As for the second, even if someone imagines that it provides advance knowledge of events and that this is beneficial, ignorance in this regard is less serious, and its harm outweighs its benefit.

Thus, specialists and ordinary people alike have learned through experience and widely transmitted reports that astrologers’ predictions prove false many times more often than they prove true. In this respect, they are a kind of soothsayer. It is authentically reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was told:

“Some of us visit soothsayers.”

He replied, “They are of no account.”

They said, “O Messenger of Allah, sometimes they tell us something that turns out to be true.”

The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, replied, “That word of truth is heard by a jinn, who conveys it into the ear of his ally.”

He also related:

“When Allah decrees a matter, the angels beat their wings in submission to His words, which sound like a chain upon smooth stone. Then, when the fear has departed from their hearts, they ask, ‘What did your Lord say?’ They reply, ‘The truth.’ The inhabitants of each heaven inform those of the adjoining heaven, until the news reaches the lowest heaven. There, the eavesdroppers are stationed one above another. Sometimes one hears the word before a shooting star overtakes him; sometimes the shooting star overtakes him after he has passed it on.”

He, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “If only they conveyed the matter as it actually was! But they add a hundred lies to that word.”

The same is true of astrologers. Indeed, I spoke with them in Damascus, and their leading figures came to me. I demonstrated the falsity of their craft through rational arguments whose validity they acknowledged. One of their leaders said:

“By Allah, we tell a hundred lies before we speak one word of truth.”