—such as predicting the timing of wind gusts, the onset of rain, fluctuations in market prices, and other matters they claim can be known by watching the configurations of the planets in their courses, their conjunctions, and their separations. They even say: “Whoever weds under such-and-such a star will experience such-and-such, whoever travels while this or that star is ascendant will meet such a fate, and whoever is born under a given star will receive this amount of good fortune or that share of ill luck.” The same claptrap is paraded in certain trashy magazines that hawk nonsense about the zodiac and the fortunes supposedly bound up with it.

Some ignorant people and those weak in faith actually go to these astrologers, asking about their future, what will befall them, their prospects for marriage, and the like. Yet whoever claims knowledge of the unseen—or believes one who makes such a claim—is a polytheist and an unbeliever, for he pretends to share with Allah what belongs to Him alone. The stars are merely subjugated, created entities; they control nothing at all. They indicate neither misfortune nor good fortune, neither death nor life. All of this is nothing but the handiwork of devils who steal a listening ear.