Chapter Sixteen — On the Reality of Sorcery and Soothsaying and What Resembles Them

So we say: You have already learned that it is possible for a person, along the path of evil, to win through to some of the ranks of the inward (al-bāṭin). And there it is possible for him to become apprised of some of the connections that obtain in our bodily world, seizing upon some of them to derive wondrous effects — whether without any aid from matter, by the sheer power of the soul, or with its aid. Again, [this is] either by acting upon the imagination of souls — which is what is called sorcery of the eyes — or by external effects such as healing, sickening, subjugation, love, hatred, or the like. All of this is called sorcery (al-siḥr). And he may [likewise] become apprised of events past and future, or hidden, or of inner thoughts, or other than that.

Of this same kind is the subjugation of jinn and spirits: purifying the soul and strengthening it so as to rise above them, bringing it to a rank above their existence, and then subjugating them and employing them in what human beings have not the strength to do — particular instances of certain, mass-transmitted report (al-tawātur) in the ages past and in our present age. And it seems that soothsaying (al-kihāna) — according to what has reached us of the reports of the soothsayers — consists in becoming apprised of a kind of hidden things by a report from the jinn, on account of a familiarity that comes about between them and certain people. Such a person is the soothsayer — whether by nature, or by coercion and subjugation (whether through the person's own acquisition or through the power of someone above him in [the art of] subjugation and employment) — as is done in this age of ours with the epileptic and the afflicted.

The criterion in all of this is inclination to falsehood (al-bāṭil) and connection with it; so there is no reason for [further] prolonging [the discussion]. Let this be the last of the discourse set down in this book.

And let it be known that the hadiths that have come down in the sacred Sharīʿa of Islam concerning these final topics are many, though we have not cited them — despite their confirming all of this — because the discourse in this book is set down by way of pure reason. In this we have guarded ourselves against building upon most of what lies among the other disciplines, save what necessity compelled us to; and these are well-established matters, exceedingly clear. Praise be to God for the completion, and blessing upon the People of the House of infallibility and the messengership, and peace. The completion fell on the morning of Saturday, the eleventh night having passed of the month of Jumādā al-Ākhira, of the months of the year one thousand three hundred and fifty of the Prophetic Hijra — God bless him and grant him peace.