amuletsTabizتعویز

The writing is the object. In Muslim practice the texts chosen for amulets are prayers, passages from the Qur'an, hadith, religious narratives and religious names; the word Allah is especially common, and many hold that touching or seeing it turns evil away. Names of prophets and of religious figures are used to connect the wearer to the person named — Solomon, Ali ibn Abi Talib and his sons Hasan and Husain, and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus are among the favoured.

The oldest dated thing of this kind read for this record is not South Asian. In the medieval Mediterranean Islamic world, prayers were printed from a block or die — tarsh — onto paper, then folded down small enough for a tubular case. The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto holds an Egyptian block-printed amulet of the tenth or eleventh century, ink on paper at 7.2 by 5.5 cm, whose last line is Qur'an 20:46: 'So God will safeguard you from them. He is All-Hearing and All-Knowing.' Such text amulets were housed in lead cases stamped with surat al-Ikhlas, with lugs so the package could be sewn to clothing or hung from the body. The cases were most likely kept sealed, which means the contents were invisible to an owner who could not afford a hand-written one.

In South Asia the tabiz crosses the line the word implies. Amulets in North India and Pakistan include threads with a taveez attached — a small cylinder holding a prayer verse — worn against nazar, the harmful look. A tabiz worn by Hindus often bears the Om sign instead.

Whether a Muslim should wear one at all is argued in the tradition, not about it. Some hadith condemn wearing talismans, and some Muslims, notably Salafis, hold that amulets and talismans are forbidden. On the other side, virtually all Muslim scholars permit a talisman that invokes God or an intercessor — Muhammad, Ali, the saints — while addressing jinn or demons is prohibited; and Sunni Muslims are permitted to wear ta'wiz so long as it strengthens the wearer's bond with Allah and does not come from a belief that the ta'wiz itself cures or protects.

Written by hand, or pre-made. Texts packaged in tawiz are most often pre-made for the public, though a literate wearer can change the verse at will. The paper is folded, sometimes to a triangle, and closed in metal; in Central and West Asia triangular packets holding a sacred verse are fastened to the clothes of babies and small children. The same triangle is woven into kilims, where, as the carpet scholar Jon Thompson puts it, the amulet in a rug is not a theme: "the device in the rug has a materiality, it generates a field of force able to interact with other unseen forces and is not merely an intellectual abstraction."

Worn and sold across Pakistan, India and Afghanistan as of 2026. In Afghanistan fortunetellers work from small shops or outside mosques and shrines and sell amulets against evil spirits alongside marriage advice, and their clients are mostly women and the elderly; the same trade is widespread in Iran and Pakistan.