[Commentary]
These ḥadiths and reports that the author has cited constitute clear proof of the earlier ruling: it is unlawful for anyone to approach fortune-tellers and believe them. Whoever comes to a diviner and merely asks him a question will have no prayer accepted from him for forty days. The same applies to soothsayers: for forty days his prayer is not accepted, and should he credit their words he has disbelieved in what was revealed to Muhammad ﷺ.

If, however, a person visits the soothsayer only to expose his lies and fraud, there is no harm in that; indeed, it may be praiseworthy. This is what the Prophet ﷺ did with Ibn Ṣayyād, a man who was a soothsayer or a sorcerer. The Prophet ﷺ spoke to him and said, “What have I hidden for you?”—that is, “What word have I kept in my mind?” He replied, “al-Dukh …,” but could not finish the word, for the Messenger ﷺ had concealed the word dukhan (smoke), and Ibn Ṣayyād was unable to grasp it fully, uttering only, “al-Dukh.” The Prophet ﷺ then said to him, “Be gone; you will never rise above your station.”

As for the practices connected with astrology and soothsaying, among them is at-ṭiyarah (taking omens from birds). In the pre-Islamic days they would drive a bird into flight: if it flew straight ahead, the traveler would set out; if it flew off and then returned, he too would turn back. Should it fly to the right, he felt optimistic and said, “This is a blessed and good journey.” If it flew to the left, he would still depart but believed the journey would be difficult, because the bird had gone northward and the north was deemed inauspicious. Such were their customs—may Allah protect us. Birds avail nothing at all. The Prophet ﷺ abolished every bit of that so that people would rely on none but Allah, and he instructed that when a person resolves upon a matter