The stealing of the hearing

Al-Masudi reports that many people said that soothsaying comes from a devil that accompanies the soothsayer and tells him what is hidden from him. ¹

They said that the devils used to steal hearing, and that they would throw what they had heard onto the tongues of soothsayers, who would then pass the news on to people according to what reached them. Al-Masudi notes that God informed of this in His Book. ¹

Al-Masudi says that devils and jinn do not know the unseen, and that they only steal hearing from what they hear of the angels. He cites a verse of the Qur'an, whose number the data do not specify, so its text is not quoted here. ¹