Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
As for jinn possessing humans and controlling them, this is a controversial issue; while some scholars see it as a fact, others totally reject it claiming that there is no evidence for this.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
The belief in the jinn possessing humans and exercising control over them is not one of the essential beliefs of Islam.
There is nothing in the categorical texts of the revealed sources (whether the Qur’an or well attested traditions) to prove this point.
However, it is true that some of the past scholars (Ibn Taymiyyah and others) have considered it as a fact while others deny this.
Those who reject this phenomenon altogether include some past scholars such as Al-Qaffal, Al-Baydawi as well the modern ones such as Sheikh Mustafa Al-Maraghi, Sheikh Shaltut, and Sheikh Muhammad Al-Ghazali, etc.
I am inclined to endorse the last-mentioned position, for much of the evidence of the first group does not stand careful scrutiny.
Furthermore, there is no evidence of the Prophet (peace be upon him) or his Companions indulging in the practice of exorcism, nor do we find them ever using the services of jinn for any of the tasks.
If it had been beneficial to use their services, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would have done so. He did use even some of the pagans to seek vital information on the moves of his enemies in battles, and Muslims faced crisis after crisis after the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and yet none of the pious caliphs or the Companions made use of this channel for getting works done.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.