—upon ten categories of people, as established in the ḥadith.1

In the same way, consulting soothsayers is forbidden, for the religion has decisively prohibited it and warned against it. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever goes to a soothsayer and believes what he says has disavowed what was revealed to Muhammad.”2

He ﷺ also said, “Whoever goes to a diviner and asks him about anything, his prayer will not be accepted for forty nights.”3

Muʿāwiya ibn al-Ḥakam al-Sulamī once asked the Prophet ﷺ, “Among us are men who visit the soothsayers.” He replied, “Do not go to them…”4

The Noble Messenger—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—explained how soothsayers and sorcerers obtain fragments of information about the unseen. He said:

“When Allah decrees a matter in heaven, the angels beat their wings in humble submission to His word, like a chain striking a smooth stone.5 When fear is lifted from their hearts they ask, ‘What has your Lord said?’ Those who heard reply, ‘The truth—and He is the Most High, the Most Great.’ Then the eavesdroppers among the jinn overhear it, one stacked above another like this.” Sufyān—one of the narrators of the ḥadith, namely Ibn ʿUyaynah as al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr mentions in his Tafsīr (3/537)—illustrated this by spreading the fingers of his right hand and layering them one over the other. “Sometimes a shooting-star strikes the listener before he can pass the word to the one beneath him, and sometimes…”