and he has belied Allah and His Messenger. Many forms of divination that make use of the devils are inseparable from shirk and from courting those intermediaries whose help is sought in claiming knowledge of the unseen.
Thus divination is shirk both for alleging a share in the knowledge that Allah has kept exclusively for Himself and for seeking nearness to something other than Allah.
In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim it is related from one of the Prophet’s ﷺ wives that he said, “Whoever goes to a fortune-teller, asks him about something, and then believes what he says—no prayer will be accepted from him for forty days.”
Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever goes to a soothsayer and believes what he says has disbelieved in what was revealed to Muhammad ﷺ.” Recorded by Abu Dāwūd.
One must draw attention to—and warn against—the sorcerers, diviners, and charlatans who spread corruption on earth and set nothing right. Some of them present themselves to the public as physicians who cure disease, yet in reality they corrupt people’s beliefs: they tell the patient to slaughter for someone other than Allah or they write polytheistic talismans and satanic incantations. Others pose as informants about the unseen and about the whereabouts of lost items: the ignorant go to them asking about what they have misplaced, and they either tell them where the item is or even fetch it for them by means of the devils. Still others appear in the guise of saints endowed with miraculous feats—walking into fire, stabbing themselves with weapons, handling snakes, and the like—whereas in truth they are impostors, tricksters, and allies of Satan.
All these categories seek to swindle and cheat so as to devour people’s wealth and corrupt their beliefs. Muslims must therefore beware of them and stay far away. The authorities must summon such individuals to repent; if they repent, so be it, but if they refuse they are to be executed in order to spare the Muslims their evil and corruption, and in enforcement of