and it actually happens.” The Prophet ﷺ explained that the morsel of truth which does occur is blended with a hundred lies. Its source, he said, is that a jinn who has a human ally snatches a word of information from the heaven and conveys it to his human companion. The man then relates it, the portion that was true comes to pass, while the false additions are soon forgotten by the people as though they had never been spoken.

These soothsayers, therefore, must be belied; we are not allowed to credit them. Whoever goes to them, asks them, and believes what they say has disbelieved in what was revealed to Muhammad ﷺ—that is, he has disbelieved in the Quran. The reason this is outright disbelief is that Allah, exalted is He, has said: “Say: None in the heavens or on earth knows the unseen except Allah” (27:65). Thus, when these people claim knowledge of the unseen and someone believes them, his very belief in them entails denying Allah’s statement, “Say: None in the heavens or on earth knows the unseen except Allah.”

Astrologers, on the other hand, are those who engage in the science of the stars, and that science is of two kinds. One kind is unobjectionable; it is what is called ʿilm al-taysīr, the study of the movement of the heavenly bodies by which one infers the seasons and the lengthening or shortening of the day. This is permissible and carries no sin, for people use it in matters of benefit. Included in this is knowing how to orient oneself by the stars—for example, the northern pole-star that marks due north, and the star al-Jady, known to lie close to the pole on the northern side; by such stars one can determine the qiblah and the cardinal directions.

Allah the Exalted says: “And landmarks—[such as] the mountains—and by the star they are guided” (16:16). In the darkness of land and sea, so long as clouds do not cover the heavens, people guide themselves by these stars.