WE RELATE FROM the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī from Ibn ‘Abbās
who reported that the Messenger of Allah
used to seek protection for Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, saying: “I seek protection for the two of you with the perfect words of Allah from every shayṭān and poisonous thing, and from the evil eye.” He
also said: “Verily your father [Ibrāhīm] used to seek protection by it for Ismā‘īl and Isḥāq.” [1].
U‘īdhukumā bi-kalimāti-llāhi-t-tāmmah, min kulli shayṭānin wa hāmmah, wa min kulli ‘aynin lāmmah.
I say: The ‘ulamā’ say that hāmmah with a doubled mīm means any kind of poisonous creature, such as a snake, and the plural is hawāmm. They say that hawāmm is used for any crawling creature even if it does not kill, such as insects and vermin. An example of this is in the hadith of Ka‘b ibn ‘Ujrah
: “Do the vermin on your head harm you?” meaning lice.
As for ‘evil eye’ (‘aynun lāmmah), with a doubled mīm, it means that which afflicts whatever it looks at with evil.
References
[1] Al-Bukhārī (3371), an-Nasā’ī in ‘Amal al-yawm wa al-laylah (1006), and Ibn Mājah (3525).