Chapter: The prohibition of consulting soothsayers, astrologers, diviners, sand-geomancers, and door-to-door fortune-tellers.

1668 – ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with her, said: “Some people asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the soothsayers. He replied, ‘They are nothing.’ They said, ‘Messenger of Allah, they occasionally tell us something that proves true.’ He answered, ‘That single word of truth is snatched by a jinn; he then whispers it into the ear of his ally, and they mix it with a hundred lies.’” Agreed upon.

In another version recorded by al-Bukhārī on the authority of ʿĀʾishah, she heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “The angels descend into the ʿanān—that is, the clouds—and speak about a matter that has been decreed in heaven. Satan stealthily listens, hears it, and conveys it to the soothsayers; they then add to it a hundred lies of their own.”

His phrase fayaqurruhā is read with the yāʾ given an open vowel (fatḥah) and the qāf and rāʾ both pronounced with ḍamma, meaning “he casts it.” The word ʿanān is pronounced with an open ʿayn.

[Commentary]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—introduces in Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn the chapter on the prohibition of going to soothsayers, astrologers, and anyone of that sort.