And when magic is the greatest of what can be from the darkness of evil that is firmly established in the roots within it. Because of what is in it from the separation of a person from his wife, father, and son, and similar matters, and what is in it from the affliction of bodies and the killing of souls, He followed that with His saying, 'And from the evil.'

And when every magician is evil, unlike the dark and the envious, and magic is more harmful than darkness and envy in that it is all evil, and in that it is more concealed than others. And what is from it among women is greater because the basis of its validity and the strength of its effect is the lack of intellect and religion, the bad nature, the weakness of certainty, and the quickness of transformation. And they are more deeply rooted in each of these qualities and more established. And what he found from them in gathering and in the manner of exaggeration is greater than others. He recognized, exaggerated, gathered, and feminized so that what is lesser than it may enter into it from the first category. So He said, 'The women who blow.' [Meaning the souls -] of the sorceress, whether they are the souls of men or the souls of women, meaning those who exaggerate in blowing, which is the spitting and the blowing with some saliva - thus in Al-Kashaf. And the owner of Al-Qamus said: It is like blowing and less than spitting. And he said: He spat: he drooled. And in the interpretation from Al-Zajjaj that it is the spitting without saliva.

'In the knots' [Meaning -] they tie it for magic in the threads and what resembles them. And the reason for the revelation of that is that a Jew enchanted the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and he fell ill as will come in its narration. For indeed, magic affects, by the permission of Allah, the Most High, illness and can lead to death. So if the magician admits that he killed with his magic, and it is that which usually kills, he is killed for that according to Al-Shafi'i. And this does not contradict His saying, 'And Allah will protect you from the people.' [Al-Ma'idah: 67] as has been explained in Al-Ma'idah. And this does not necessitate the truth of the disbelievers in their description of him, blessings and peace be upon him, as being enchanted. For they intended nothing but madness or something resembling it from the corruption of the mind and its disturbance, and the exaggeration that everything he says has no truth to it, just as what arises from the enchanted is mixed and its reality is not known.