masters and leaders of the Sufi orders as lords beside Allah, prescribing for their followers religious rules for which Allah has given no sanction; there is no might nor power except with Allah.
- Soliciting Rain through the Stars (al-istisqāʾ bil-anwāʾ)
This practice consists of attributing rainfall to the rising or setting of a star, in the manner of the pre-Islamic Arabs who believed that when a star appeared above the horizon—or slipped beneath it—it affected the coming of rain. They would say, “We were rained upon by the nouʾ of such-and-such,” intending the star itself, which they called a nouʾ, meaning the star’s rise, from nāʾa yanūʾu, “to rise and appear.” Hence they claimed, “When such-and-such a star rises, rain descends.”
By anwaʾ they meant the moon’s twenty-eight stations: every thirteen nights one of these sets at dawn while its counterpart rises, and they all complete their circuit by the end of the lunar year. The Arabs in the Age of Ignorance held that when a particular star rose at daybreak and its opposite set, rainfall followed. This was termed seeking rain through the anwaʾ, that is, attributing the downpour to those celestial risings.
Such a belief is part of the Jāhiliyyah that Islam came to abolish and forbid, for the sending or withholding of rain is determined solely by Allah’s will, decree, and wisdom; the rising of stars has no effect upon it. The Exalted says, “But no! I swear by the positions of the stars—and indeed it is a tremendous oath, if only you knew—that this is truly a noble Qur’an, in a well-guarded Record, which none touch except the purified; a revelation from the Lord of all worlds. Is it this discourse that you take lightly, and do you make your provision that you deny?” (Q 56:75–82).1
His words, “and do you make your provision that you deny?”2 mean attributing the rain—which is sustenance sent down by Allah—to a star by saying, “We were rained upon because of such-and-such a nouʾ.” This ranks among the gravest forms of lying and fabrication, as narrated by Imām Ahmad, al-Tirmidhī—who graded it sound—, Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and al-Ḍiyāʾ in