The Existence of Divination: Myth, Science, and the Qur’anic Perspective

Abstract

Ideally, Islamic teachings place knowledge of the unseen and the future solely under the absolute authority of God, as explicitly stated in the Qur’an. However, in social reality, belief in fortune-telling—through shamans, astrologers, or modern predictive practices—continues to persist among Muslim communities as part of myth and cultural tradition. This study aims to examine the existence of fortune-telling by positioning it between social myth and the normative perspective of the Qur’an, while also clarifying Islam’s theological stance on such practices. This research employs a library-based qualitative approach, utilizing thematic analysis of Qur’anic verses related to the concept of the unseen (al-ghayb), magic, and the prohibition of claiming knowledge of the future, supported by classical and contemporary exegetical and academic literature. The findings indicate that fortune-telling, from the Qur’anic perspective, is a speculative practice that lacks theological legitimacy and poses a risk to Islamic creed by attributing knowledge of the future to entities other than God. The Qur’an consistently rejects fortune-telling as a source of truth and firmly distinguishes divine revelation from human claims of predictive knowledge.