What is the ruling on spirit summoning? The Shaykh mentioned a story that happened to him with a Dajjal who claimed to summon spirits.

The questioner : In the question; some people try what is called spirit summoning... they ask you...

The Shaykh : Did they summon spirits?

The questioner : Like this.

The Shaykh : And were they present at a session?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Strange.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : So we do not know what... this matter means; especially since there are things in the unseen that may happen.

The Shaykh : Not at all.

The questioner : That they ask questions.

The Shaykh : There are no unseen matters, and I challenge them, and if the summoned spirit were present [everyone laughs!].

The questioner : He mentioned that... this happened and he asked questions, and he answered the questions, and they were very secret...

The Shaykh : Yes, but it is not like that... the question and the purpose of the question before we ask the summoner and the medium...?

The questioner : No, I mean, what is the ruling on this thing, what is its secret? Especially since this happens.

The Shaykh: Yes.
Perhaps I will tell you about a session I attended, and perhaps you will get the answer in the course of telling it; more than ten years ago, a young man from Latakia came to me who used to attend my lessons. He asked a question like this: What is your opinion on summoning spirits, do you believe in it? I told him: I believe and I do not believe. He said to me: What does that mean? I told him: I believe that they gather and predict and make vows and claim that they summon spirits, but the truth is they do not summon the spirits they claim; I mean the spirits of the dead, but they summon jinn... and the jinn are indeed . He said: What is your opinion, will you come and attend? I told him: By Allah, I am eager, I have heard a lot and have not attended, neither a little nor a lot. He said: I have a relative on my wife's side named "Haqqi," and he told me his house is in a farm of ours in Syria, I used to hear about that place, he was an employee in the Shari'ah court and then he retired, and he specialized in summoning spirits, what is your opinion? I told him: I would like to attend for real.
We agreed on a day and indeed we went, we entered the living room, the living room is approximately this size, but something strange... they were arranged in a row, and you see... the strange thing, this is a gentleman, and this is an old woman, and another young woman, and a fourth and sixth... and this is an infant... we entered his small private room, I and my friend sat near the so-called summoner, he had a round table with a marble top on the upper part, and on it were numbers in a semi-circular shape, and the gathering around this circle began to complete, finally a woman wearing a hijab, not bad... her body, I do not know of course, her dress was long or short, she sat opposite the summoner, and with her sitting there was a medium who would bring papers containing a description of the place he wanted to summon, he wanted to ask him, he presented them to this president "Haqqi," and he began to study them paper by paper, and then = -- Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings -- = we did not see anything but the lights going out and a dim light remaining, and we were surprised that he began to say: There is no god but Allah, There is no god but Allah... the group, meaning the circle and the witnesses, the onlookers in the room, they also have to do this glorification, and the voice stopped, what? With the dhikr... one hundred times There is no god but Allah, There is no god but Allah, and a woman entered carrying a small child, of course he had the papers that had come to them from the medium, he said to the woman: Is your son's name so and so? She said: Yes. There is an upside-down cup, cups for drinking coffee, a bit large, he put the upside-down cup, he put his finger on the half, he is from one side.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : No, and his wife... the phrase his wife is from the other side, we did not see anything but the cup rotating on the titles, hey, here, here, here, here, and so on, he stops at a paper, he records, and so on, I do not know, it remained four or five times he does the operation, he records, the operation of recording... to answer this woman's question, hey. From the funny jokes, after he turned or did the turn, hey, the doctor turned and said to the woman: Your son is nine months old. She said to him: No, Doctor, he is eleven months old. The client of the summoner who was next to him, who was raising his voice with him and sitting at the table, said to her: Be quiet, be quiet, the spirit is saying that he is nine months old. That poor woman was shocked, she froze and was afraid and was quiet... that this is written, it is clear from here, the mother of course knows... her son, so this lie is clear from the first written thing.
The conclusion: That woman came out and gave the answer through the client, and a second one and a third one, and he was playing, he and his wife with this what? With the cup, and every trip he writes a word or two on the paper, an hour of time... from eight o'clock to nine o'clock, and the party ended and they turned on the lights, and the onlookers, I almost exploded from anger; they said: May Allah give you health, Doctor, May Allah reward you with good... he saw me silent and thinking, he remained how he would... with the person in the matter, when he saw me silent he said to me: What is the professor's opinion? I told him: By Allah, I have some questions if you allow. He said: Please...
...

The questioner : In front of the onlookers.

The Shaykh : Yes, in front of the onlookers, he said: Please... here is the witness of the case, before he opened the session, we heard this lying summoner... and if he said: And upon you be peace and Allah's mercy and blessings [everyone laughs!]. This one... the woman was quiet afterwards, hey, his helper said to him: Welcome, Doctor. I remained as he said: , I turned it over in my mind to the end, what?... So when he said to me: What is your opinion? I told him: I have some questions. He said: Please. I told him: We heard you saying: And upon you be peace and Allah's mercy and blessings, this is a response to a greeting, to whom did you respond to the greeting? He said: To the doctor... I told him: Strange, did you hear his greeting? He said: Yes. I told him: We did not hear it, what is the secret, your hearing is different from our hearing?! [everyone laughs!].

Another questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes?

Another questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : He stood up with this speech of mine. He told me: This is like a profession, what do you know about it? And if you had followed our path, you would have reached this truth... walk with him, I told him: Okay; and this friend of yours who said to him: Welcome; also this one heard like your story?... a little annoyed him.
The conclusion, I began to engage with him in a scientific discussion, I told him: Professor, I see the case will not be swallowed by us, neither from the Shari'ah side nor from the scientific side, first from the Shari'ah side, no matter how much you learn and no matter how much you study and no matter how much you specialize in the matter of summoning spirits, I think that your hearing will be like what Allah created it; it will not take a second nature that distinguishes it from all other people, therefore you need to make us believe in things contrary to nature, if we had a text in the Shari'ah , but here you yourself are not arguing from the Shari'ah, but rather you are saying: Science. Okay; where is this science... it says that it is possible for a person not to have a hearing sense... sounds from behind the world of the unseen? I think from the scientific side this is... not sound at all, and from the Shari'ah side, further and further; this spirit that was present, from which world did it come? From the world of the barzakh, and Allah - Mighty and Majestic - says: , this barzakh is a barrier between the connection between the living and the dead.
Second, this spirit: originally, you do not know it. Who knows if the spirit that comes to you will be that of a righteous person or a wicked one? Will it be the spirit of a cursed Satan, or a righteous believer among the believers? What... you receive it from whatever spirit is present, and you cling to it and believe that this spirit is truly... We have evidence from the material world we live in. When an ambassador from a foreign state comes to another state, wanting to establish political ties between them, I do not know what the many, numerous proofs that state sends with this ambassador are, until the head of the state he came to is convinced that he truly represents that state, and is not a charlatan with personal interests, and so on. There are material proofs. So when a spirit comes to you and says, "I am the spirit of Dr. So-and-So," how do you know that it might be a blacksmith or a carpenter, or... or, for example, a doctor who benefits the Muslims? What makes you know that he harms the Muslims and is a cursed Satan, and so on?
In summary: I began to raise such problems and doubts with him. From an Islamic, scientific, and rational perspective, this is absolutely not acceptable. I do not know if I have gone on too long. Finally, I said: I have a second question, which is attached to the first question. I want to test this spirit. What do you think? I have a question or more to test this spirit. In fact, I immediately fabricated a question from the science of hadith that is embarrassing, meaning, so that I would cause this spirit to actually have knowledge that few living people have, and we benefit from them. He said to me: I have no objection, but this is a medical session, and your question requires a scientific session. We have two sessions a week: a medical session on this day and a medical session on Sunday.

Another questioner : Scientific.

The Shaykh : I said to him: A scientific session on Sunday. I said to him: That is what I want. So our appointment is on Sunday? He said: Yes. For a wisdom that Allah willed, my friend who had brought me to him came on Sunday according to the appointment. So I excused myself to him and said: We have an appointment with Professor "Abd al-Rahman al-Bani." We were waging a battle with the shaykhs on one hand and the Ministry of Education on the other, regarding the curriculum. Professor "Abd al-Rahman al-Bani" was the best of our Salafi brothers, and he was the inspector of religious lessons at that time. That was during the era of the Mufti "Abu al-Yusr 'Abidin." He reformed the curriculum of religious lessons in Islamic education. We held sessions where he relied on me for the reform, especially in changing the material in the religious lessons. So he sent me a message that it was necessary for me to go to this "Haqqi," the spirit summoner, for the appointment I had previously made. I saw that meeting with my brother "Abd al-Rahman" was more important than visiting that man. So when my friend came, I excused myself to him and said: I am forced to stay tonight... So you go to him and see what happens, and present my excuse in reality, so that even if we go to him a second time, it would be... And that was the case. He returned to me the next day and said: I went to the house and found no one... at all. The door was closed, and the man was not there. I said: That is what I want. This is a cold windfall. I said to him: Go to him a second time and say to him in a phrase that makes him think I was not absent. Say to him: We arrived according to the appointment, so what happened, may Allah do you good? And he did so. He went to him and said to him: Doctor, according to what we agreed with you, we came to you and found no one in the house! He said to him: Go away. You brought me a big Wahhabi who does not love the Messenger! And this is the talk that these charlatans speak! He said to him: Professor, how did you know? He said to him: After you left, I held a scientific session.

Those present : [Everyone laughs!]

The Shaykh : The important thing is, I asked the spirit about this man, and he said to me: This is "Muhammad al-Nasir al-Albani." He is more famous than fire in the matter of misguidance and deviation, and a big Wahhabi, and so on. He does not love the Messenger. This was the spirit's answer. When the news reached me, I explained it with the following explanation—and this is roughly the crux of the whole story. I said: This man is either a charlatan among the charlatans of this... the story of spirit summoning that came from Europe is a new misguidance they have taken advantage of to deceive people in the name of medicine, in the name of science, and so on. And by any means of spirit summoning in the known religious sense—for example, a companion from the jinn who eavesdrops, and he throws a word to him, so he adds ninety-nine to it. People hit the mark in one and miss in ninety-nine. This is an old means. Now they have come out with this new means.
So this is either a man who is a charlatan deceiving people with this knowledge, and there is nothing at all, absolutely nothing, and it is not called... Or he truly has a companion from the devils. This devil may have more than one devil. So this devil provides him with some information that the devil inspires from the devils of mankind—also—or fabricates it from himself. So he connects with him in one of the connections... and whispers to him. So it is very possible that he is one of two things: he knows me previously, he heard my name, he may have asked who he is. He may not know me personally, so it was said to him that So-and-So is a Wahhabi who causes us trouble, and so on... Or truly a devil from the devils of the jinn who has that special connection between me and him whispered to him. So what does the jinn devil want to do? If there are no devils of mankind attacking this man with falsehood, then what will he do? He will establish the bad sunnah and attack this man with falsehood. So this devil threw this misguidance into the mind of this man, and transmitted it to our friend, who is his close one, as we said, from what? From the side of his wife. So I said: This incident confirms for me that the matter is a matter of devils; either devils of mankind working together, or devils of mankind cooperating with devils of the jinn. And if that is the case, then there is no wonder at that time that a devil from the devils of the jinn whispers to this summoner, in his special way, about some matters that are of the category of the unseen for the general people, but they are not of the unseen at all, no matter what incidents you have transmitted to us before I heard them, I will tell you immediately: There is nothing in these news and these predictions that tomorrow such and such will happen. This is impossible. But I am talking to my friend, I will keep in my heart how many qirsh are in my pocket? Ten. See if he guesses or not? The jinn caught it and transmitted it to him; he said to him: There are ten qirsh in your pocket. And similar examples. And I am on the path of experience... What did you see? ...

The questioner : Let the assembly listen, let the professor...

The Shaykh: Go ahead.