The line the classical jurists drew between lawful ruqyah and forbidden magic is not merely a theoretical distinction; it is the boundary contemporary regulators and consumer-protection authorities in several majority-Muslim countries have had to enforce against a real and lucrative commercial market. Individuals presenting themselves as ruqyah practitioners in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and several Gulf states have been prosecuted or had their activities restricted where investigations found them charging substantial fees, making specific diagnostic claims about jinn possession or sorcery having been performed against a client, or using objects, unintelligible incantations or claimed contact with spirits that fall squarely within the forbidden category the classical manuals describe, rather than the plain Quranic recitation the lawful form is limited to.
Religious authorities in several countries, including Saudi Arabia's Council of Senior Scholars, have issued specific warnings distinguishing legitimate ruqyah, performed without charge or for a modest fee and using only Quranic verses and approved supplications, from a commercialised industry of self-styled healers who diagnose spirit possession in vulnerable or ill clients and charge substantial sums for repeated sessions, warnings that mirror consumer-protection concerns raised about comparable faith-healing markets in other traditions. The underlying theological point the jurists insisted on, that any efficacy comes from God alone and not from the words, the practitioner, or any object used, is precisely what a fee-charging industry making specific therapeutic promises tends to obscure, which is why religious and consumer authorities have found themselves making closely related arguments from different starting points.