# How to Curse Someone in Islam: What Tradition Allows

> How to curse someone in Islam — what the Quran and hadith permit: la'nah, dua against oppressors, qunut, and why sihr is not the route. Sources cited.

來源／Source: https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/curse-in-islam
更新日期／Updated: 2026-10-27

## How to Curse Someone in Islam: The Direct Answer

If you are searching for **how to curse someone in Islam**, the honest answer has three parts, and each one is rooted in the primary sources. First: cursing is real in Islam — the Quran's word for it, **la'nah**, appears about forty times across its root, and it is deadly serious. Second: in the Quranic framework, la'nah is something *Allah declares*, not something a person performs — there is no personal curse ritual anywhere in the tradition. Third: for someone who has been genuinely wronged, Islam does not leave the urge with nowhere to go. It channels it into **dua against the oppressor** — and, at one documented moment in early history, into a month of congregational imprecations against named aggressors.

This guide walks through all of it: what la'nah actually means, what the hadith say, the story of the qunut curse, why spell-casting is a different and forbidden thing, and what the tradition does with the fire in the meantime.

**Key Takeaways:**

- La'nah is expulsion from Allah's mercy, declared by Allah in the Quran — never a technique a person performs on another person
- The hadith discourage habitual cursing in the strongest terms, while the early community itself prayed against named oppressors in qunut after the massacre at Bi'r Ma'una
- Sihr — spells, ritual magic — is not a permitted alternative; the tradition treats it as the thing it is warning you away from, not a tool it hands you

（圖：Wooden tasbih prayer beads resting on dark embroidered cloth beside a burning candle, with a crescent moon visible through an arched window — deep blue night tones with warm candlelight）

## La'nah — What Cursing Actually Is in the Quran

The Arabic root l-'-n carries the sense of distance and expulsion. Classical commentary glosses la'nah as being far removed from the mercy of Allah — the [tafsir of An-Nisa 4:52](https://quran.com/an-nisa/52/tafsirs/en-tafsir-maarif-ul-quran) renders it as removal from mercy and abasement, in this world and the next. This is the first fact that separates the Islamic concept from the folk-magic one: a curse here is not a bolt of misfortune aimed by one human at another. It is a status — the far side of mercy — and in the Quran it is Allah who places someone there, directly or through the tongues of His prophets.

Who ends up on the far side, in the Quran's own usage? The categories are consistent: those who knowingly conceal or distort revelation; those who persist in disobedience after the truth has reached them; and — in the starkest verse — those who set themselves against Allah and His Messenger:

> "Indeed, those who abuse Allah and His Messenger — Allah has cursed them in this world and the Hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment." — [Quran 33:57](https://quran.com/al-ahzab/57)

Read as a whole, the picture is exact: la'nah exists, it is fearsome, and it is not yours to give. The Quran never narrates an ordinary believer casting a curse on another person and being approved for it. The nearest it comes — David and Jesus declaring Allah's curse upon the faithless (Quran 5:78) — is prophecy conveying Allah's own word, not a technique placed in the reader's hands. The verb's divine ownership is the tradition's first and largest boundary around the search query that brought you here.

## What the Hadith Say About Cursing People

If the Quran reserves la'nah, the hadith govern the everyday version — the curse words a person throws at another in anger. The record here is blunt:

- **"The believer is not one who taunts, curses, or speaks obscenely"** — the saying of the Prophet narrated by 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, recorded in [Jami' at-Tirmidhi 1977](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1977) and graded authentic
- **Even the Prophet's own curses were hedged** — "O Allah, I am only a human: any believer I curse or revile, make it a purification and a mercy for him" ([Sahih Muslim 2600a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:2600a)) — which frames every curse as an appeal the Judge may answer with mercy instead
- Related narrations extend the boundary outward: the Prophet stopped a companion from cursing the wind — on the reasoning that a curse is an appeal to the Judge, and the Judge may decline it, or worse, may turn the question back on the curser

The reasoning underneath these reports is what matters for someone researching this topic. In the Islamic frame, a spoken curse is not an act of power; it is a supplication — a request. And a request made against someone who does not deserve it does not simply fail. The tradition treats it as bearing on the one who made it. This is why the scholars' default counsel is the one the hadith already gives: a believer's tongue is not built for this work.

## Qunut: The Congregational Curse of the Early Community

And yet the tradition is not naive about oppressors. The most extraordinary documented episode in this whole subject is qunut an-nazilah — the calamity supplication.

The setting: Bi'r Ma'una, in the fourth year after the migration. Seventy reciters of the Quran, sent unarmed to teach, were treacherously killed by clans of the tribes of Ri'l, Dhakwan, and 'Usayya. The response was not private revenge and not a spell. It was this: for one month, the Prophet led the dawn prayer and in the qunut — the supplication after the bowing — called on Allah by name against the tribes responsible. The report is preserved in [Sahih al-Bukhari 4090](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4090) with parallels in Sahih Muslim and the Sunan: he invoked la'nah upon Ri'l, Dhakwan, 'Usayya, and the clans of Lihyan.

（圖：A lone worshipper standing in prayer on a rooftop terrace at dawn, full silhouette against a deep indigo sky with a thin crescent moon, distant minaret silhouettes and one line of pale gold on the horizon）

Notice the structure of what happened, because it defines everything this article covers:

- The wrong was **real, public, and grave** — not a private grudge
- The words were **an appeal to Allah**, not an act performed on the tribes
- The supplication was **congregational** — the community's grief given form, not one person's anger given power
- It had a **span**: a month, and then it ended

Later generations of scholars kept qunut an-nazilah alive precisely for calamities — imams have used it in times of invasion and massacre. It is the closest thing the tradition owns to a curse ritual, and it is still, at bottom, a prayer that asks rather than a rite that does.

## Dua Against an Oppressor: The Individual Working

For the individual Muslim wronged by a specific person — the situation most people searching this topic are actually in — the tradition's channel is narrower and plainer than qunut: dua against the oppressor, in your own words, placing the matter with Allah.

The shape the scholars consistently describe:

1. **Name the wrong honestly.** Dua against an oppressor presupposes oppression — a real wrong, not an envy. The traditions of the Prophet show supplications against those who had killed, betrayed, or persecuted, never against those who merely possessed something the suppliant wanted
2. **Use your own words.** The supplications the tradition records are plain speech addressed to Allah — naming the wrong, asking Him to deal with the wrongdoer — not incantations, not formulas in a foreign tongue, nothing written or recited as a spell
3. **Hand over the outcome entirely.** This is the line that separates dua from everything else in the curse tradition worldwide: you are not asking for power over the outcome. You are asking the Judge to judge
4. **Then act like someone who has handed it over.** The tradition pairs the supplication with patience and, where possible, with pursuing real-world redress — witnesses, restitution, the courts of the day

That fourth point carries a psychological seriousness the tradition does not hide. The Quran holds open a harder door than judgment: "Good and evil are not alike. Repel evil with what is better, and the one between whom and yourself there was enmity will become as though he were a dearest friend" — [Quran 41:34](https://quran.com/al-fussilat/34). Classical commentary presents this not as weakness but as the higher strategy, and the verse's own payoff is unmistakably practical: an enemy disarmed is worth more than an enemy judged. Which door a wronged person takes, the scholars leave to the person and the wrong.

（圖：Silhouette of raised hands in supplication against a deep blue night sky with a thin crescent moon, a single candle burning low on a windowsill below — quiet, cold light with one warm point）

## Sihr — Why Spell-Casting Is Not the Islamic Route

The reader searching this topic will sooner or later meet the other market: hired spell-workers, "Islamic" curse services, rituals with verses written to be washed, burned, or buried. The tradition's own name for this world is **sihr**, and its verdict on it is the opposite of a loophole.

Sihr — sorcery, spell-work — appears in the Quran in strongly negative terms, most famously in the passage about what was sent down to the angels at Babylon, taught as a test and a warning, with the explicit statement that whoever purchases it has no share in the Hereafter. Across the schools of Islamic law, practicing sihr is treated as a major sin, in some rulings among the most serious. The folk practices that surround Muslim life — jinn rituals, written talismans, curse-for-hire services — are not a gray market the tradition tolerates. They are the specific thing it names and refuses. For where sihr sits in the world's catalog of [black magic](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/what-is-black-magic) traditions, the comparative guide covers it alongside its counterparts on every continent.

There is a practical warning worth adding, from outside the tradition entirely: the online world of paid curse-casting is, on the consensus of every community that reviews it, saturated with fraud. A supplication costs nothing and risks only your own soul's accounting. A paid spell-worker risks your money, your personal information, and — in the tradition's own frame — puts you in the market it warns against most firmly.

## If the Urge Is the Ritual Itself: Another Tradition's Door

An honest word about what may be underneath the search. Some readers want the theology. Others want the *act* — a ceremony with a name spoken, a symbol struck or burned, a grievance given arms and an ending. Islam answers the second want the way this article has described: by pointing it toward dua, toward justice, toward patience. That is this tradition's answer, and this site will not dress it up as something else.

If what you carry is the want for a ritual itself, the world does keep such doors — in other traditions, on their own terms. The Chinese practice of Da Siu Yan, [the villain-hitting rite](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/what-is-da-siu-yan) of Hong Kong, is exactly such a ceremony: a named enemy, a paper figure struck with a shoe, a burned effigy, a sealed ending. It is a Chinese folk practice, heritage-listed in Hong Kong — not an Islamic rite, and nothing on this page should be read as religious permission for it. It is simply another tradition's answer to the same human fire, and you can see it for yourself, free, before deciding anything: [experience the ritual](https://beatpetty.com/en/ritual).

## How the Traditions Compare

For readers comparing what different traditions do with the same urge — the formal differences are stark:

| | Islam (la'nah / dua) | Chinese Da Siu Yan | European hex craft |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Who acts** | Allah alone; the wronged person only asks | The wronged person, with ritual specialists | The caster directly |
| **Form** | Supplication in one's own words; no ritual objects | An eight-step effigy ceremony — strike, burn, seal | A written name bound into a vessel, sealed, buried — the [hex craft](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/hex-spells-curses) of the Germanic tradition |
| **Sanctioned targets** | Oppressors, aggressors — never the envied | Six categories of "petty persons" who wronged you | The named wrongdoer |
| **View of spell-work** | Sihr — forbidden | The rite itself is the folk tradition | The rite itself is the folk tradition |
| **The ending** | The matter rests with Allah | The effigy is burned; the verdict is sealed | The vessel is buried; the matter is closed |

For the protective side of the Islamic tradition — the supplications against the evil eye and envy — our [evil eye duas](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/evil-eye-duas) guide covers that practice in full. For the curse landscape beyond religion — [how to put a curse on someone](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/how-to-curse-someone) across the world's traditions — the complete method guide stands separately.

## Further Reading

- **[Evil Eye Duas](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/evil-eye-duas)** — The Islamic protection tradition: nazar, hasad, and the supplications against envy
- **[What Is Da Siu Yan](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/what-is-da-siu-yan)** — The Chinese villain-hitting rite: eight steps, six enemy archetypes, its untraceable origin
- **[How to Put a Curse on Someone](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/how-to-curse-someone)** — The comparative method guide across curse traditions worldwide
- **[How to Remove a Curse](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/how-to-remove-a-curse)** — If what you actually carry is someone else's working: the removal traditions
- **[Return to Sender Spell](https://beatpetty.com/en/blog/return-to-sender-spell)** — The reversal family: sending a working back where it came from