Covering the water source out of fear of the evil eye and its connection to reliance upon Allah
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
A man has a farm with an abundance of water, but his machine always breaks down. He said, “This is the evil eye; I will cover the water tap so that no one sees it, out of fear of the evil eye.” Is that permissible? Does this contradict reliance upon Allah? Is it taking an omen as a bad sign? Please give us a ruling. May Allah reward you with good.
Answer:
We know of nothing regarding this, and we know of nothing to object to if he sees that it is better to cover this thing or put something over it so that people do not see it, because the evil eye is by a person’s choice. Some people are afflicted by the evil eye without their choice; if they see something wonderful, their souls desire it, and something appears in it that may cause harm to people. So if he sees that he should avoid these things, that he should cover these things that he sees people might cast the evil eye on, because of the greed, eagerness, and ugliness of conduct and action in the hearts of some people, then we know of nothing wrong with this. We know of nothing wrong with guarding against the evil eye. The evil eye is real, just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: O evil. Some people may afflict many things with their eye. A person may become ill because of the evil eye, may die because of the evil eye, another animal may die because of the evil eye, a house may collapse because of the evil eye. The evil eye is real. So the believer must, in these matters, rely upon Allah, seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Shaytan, and engage in sound actions that are a cause for protection from the evil eye. We seek refuge in the perfect words of Allah, and when we become and when we go to sleep, multiple times, with the recitation Riyad as-Salihin 1457 the lower part three times when we become and when we go to sleep. These are among the causes of his safety, and the safety of his wealth and his animals, and everything he has from evil. He is protected, by the permission of Allah, from these evil effects by these prescribed means of seeking refuge.
A man has a farm with an abundance of water, but his machine always breaks down. He said, “This is the evil eye; I will cover the water tap so that no one sees it, out of fear of the evil eye.” Is that permissible? Does this contradict reliance upon Allah? Is it taking an omen as a bad sign? Please give us a ruling. May Allah reward you with good.
Answer:
We know of nothing regarding this, and we know of nothing to object to if he sees that it is better to cover this thing or put something over it so that people do not see it, because the evil eye is by a person’s choice. Some people are afflicted by the evil eye without their choice; if they see something wonderful, their souls desire it, and something appears in it that may cause harm to people. So if he sees that he should avoid these things, that he should cover these things that he sees people might cast the evil eye on, because of the greed, eagerness, and ugliness of conduct and action in the hearts of some people, then we know of nothing wrong with this. We know of nothing wrong with guarding against the evil eye. The evil eye is real, just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
The evil eye is real, and if anything had preceded the decree, the evil eye would have preceded it.
العين حق، ولو أن شيئا سبق القضاء لسبقه العين،with Whose Name there is protection against every kind of harm in the earth or in the heaven, and He
الذي لا ضر مع أسفل شيء في الأرض ولا في السماء، وهو
Source
ندوات الجامع الكبير مع الأسئلة - 52 — archive.org (59:46)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.