Does Saruman lose his ability to use magic when his staff is broken?

[Draugohtar]

I just feel it's difficult to justify Galadriel being able to furnish Gandalf reborn with a staff if the staffs had such a potent nature.

Mightiest of the elves left in Middle Earth she may be, but would she really be able to replicate a gift of the Valar intended to modify the power of a Maia?

[Inziladun]

See here for a good discussion of wizards and staffs.

[Sarumian]

Answering the question, I tend to agree that breaking the staff was an act of symbolic significance. I believe, most of Saruman's power was lost with the destruction of his army. We know that in Tolkien's universe one spends his or her personal spiritual power on such things as casting spells, keeping supernatural control over someone else; it can be invested into an artefact as it was the case with The Ring. Sometimes power expenditure leads to devastation and one needs some time to "recharge", as Gandalf after his struggle against the Balrog at the Camber of Mazarbul. In some situations it could take ages, as for Sauron after he'd lost his Ring. If I can remember it right, Melkor's power was mostly exhausted when he lost his armies in the War of Wrath. I think similar thing happened to Saruman. His evil ways contributed to his weakening as an evil spirit is self-destructive and slowly looses the ability to regenerate. Thus Saruman hasn't lost his knowledge of magic but became incapable of using it.

[Rhod the Red]

I'd say all his spells, apart from his magical voice, the answer being yes.

We don't read anything about what happened to his Ring of Power. I imagine it's powers were eliminated with the breaking of the staff.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Draugohtar

I just feel it's difficult to justify Galadriel being able to furnish Gandalf reborn with a staff if the staffs had such a potent nature.

Mightiest of the elves left in Middle Earth she may be, but would she really be able to replicate a gift of the Valar intended to modify the power of a Maia?

Galadriel may have provided the physical wood needed to fashion the staff, but why is she necessarily the source of its real power? If the staffs were primarily symbols of authority, and perhaps secondarily a means of focusing the innate "divine" abilities of the Istari, the same Authority that sent Gandalf back to Middle-earth would have been easily capable of making his staff exactly what he needed.

Originally Posted by Rhod the Red

We don't read anything about what happened to his Ring of Power. I imagine it's powers were eliminated with the breaking of the staff.

I've always thought that ring to have been Saruman's little attempt to fashion his own Ring of Power rather then one of the "lesser" rings made by the Noldor of Eregion.
If the source of its power (if indeed it had any) was from Saruman, then it seems logical that the ring would lose power in proportion to Saruman's loss.
If the ring was of another make, then Saruman's state should have had no effect on it.

On another note: 5000 posts! And it only took me about 11 years and nine months to get there.