Magic Is Bad

"You shall not permit a sorceress to live" - Exodus 22:18

“A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death." - Leviticus 20:27

Those lines from the Bible make it quite clear that Magic is Bad, and were the basis for Europe's witch hunting craze during the 15th to 18th centuries. The Islamic ruling on magic is equally clear, and comes from the Hadith (the Qur'an's expanded universe):

"The prescribed punishment for the magician is that he be executed by the sword."

Islam, like Christianity, affirms the existence of magic and assigns it to evil forces. Christianity assigns it to demons and Satan (the Devil). Islam assigns it to evil jinn and Iblis (the Devil). In Islam, 'satan' is not the name or title of a single Devil; it can be applied to any human or jinn who is opposed to Islam and Allah. This is slightly similar to an early Hebrew tradition in which the word 'satan' (adversary) was applied to any angel or servant whom God sent to oppose or tempt someone (to be their adversary) - there are examples of this usage in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These 'satans' are loyal servants of God, doing his bidding, and were eventually merged together into the single Jewish Satan (The Adversary) from the Book of Job, who is still a loyal servant of God. The 'satan' jinn of Islam are against God, but since God controls everything, they're also doing exactly what he wants? Islam is particularly irritating because it doesn't seem to have anything resembling a coherent mythology, because Muhammad was an illiterate merchant who only knew bits of Jewish and Christian lore, which he slammed inconsistently together, sprinkling some Arabian folklore on top.

Umar, the second Caliph of Islam (634CE - 644CE), asked his soldiers to kill every fortuneteller and magician they found during their campaigns against the Persian and Byzantine empires. However, later Caliphs were more relaxed, so it was down to the hardcore Muslims to remind everyone how to deal with magicians. During the reign of Al-Walid I, a magician was present at the caliph's court. He wowed the audience by severing a man's head then re-attaching it to his body: the audience cheered and yelled, "OMFG! He can raise the dead!"

But one audience member wasn't impressed. He went to the next show with a sword strapped to his back. (No security searches back then.) As the the show began, the Good Muslim charged through the crowd, sword drawn, and chopped the magicians head off.

Turning to the shocked crowd, the Good Muslim yelled, "If he can really raise the dead, let him raise himself!"

The Good Muslim was arrested and imprisoned.