the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, commanded when he said:

“When any one of you intends to undertake something, let him pray two units of prayer”—to the end of the hadith.

Seeking guidance from Allah—the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the Creator of causes and their effects—is better than consulting the ascendant regarding what one intends to do. For such a choice, if valid, can at best secure one of the causes of success. Seeking Allah’s guidance, however, pursues success through all its avenues, for Allah knows what is best. He may therefore put a person’s heart at ease and facilitate the means, or make them difficult and turn him away from that undertaking.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, also said:

“Whoever visits a fortune-teller and questions him”—to the end of the hadith.

Muslim narrated it through Safiyya bint Abī ʿUbayd, from one of the wives of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. The term “fortune-teller” includes the astrologer and others, either in its wording or in its meaning. He, peace and blessings be upon him, also said:

“Whoever acquires a branch of astrology has acquired a branch of magic; the more he acquires of the former, the more he acquires of the latter.”

Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Mājah narrated it. Thus, the prohibition of relying on astrological judgments, whether in theory or in practice, has become clear from the perspective of religious law. We have also explained, on rational grounds, that this is generally unattainable: the causes of events, their conditions, and their impediments cannot be determined by precisely tracking the movements of certain things. A prediction happens to be correct only when the remaining causes are present and the impediments are absent—not because it rests on an indication that holds consistently, either invariably or in most cases. Expert astrologers agree with this, and they know that the ascendant of a country does not