Sihr and Children: A Careful Guide for Parents

A child's behaviour changes. School reports worsen. They will not sleep, or wake terrified, or seem to have become someone else over the course of a year.

Parents in this situation are frightened and want an answer. And there is one readily available in many communities, offered with confidence and sympathy: something has been done to the child.

This article asks parents to slow down, because the stakes here are higher than anywhere else in this subject.

What the sources describe

Practitioners report effects on children appearing mainly in behaviour and learning: persistent misbehaviour unresponsive to any approach, sudden decline in school performance, refusal to engage with learning, unusual night fears, disturbed sleep, and marked personality change.

They also note that a child may be affected through a parent, or from very early in life.

Why this must be approached differently

Three reasons, and each is serious on its own.

Children cannot advocate for themselves. An adult can refuse a session, walk out, or say that something feels wrong. A child cannot. Whatever adults decide is what happens to them.

The window for intervention is time-limited. Learning difficulties, developmental conditions, hearing and vision problems all respond dramatically better to early support. A child assessed at six has options a child assessed at fourteen has largely lost. Years spent pursuing spiritual explanations are years taken from that window, and they do not come back.

Children are vulnerable to what is done to them in the name of treatment. This needs saying plainly. Children have been frightened, restrained, struck, and subjected to prolonged distressing sessions by people claiming to expel something from them. It is documented, it has caused lasting psychological damage, and in the worst cases it has killed children.

No legitimate practitioner does any of this. Ruqya is recitation. If anyone proposes anything physical, coercive or frightening for your child, remove your child immediately.

What to investigate first

Every sign on the list has common, treatable explanations.

Learning and attention. Dyslexia, dyscalculia and ADHD affect large numbers of children and are frequently identified late, particularly in children who are bright enough to compensate for a while. The typical presentation is exactly what gets described: capable child, declining results, apparent refusal to try.

Hearing and vision. Astonishingly often overlooked. A child who cannot hear the teacher or see the board looks inattentive and disengaged. A basic test resolves it.

Anxiety. Children rarely articulate anxiety. It presents as irritability, refusal, stomach aches, sleep problems and night fears.

Bullying. Personality change, school reluctance, withdrawal, sleep disturbance. Children very often do not tell their parents, and the change can look sudden and total.

Home stress. Children absorb marital tension, financial strain, bereavement and family illness, and express it behaviourally rather than verbally.

Sleep problems. A child who is not sleeping properly will show almost every symptom on the sihr list. Sleep apnoea in children is common, underdiagnosed, and highly treatable.

The sequence to follow

• Talk to the school. Teachers see your child in a context you do not. Ask what they observe and when it started.
• See the doctor. Request hearing and vision testing and a developmental assessment. Be specific about what changed and when.
• Ask what happened. Around the time the change began: a move, a new sibling, a death, a change of class, a friendship ending.
• Talk to the child. Without leading them, and without introducing the idea that something spiritual is wrong with them. That belief can itself become a burden they carry for years.
• Recite over them daily. This is Sunnah and needs no practitioner. The Prophet, peace be upon him, sought refuge for Hasan and Husayn using the words that ask Allah to protect them from every devil, every harmful creature, and every envious eye.

A note on autism

The book, like some older material in this field, associates autism in children with jinn presence.

This should be set aside entirely. Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference with a substantial evidence base behind it. Autistic children benefit enormously from early identification, appropriate educational support, speech and occupational therapy, and understanding from the adults around them.

Treating an autistic child as possessed causes direct harm. It delays support, frames the child as afflicted rather than different, and has led to autistic children being subjected to distressing and sometimes dangerous procedures.

If your child is autistic, recite over them, love them, and get them every piece of support available. Those are not competing options.

What every parent should do regardless

Recite the mu'awwidhat over your children each night. Teach them Ayat al-Kursi. Say bismillah over their food. Make dua for them by name.

This is protective, it is Sunnah, it costs nothing, and it does not depend on anything being wrong. It is simply how the Prophet, peace be upon him, cared for the children around him.