I said: This is a mursal ḥadīth with a sound isnād, and it was narrated by Abū Dāwūd in "al-Marāsīl," to which the ḥāfiẓ attributed it. Perhaps he narrated it through the route of Ibn Abī Shaybah, as the printed "al-Marāsīl" has omitted isnāds, and in it, Abū Dāwūd stated after the ḥadīth (p. 48): "It is narrated with an isnād but is not authentic." And I do not know, by Allāh, the reason for this negation, as we have presented it with the narration of his teacher, Imām Aḥmad, with his authentic isnād, and it is from him (1)? Then Ibn Abī Shaybah and al-Khaṭṭābī in "Maʿālim al-Sunan" (5/353) narrated from another route from al-Ḥasan who said: "Nushrah is from sorcery." And its isnād is ḥasan. And "nushrah": is a ruqyah. Al-Khaṭṭābī said: "Nushrah is a type of ruqyah and treatment used for those who are thought to be possessed by jinn." I said: It means unlegislated ruqyahs, which are not from the Qurʾān and the authentic sunnah, and it is those upon which the term shirk has been applied in various ḥadīths, some of which have been mentioned earlier. See, for example: (331 and 1066), and shirk may be implicit in some words of unknown meaning or symbolized by disjointed letters, as seen in some amulets issued by certain impostors. As for the legislated ruqyahs, they are what al-Bukhārī attributed to Qatādah, who said: I said to Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib: A man afflicted with ṭibb (i.e., sorcery) or estranged from his wife, is it permissible..