وَمِن شَرِّ ٱلنَّفَّٰثَٰتِ فِى ٱلْعُقَدِ
In Arabic three degrees of blowing are distinguished, and the books of the language record this distinction regularly:
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| نفخ (nafkh) | Blowing without saliva; air only. The blowing of the trumpet is named with this word |
| نفث (nafth) | Blowing lightly, with a little saliva. Very little moisture leaves the mouth |
| تفل (tafl) | Blowing with spitting; the state in which the moisture is marked |
In the verse the middle one has been chosen. This shows the physical character of the work described: a work done with voice and breath, but one that does not remain entirely "in the air". An operation in which a recited word is thought to be transferred onto an object by being blown.
The word has other uses as well. It is used of a snake's spraying venom. And of poetry: the Arabs would describe the poet's inspiration with nafth — something being blown inward. It is transmitted that in a saying ascribed to the Prophet in the ḥadīth sources the expression "the Holy Spirit blew into my heart (nafatha fī rawʿī)" occurs. The root, then, can be used of a good transmission too; the negative charge in the verse comes not from the word itself but from the context.
The pattern: نَفَّاثَات — it is the plural of the faʿʿāla pattern. In Arabic this pattern conveys intensification: one who does a thing much, who has become identified with that work. Like ʿallāma (one who knows much), raḥḥāla (one who travels much). The verse, that is, describes not one who blows once but one who has made this his occupation.
Root: ع-ق-د. Its concrete sense is to tie a knot, to bind, to tie two ends to one another. ʿUqda — knot; its plural is ʿuqad.
- ʿaqd (عقد): a contract. The binding of two parties to one another. In the Qurʾān: "O you who believe! Fulfil the contracts" (al-Māʾida 5/1). It is used of the "binding" of an oath as well (al-Māʾida 5/89).
- ʿaqīda (عقيدة): belief. The thing to which the heart binds itself.
- iʿtiqād (اعتقاد): to believe; to be knotted to something.
- ʿuqda used figuratively: a knot, a matter that cannot be untied. It occurs in Moses's prayer: "Loosen the knot in my tongue" (Ṭāhā 20/27).
In Arabic, then, "being bound" is at once a physical, a legal and a doctrinal concept. The word the verse chooses stands inside this network.
The verse points to a concrete practice: tying knots in a cord, and reciting something over each knot and blowing on it. This was a form of magic known in pre-Islamic Arabia and over a wider geography. The knot represents the symbolic bond established with the person targeted; the blowing is the loading of the word onto that bond. The untying of the knot was counted as the lifting of the effect.
There is historical information about the practice itself; its details and its regional forms are the subject of the history of religions and of ethnography.
The word has come as a feminine plural. This is one of the points most dwelt on, and the explanations transmitted are these:
| Explanation | Ground |
|---|---|
| Women who work magic | That in that period this work was mostly done by women; the most direct rendering of the wording |
| "The blowing souls" (al-nufūs al-naffāthāt) | In Arabic nafs is feminine; the qualified noun has been elided and the adjective has remained. On this reading the question of sex disappears entirely |
| "The blowing groups" (al-jamāʿāt) | Jamāʿa is feminine; the same logic |
| The tāʾ of intensification | The tāʾ in the faʿʿāla pattern conveys not femininity but excess (as in ʿallāma, rāwiya). In that case the word is without sex |
| Spirits, souls in general | The comprehensive form of those above |
A caution is needed. The second, third and fourth explanations show that the word's coming feminine may arise from a grammatical necessity or from intensification. These explanations are found in the classical commentaries; they are not excuses invented afterwards.
And as a matter of principle this needs to be stated: the verse issues no ruling about a sex; it issues one about an act. This is the general method of the Qurʾān — the attribute is described, and whoever bears that attribute falls within the ruling. The other three items of evil in the sūra (the evil of created things, the darkness, the envier) are defined by way of an act and a state as well; here too what is defined is the work.
There are also widening readings made in later periods: "blowing on knots" has been understood as corrupting ideas, decisions and relationships by secretly blowing words onto them. I do not present this reading as the literal meaning of the verse — the verse speaks of a concrete practice. But the image the word carries (working with words, in secret, upon a bond) lends itself to this widening, and I shall return to it in the section "What this says to the present".
Three particular evils are counted in the sūra, and two of them are indefinite while one is definite:
1. A pointer to a known practice (ʿahd). In Arabic the article al- is used to point to a particular thing the addressee knows. The first addressees knew this practice; what is said is "those blowers".
2. Darkness and envy are general states any person may meet with; this, on the other hand, is an act belonging to a particular group. The general ones have come indefinite, the particular one definite.
This verse is one of the central texts of the debate about magic in Islamic thought. Rather than issuing a sweeping ruling on the subject, it is more correct to show the ground of the debate.
The Qurʾān speaks of magic in several places, and what it says can be gathered under these three points:
1. Magic is named as a fact. al-Baqara 2/102 is the most detailed verse on the subject: it speaks of what was sent down to Hārūt and Mārūt in Babylon, and says that people learned "things by which they might part a man from his wife".
2. But the same verse draws the limit of the effect. In the same verse there is this restriction: "Yet they could harm no one by it except by God's leave." This sentence coincides exactly with the whole logic of the sūra: evil is not an independent power. Magic constitutes no exception.
3. Part of magic is the deceiving of the eye. In the narrative of Moses: "Their ropes and their staffs, because of their magic, appeared to him to be moving" (Ṭāhā 20/66) — the key word here is yukhayyalu, "it was made to appear". And: "They bewitched the eyes of the people" (al-Aʿrāf 7/116). And for the end of magic: "God will surely bring it to nothing" (Yūnus 10/81).
| View | Claim | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| Magic has a real effect | It can make a real change in bodies and in events — but always by God's leave and within the limit He has set | al-Baqara 2/102; the command to take refuge in this verse; the general reports |
| Magic is illusion and deception | It has no real effect; it is eyewash, suggestion and sleight of hand | yukhayyalu in Ṭāhā 20/66; "they bewitched the eyes" in al-Aʿrāf 7/116 |
| An intermediate position | Part of it is deception, part suggestion and psychological effect; the claim of a real physical effect is a separate matter | The reading of the two groups of verses together |
It is said that the general tendency of the Muʿtazila is close to the second view, and that the majority of the Sunnī theologians incline to the first. I state no preference.
As for its legal side: the ruling on working magic is a separate topic in the books of fiqh, and there are differences of weight among the schools of law. No legal ruling is issued in this text; it can only be recorded that the tradition unanimously condemns the working of magic, and that it is counted neither an act of service nor a legitimate occupation.
What the verse itself says, on the other hand, is narrow and clear: refuge is taken with God from this. The sūra does not describe magic, does not classify it, does not teach a counter-technique. It points in a single direction.