Fortune-telling by the 'arraf' (irafa)

Irafa has two senses: the trade of the 'arraf', who claims to know hidden matters from premises and signs, such as who stole an object or where a lost animal is; and the verbal noun of managing a people's affairs ¹.

Kihana is reporting unseen future events; tanjim is reading the heavens to infer events; sihr is practising hidden arts. The 'arraf reports on the past, the kahin on past and future ².

Irafa is forbidden. Whoever goes to a kahin or an 'arraf and believes what he says has disbelieved, because he has associated another with God in knowledge of the unseen. Whoever only asks without believing is denied the reward of his prayer for forty nights ^{2 3}.

Sorcery and soothsaying are treated in their own entries; the second sense of irafa is covered under the entry on imara ³.