Soothsaying (kahana), fiqh rulings

Kahana, in lexicon, is judging the unseen for someone; the kahin reports future events and claims to know secrets and to look into the unseen. The Arabs also used the word for one who manages a man's affairs and for any practitioner of a fine science, so that an astrologer or a physician could be called a kahin ¹.

Tanjim is the science of inferring lower events from the astral configurations, and in this sense it is a kind of kahana ^{1 2}.

The jurists agree that foretelling by claiming knowledge of the unseen and making a living by it is forbidden; that coming to a kahin to ask about outcomes is forbidden; and that believing him is unbelief, on the hadith: whoever comes to a kahin or a soothsayer and believes what he says has disbelieved in what was sent down to Muhammad ². The earnings of kahana are forbidden as unlawful gain, like the kahin's fee, on the hadith of Abu Mas'ud that the Prophet ﷺ forbade the price of a dog, the wage of a prostitute and the kahin's fee ². Kahana covers every claim to knowledge of what God alone knows, including the astrologer, the soothsayer and the caster of pebbles ².

The Arabs had kahana before the mission, and some kahins claimed a jinn companion who brought them news. It was reported that devils eavesdropped and passed what they heard to the kahins, who added to it, and the faithful among them believed the lies. Ibn Abbas described a demon struck by a shooting star; when the Prophet came and the sky was guarded, kahana ended with the Qur'an, which divides truth from falsehood ^{2 3}.

Al-Qarafi holds that the ruling depends on the state of belief: one who holds that the stars act of themselves and hides it is killed without being asked to repent, as a heretic; if he displays it, he is an apostate who is asked to repent; one who holds that God acts through them is restrained from the false belief, as an innovation that removes uprightness ⁴. Ahmad has two narrations: one that he is asked to repent, and when asked whether he should be killed, he said no, but imprisoned in case he returns; the other that the sorcerer and the kahin are killed or imprisoned until they repent, citing the saying of Umar: kill every sorcerer and kahin ⁴. Ibn Aqil held that an astrologer who says he hit it by intuition is only a sinner, but one who gives people the impression that he knows the unseen may be killed by the ruler for spreading corruption ⁴.