Date : 09-10-2016

Question :

What is the Islamic ruling on selling gold items that contain the eye-shaped blue bead?


The Answer :

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of The Worlds, and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Mohammad and upon all his family and companions.



There is no harm in selling gold items such as bracelets, necklaces and the like, but if any of these items contained the eye-shaped blue bead, which people think that it wards off the evil eye and harm, then it isn`t permissible. This is because once the seller or the buyer believes so, then he has fallen into the prohibited. Even if they didn`t think that, they have lured people to think so since most of them think that such item wards off the evil eye and harm while, in fact, it neither harms nor benefits.



This is supported by the following tradition: It was narrated from ‘Imran bin Husain that the Prophet (PBUH) saw a man with a brass ring on his hand. He said:“What is this ring?” He said: “It is for Wahinah.”* He said: “Take it off, for it will only increase you in weakness [Related by Ibn Majah].”



"Some people tend to believe that the Ma`zat(Things that contain verses of the Quran, reported supplications and remembrances of Allah) are the Tama`im(amulets), but they aren`t. The amulet is the bead itself, and there is no harm in the Ma`zat so long as they contain Quranic verses or the beautiful names and attributes of Almighty Allah…. According to Ibn al-Atheer, "Tama`im is the plural of Tamimah(amulet), and they are beads that the Arabs, in pre-Islamic era, used to hang on their children, thinking that they repel the evil eye and harm, but after the advent of Islam, this belief was nullified." "{Hashiyat Ibn Abdeen, p.6/363}.



It is worth mentioning that there is a huge collection of gold items to choose from so as to avoid the ones that contain the eye-shaped blue bead. And Allah knows best.