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In Islamic culture and Muslim communities throughout the world, magic is "widespread and pervasive". Magic or sorcery and divination , or occultism, encompass a wide range of practices. These include protection from black magic, the evil eye, demons, and evil jinn, which are thought to bring "illness, poverty, and everyday misfortunes"; or alternately practices seeking to bring "good fortune, health, increased status, honor, and power". Techniques include evocation, casting lots, the production of amulets and other magical equipment. Magic have been called a "vital element of everyday life and practice" in both the contemporary and historical Islamic world, the topics generating a "staggering" amount of "literature.
On the other hand, magic has also been declared by Islamic scholars to be "evil" in any and all of their forms, denying its practitioners entrance into heaven, and earning them a "divinely sanctioned" punishment of death. At least some of this dispute may be explained by how magic, or forbidden magic, is defined; whether natural, or sympathetic magic—which "makes use of the hidden properties of natural substances"—is included as forbidden magic. As of 2005, this division was on display in bookstalls in market places across the Muslim Middle East and North Africa, where "handbooks for practitioners of the occult" were found alongside "books full of warnings and condemnations" of the handbooks' contents. Over the centuries, magic has "become intricately interwoven with religious elements and practices" in Islamic culture -- despite the efforts of orthodox Islamic scholars to stamp it out -- so that the line between what is forbidden and what is allowed has become "blurred".