Did the Prophet ﷺ Order the Killing of Sorcerers? A Refutation of the Doubt
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The hadith cited as the basis of this objection is weak and cannot be traced back to the Prophet ﷺ — a ruling made by the hadith masters themselves. The objection is: why did the Prophet ﷺ order the killing of male and female sorcerers? The objectors base this on Sunan al-Tirmidhī, no. 1380.
Sunan al-Tirmidhī 1380 — On the Authority of Jundub Aḥmad ibn Manī’ narrated to us, Abu Mu’āwiyah narrated to us, on the authority of Ismā’īl ibn Muslim, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, on the authority of Jundub, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“The punishment for a sorcerer is a blow with the sword.”
Grade: WEAK — see below
First: The Hadith Is Weak and Cannot Be Traced Back to the Prophet ﷺ
The weakness of this hadith was established by multiple hadith masters:
Imam al-Tirmidhī — Sunan al-Tirmidhī, no. 1380 (his own commentary) “This is a hadith that we do not know of as being attributed to the Prophet ﷺ except from this source. Ismā’īl ibn Muslim al-Makkī is considered weak in hadith because of his memory. The correct version on the authority of Jundub is — meaning it is the statement of Jundub himself, not the Prophet ﷺ.”
Imam al-Albānī — Al-Silsilah al-Ḍa’īfah no. 1446; Al-Mishkāt no. 3551; Ḍa’īf al-Jāmi’ al-Ṣaghīr no. 2699 Declared the hadith weak across three separate works.
Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī — Fatḥ al-Bārī “As for what al-Tirmidhī narrated from the hadith of Jundub, attributed to the Prophet ﷺ — ‘The punishment for a sorcerer is to strike him with the sword’ — there is weakness in its chain of transmission. If it were proven, it would have been excluded from it by those who have a covenant. It was mentioned in the chapter of Jizya from the narration of Bajalah: ‘Umar wrote to them to kill every sorcerer, male and female.’ And Abd al-Razzāq added from Ibn Jurayj, from ‘Amr ibn Dīnār, narrated from Bajalah: ‘So we killed three witches.’ Al-Bukhārī included the original hadith without the story of killing the witches.”
Al-Dhahabī — Al-Kabā’ir “The correct view is that it is from the words of Jundub himself.” — i.e., it is mawqūf, a statement of a Companion, not a prophetic narration.
Al-Munāwī — Fayḍ al-Qadīr “That is why he said in al-Fatḥ: There is weakness in its chain of transmission. Al-Dhahabī said in al-Kabā’ir: The correct view is that it is from the words of Jundub.”
Al-Ṭabarānī and al-Bayhaqī narrated it on the authority of Jundub with a chain going back to the Prophet ﷺ, but the chains contain the same weakness identified by Imam al-Tirmidhī and the other masters.
The hadith that forms the entire basis of the objection was never authentically established as the speech of the Prophet ﷺ — the hadith masters ruled it mawqūf, the statement of Jundub, not a prophetic command.
Second: The Ruling on Sorcerers Is Not Agreed Upon Among Muslim Scholars
There is no doubt that sorcery is a major sin — the sorcerer seeks the help of jinn and devils, slaughters for them, and disbelieves in order to please them, harming Muslims with criminal actions. Allah the Most High said:
“And they do not teach anyone until they have said: ‘We are only a trial, so do not disbelieve.’”
That is: the practice of magic itself constitutes disbelief. For this reason, most scholars said the sorcerer is a disbeliever. However, the ruling of killing is not agreed upon among the jurists of Islam, as follows:
Imam al-Nawawī — Sharḥ Muslim; cited in Tuḥfat al-Aḥwadhī “Practising magic is forbidden and is one of the major sins by consensus. It may constitute disbelief or it may not — it may be a major sin without disbelief. If there is a statement or action in the magic that requires disbelief, then he is a disbeliever; otherwise not. As for learning it and teaching it, it is forbidden. According to us — the Shāfi’ī school — the sorcerer is not to be killed. If he repents, his repentance is accepted.”
Imam Mālik and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal — cited in Tuḥfat al-Aḥwadhī and Fatḥ al-Bārī “The sorcerer is a disbeliever because of magic, and he is not to be asked to repent, and his repentance is not accepted. It is obligatory to kill him.” Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ said: “According to the statement of Mālik, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said the same, and it is narrated from a group of the Companions and the Followers.” Ibn Baṭṭāl clarified: “A sorcerer of the People of the Book is not to be killed according to Mālik and al-Zuhrī unless he kills with his sorcery, in which case he is to be killed.” And Mālik said: “If he causes harm to a Muslim with his sorcery against whom no covenant has been made, the covenant is to be broken — therefore it is permissible to kill him.”
Imam al-Shāfi’ī — cited in Fatḥ al-Bārī “The magician is only to be killed if he does something in his magic that leads to disbelief. But if he does something less than disbelief, then we do not see that he should be killed. He should not be killed unless he confesses to his magic. If he confesses that his magic may kill or may not kill, and that he did magic to a person who then died, retaliation is not obligatory — blood money is obligatory from his own wealth, not from his kin.” Abu Bakr al-Rāzī claimed in Al-Aḥkām that al-Shāfi’ī was the only one who said that the sorcerer is killed in retaliation if he confesses that he killed with his magic.
Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī — Fatḥ al-Bārī “The Prophet ﷺ did not kill Labīd ibn al-A’ṣam — because he did not take revenge for himself, and because he feared that if he killed him, a strife would arise between the Muslims and his allies from the Anṣār. This is of the same type as his refraining from killing the hypocrites.”
The Shāfi’ī school further distinguishes on the question of retaliation:
Al-Nawawī — Sharḥ Muslim “Our companions said: If a sorcerer kills a person with his sorcery, or confesses that he died because of his sorcery and that it usually kills, then retaliation is required of him. If he dies because of it but it may kill or may not kill, then there is no retaliation — blood money and expiation are required from his own wealth, not from his kin, because the kin does not bear what is proven by the confession of the offender alone. Killing by magic is inconceivable based on external evidence; it is only conceivable based on the confession of the sorcerer himself.”
What exists in Islamic jurisprudence, therefore, is not a direct prophetic command to kill sorcerers wholesale — it is a scholarly discussion about the controls of harm, injury, and disbelief, with significant disagreement among the four schools.
Third: The Bible That the Objectors Believe In Commands the Killing of Sorcerers
Before the objectors raise this question, they should open their own scripture:
Exodus 22:18 (SVD) “You shall not allow a witch to live.”
Leviticus 20:27 (SVD) “And if a man or a woman has a medium or a wizard, they shall be put to death with stones; they shall stone him; his blood shall be upon him.”
Three questions remain for those who raise this objection:
First: What is the response of those who object to these two biblical texts? What is their interpretation of their own Lord commanding the stoning to death of male and female sorcerers?
Second: What is the response of the objectors now that it has been established that the hadith in question is not authentic — and that what exists in Islam are the considered scholarly efforts regarding the controls of harm and injury, with significant disagreement among the jurists — not a direct prophetic command?
Third: What is the response of the objectors to their own Lord commanding — without any weakness of transmission — the killing of the male and female sorcerer?
The hadith cited as the basis of this objection was ruled weak by Imam al-Tirmidhī himself in the very book where it appears, by Imam al-Albānī in three separate works, by Ibn Ḥajar in Fatḥ al-Bārī, and by al-Dhahabī — all agreeing that the correct narration is mawqūf, the statement of Jundub, not the Prophet ﷺ. Beyond this, the ruling on killing sorcerers is itself a matter of scholarly disagreement among the four schools, with the Shāfi’ī position explicitly rejecting execution unless disbelief is proven. And the objectors’ own scripture — Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:27 — commands the killing and stoning of sorcerers with no qualification whatsoever and no chain of transmission to scrutinise.