Al-Azhar’s Dar al-Iftaa has warned Muslims against listening to fortune tellers whom it said become more active at the start of the new year, suggesting that the practice is against Islam.
Astrologers “falsely claim knowledge of future events that are only known to Allah,” said Egypt’s top official source of Islamic interpretation. He added that fortune tellers are liars even if they “accidentally” turn out to be right, and that they make people “drift with superstitions and sorcery”.
Elaborating on its “fatwa”, Dar al-Iftaa said astrology is different from astronomy, which is recognized by Islam as a science based on the study of material movement of celestial bodies, adding that astronomy is vital for the regulation of several Islamic rituals such as fasting and pilgrimage.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
