Are Muslims allowed to believe in palmistry and horoscopes?

God has chosen to keep for himself the knowledge of what the future brings. The next moment and what it may bring is a divine secret of which no one knows anything whatsoever. Since knowledge of the future has always intrigued man and since people have always yearned to know what will tomorrow bring, human societies have always had some people who claim to be able to tell the future. Some have enlisted the help of the stars, and they claim that the positions of different stars at the moment of birth of any one person affect his life. Others have tried to “read” the palm of a person in order to discover his future. There are also those who “read” tea or coffee cups, and those who draw lines in special sand, etc. The list is endless.

Islam views all these practices as means of trickery. No one can ever discover what God has chosen to keep secret. Hence, anyone who pretends to be able to tell what will happen at any future moment is a liar who cannot substantiate his claim. The Prophet, peace be upon him, has given a decisive and final ruling on this subject when he said: “Astrologers are liars, even when they tell the truth.” This means that even when an astrologer says that something will happen in the future, and it happens as he has described, he would be telling a lie. This is because he had no knowledge whatsoever of what was going to happen. It was only by mere coincidence that what he has said has turned out to be true. His claim of having prior knowledge of it was certainly false.

Hence, a Muslim, believes in God and in the message of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and believes that everything which our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, has told us is absolutely true. He cannot then combine such a belief with believing in palmistry or astrology or any method of telling the future. Such a belief is contradictory with the faith of Islam. It follows that a Muslim must not read his or her horoscope, which is unfortunately being published in most newspapers and magazines.

It says a great deal when we realize that even the editors of those papers and magazines do not believe their horoscopes. Indeed, those who write the horoscope do not believe a word they write because they are fully aware of the trick they use.