Sunday, December 30, 2012

4.34. OMENS AND SUPERSTITION

           
      

God says


… Distinct has now become the right way from [the way of] error: hence, he who rejects powers of evil and believes in God has indeed taken hold of a support most unfailing, which will never give way: for God is all-hearing, all-knowing. -- Q.2:256

Are you not aware of those who have been granted their share of the divine writ, [now] believe in baseless mysteries and the powers of the evil.* -- Q.4:51
 * “Powers of evil” (at-taghut) seems to refer here to the superstitious beliefs like soothsaying, foretelling the future, relying on “good” and “bad” omens, and so forth – all of which are condemned in the Quran.

… And [you are forbidden] to seek to learn through divination what the future may hold in store for you:* this is sinful conduct.  -- Q.5:3
  *Lit., “to aim at divining [the future] by means of arrows”. This is reference to divining arrows without a point and without feathers used by the pre-Islamic Arabs to find out what the future might hold in store for them.  As is usual with such historical allusion in the Quran, this one, too, is used metonymically: it implies a prohibition of all manner of attempts at divining or foretelling the future.


Prophet said

“Atributing bad omen to anything is polytheism (repeated thrice).  And there is nothing that God does not remove from us by virtue of total reliance on Him.” – H: Tirmizi and Abu Daud. N: ‘Abdullah-b-Masud.

“Do not go to the fore-tellers”--  H: Muslim. N: Mu’awiyah.