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Is it permissible to perform ruqyah with the Quran translated into other languages, such as German?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Ruqyah (exorcism/healing through prayer) is prescribed using the Qur'an and by asking Allah through it, based on His (the Almighty's) saying: "And We send down of the Qur’an that which is healing and mercy for the believers" (17:82), and based on the Prophet's (peace be upon him) saying: "Recite the Qur'an and ask Allah through it." Translation is not the Qur'an, and healing cannot be sought through it. However, there is no harm in supplicating in a language other than Arabic if the meaning is understood and it is safe from polytheism (shirk), based on the Prophet's (peace be upon him) saying: "There is no harm in ruqyah as long as it does not involve shirk." The scholars' prohibition of ruqyah in a language other than Arabic is due to the unintelligibility of its meaning, as there is a possibility of shirk.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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