What is the method for identifying the one who casts the evil eye?

The questioner : This is a continuation of the previous question, and another question: How is the one who casts the evil eye identified? And the next question is: What is the jurisprudential understanding of the hadith ? Is there anything excluded from that? Is there anything excluded from this hadith?

The Shaykh : As for the method of identifying the one who casts the evil eye, we know of nothing mentioned in the Sunnah. Rather, it is referred to circumstantial evidence. The story I mentioned earlier concerns two men who went out to the wilderness. One of them descended into a lake after undressing his upper body. When his companion saw him, he said, "I have never seen anything like today." He was pleased with the beauty of his body and perhaps the whiteness of his skin. Before the man could finish his speech, the other man began to struggle and thrash in the water in the lake until he nearly drowned. Then he came out, or was pulled out. His family went to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and recounted the story to him. He said: They said, "It is so-and-so who was with him." He was brought, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered him to do what was mentioned earlier, with the brevity I referred to. This circumstantial evidence is what identified the one who casts the evil eye as the one who was with him. As for other circumstantial evidence, we do not know of anything in the Sunnah that specifies the one who casts the evil eye. However, on this occasion, it appears that some people are known among their communities for being afflicted by the evil eye. Therefore, some jurists have mentioned a ruling, but we do not consider it prescribed because it is not found in the Sunnah. Moreover, it involves disabling the power of sight. They mentioned that if a person is known to afflict others with his eye, an iron rod is brought and heated in fire, then this iron rod is brought close to the eye of the one who casts the evil eye until its light is extinguished. With the extinguishing of its light, this magic present in the eye of the one who casts the evil eye is removed.
This has come in some books of the Hanafis. And this ruling, naturally, could not be applied if it were prescribed except for one who is famous for being afflicted by the evil eye. I heard a brother of mine, when we were in our original country, Albania, had a companion who said to my brother, "Come, let us go out to hunt for grapes." The houses there in Albania were not like the houses we have now, where we have imitated the Europeans. They were truly Islamic houses where there was no window from which a woman could look out so that she would not be seen. Even if this window had a type of mesh like a cage with holes through which one could see who was passing on the road or knocking on the door—and this exists in Jeddah to this day as old remnants—even these windows were not like that. The houses' windows looked only onto their courtyards. Then the walls were high and tall, and they planted grape trees there. I do not say "vineyards" because of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: So they planted these trellises in their houses abundantly and raised them until they rose above the high wall, and their branches would hang over the street, over the road. Then, consequently, when they set fruit and bore, the grapes would become visible in them when the time for harvesting came. And the companion of my brother would say to him, "Let us go hunt for grapes." How? It was merely that he would direct his eye to the bunch of grapes that pleased him, and it was as if he had cut it with scissors. So it appears that there, they know by experience that he is one who casts the evil eye. For example, there might be a gathering of women, specifically, and a boy whose health is good and who has no ailment or illness, and suddenly he turns upside down. They suspect one of the women sitting there, and the fingers point to her. If her attendance in another gathering is repeated over and over, she becomes famous for being one who casts the evil eye. At that time, it is necessary to protect the young boys and young girls with what our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to recite as a ruqyah for al-Hasan and al-Husayn, saying: So, we cannot adopt a specific method to distinguish the one who casts the evil eye from others, except if he is famous for being afflicted by the evil eye.