḥadīth to which the questioner refers—“Three will not enter Paradise …” —it was reported by Imām Aḥmad and by Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ; al-Ḥākim declared it authentic, and al-Dhahabī concurred. May Allah have mercy on them all.