The Quran

أَلَم تَرَ إِلَى الَّذينَ أوتوا نَصيبًا مِنَ الكِتابِ يُؤمِنونَ بِالجِبتِ وَالطّاغوتِ وَيَقولونَ لِلَّذينَ كَفَروا هٰؤُلاءِ أَهدىٰ مِنَ الَّذينَ آمَنوا سَبيلًا

Muhammad Asad

Art thou not aware of those who, having been granted their share of the divine writ, [now] believe in baseless mysteries and in the powers of evil,¹ and maintain that those who are bent on denying the truth are more surely guided than those who have attained to faith?

The word al-jibt - rendered by me as "baseless mysteries" - is probably, as the Lisan al-'Arab points out, of non-Arabic origin. It denotes, according to some authorities, "something which is worthless in itself" or "something in which there is no good" (Qamus, Baydawi); according to others, it signifies "enchantment" (Umar ibn al-Khattab, Mujahid and Sha'bi as quoted by Tabari; also Qamus); others, again, interpret it as "anything that is worshipped instead of God" (Zamakhshari), and consequently apply it also to idols and idol-worship (Qamus, Lisan al-'Arab) and - according to a Tradition quoted by Abu Da'ud - to all manner of superstitious divination and soothsaying as well. Taking all these interpretations into account, al-jibt may be defined as "a combination of confusing ideas (dijl), fanciful surmises (awham) and fictitious stories (khurafat)" (Manar V, 157) - in other words, abstruse mysteries without any foundation in fact. - As regards the expression "the powers of evil" (at-taghut), it seems to refer here to superstitious beliefs and practices - like soothsaying, foretelling the future, relying on "good" and "bad" omens, and so forth - all of which are condemned by the Qur'an. See also surah 2, verse 256.