Whenever you have a culture, especially one that has not received a prophet (in pre islamic times) or has not received dawah or a revival from Muslims in a while, you see all these superstitions coming up. Like for paki and indian muslims, we unfortunately see people in villages believing things like leaving "shoes upside down causes a fight in the home" or in the US how some people believe that if a black cat crosses your path that's bad luck.... or in both, the belief that broken class or mirrors is bad luck.
All of that stuff is complete balogne, and should be thrown out the window. It basically will fall into the category of bida or shirk -- both of which are more than deadly
However, some may think that the "Evil Eye" or "Nazr" in urdu is just another superstition -- but in this case it is not. Every culture on the face of this planet has a term for "the evil eye." Usually when this is the case about something, it is valid. The same is the case for Allah, every language has a name for Him, whether they believe in him or not. The same goes for Angels and Demons (Jinn).
The prophet muhammad pbuh confirmed that the "Evil Eye" true. It basically occurs when person A is jealous of person B, and they look at them, and something happens in the spiritual realm that causes person B to be harmed. Mufti Mudassir says that (a or the) symptom is that person B gets a fever.
The root diseases of person A are:
- a love for the material world, because if it were not for that material advantage of person B, the jealousy wouldn't have been there.
- arrogance, because person A believes that s/he DESERVES the material good of B more than himself.
- the discontentment with the divine decree (Qadr). This is really the biggest arrogance, to believe that Allah's decree in what Allah has given somebody is flawed, and that your own decree is superior.
This is the disease of shaytan (specifically Iblis), he was jealous of our father Adam pbuh. Shaytan said he was better than Adam, and then ended up blaming Allah for shaytan's own screw-up.
The cure to this disease (jealousy) is very bitter, if you are person A, you should do this:
- first of all, always say mashAllah
- pray to God that he increase person B in whatever you are jealous of them about
- give a gift to person B.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf once said, "Jealousy is a very underestimated disease in the world today".
Secretary of state, Henry Kissinger said, "what's our oil doing under their soil" ... hahahaha, thought i'd throw that in.
Well anyway, the prevention of being affected by the evil eye is simple:- for person B to always hide his blessings. Mufti Mudassir said that it is natural for a human to tell others about something good that happened to him/her. But to protect against jealousy and the evil eye, one should hide these blessings, this is out of wisdom.
- for person A to say ma sha Allah (which literally means "what Allah willed"), and it is acknowledging that the decree of Allah is superior to what anybody else may wish.
Here's the ayah that i've been pondering in surah yusuf, where yusuf pbuh's father tells him to not tell his brothers about the great dream he received, because then shaytan can push them to could get jealous and try to get them to harm him:
إِذْ قَالَ يُوسُفُ لِأَبِيهِ يَا أَبتِ إِنِّي رَأَيْتُ أَحَدَ عَشَرَ كَوْكَبًا وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ رَأَيْتُهُمْ لِي سَاجِدِينَ
قَالَ يَا بُنَيَّ لاَ تَقْصُصْ رُؤْيَاكَ عَلَى إِخْوَتِكَ فَيَكِيدُواْ لَكَ كَيْدًا إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ لِلإِنسَانِ عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ
012.004 Behold! Joseph said to his father: "O my father! I did see eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw them prostrate themselves to me!"
012.005 Said (the father): "My (dear) little son! relate not thy vision to thy brothers, lest they concoct a plot against thee: for Satan is to man an avowed enemy!
SubHanAllah, what a book! Listen to it.
