Q. Could you please explain the status of ilm-e-ghayb in the light of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. What does it include? A friend of mine is a keen student of numerology. She was able to tell me some amazingly correct things about my past life which I am sure she did not learn from me or anyone else in the past and in the present, including some very private things. She says that she worked that out from my birth date and some other numbers. I realize that only God knows the future and He encompasses everything in His knowledge, but is numerology similar to palmistry or astrology?
A. Ghafour
A. The term ilm-e-ghayb literally means “knowledge of what is absent”. It is made of two words, the first means “knowledge”, and the second, ghayb, means “absent, hidden, kept away, concealed, etc.” It is often used in the Qur’an as part of God’s knowledge, who is described as “the One who knows what is absent and what is present.” Unfortunately, in Qur’anic translations, this term is often rendered as “knowledge of the unseen”, which is a very narrow sense of the word, because ghayb is not merely unseen. It could be absent or concealed in many different ways. Perhaps a better translation is “that which lies beyond the reach of human perception.” But even then, the Arabic term has a wider reference. Believers are described as those “who believe in the ghayb and attend to their prayers...” (2: 3)
What is clear in the Qur’an is that such knowledge is clearly reserved for God and He does not give any part of it to anyone, except to some of His messengers and prophets. Such knowledge He imparts to them to support them as they go about the discharge assigned to them of delivering God’s message to people. Thus we read in the Qur’an: “He alone knows that which is beyond the reach of a created being’s perception, and to none does He disclose anything of His unfathomable knowledge, unless it be to a messenger whom He has been pleased to choose.” (72: 26-27) The statement is very clear, and it occurs in the surah entitled The Jinn, because many fortunetellers claim that they have contacts with the jinn. This statement refutes their claims by stating that not even the jinn have such knowledge.
An example of how God gives such knowledge to His messengers is found in the opening of Surah 30, Al-Room, which mentions the defeat suffered by the Byzantine Empire at the hands of the Persian armies. It then tells the Prophet (peace be upon him) that 1) the Byzantines will be victorious in a few years time, and 2) the believers will be delighted with victory granted by God. This surah was revealed in Makkah when the Prophet and his companions were a small persecuted minority, practically without any power. Within a few years, the Byzantines scored a great victory, and on the same day the Muslims won their first major battle against the idolaters, which was the Battle of Badr.
Because of this clear reference to knowledge of what is absent, which includes everything concerning the future, it is strictly forbidden to consult fortunetellers of any type. Such people are described by the Prophet as “liars even when they tell the truth.” They will never be able to tell all the truth. They may hit on some aspect of it, but it is always a question of coincidence. It is never based on certainty. Hence, consulting such people is a grave sin. The Prophet says: “Whoever goes to a fortuneteller disbelieves in what has been revealed to Muhammad.”
Having said that, I go back to your other point of numerology. I do not know anything about this apart from what is taught as arithmetic and mathematics. To suggest that numbers have an effect on our lives is an exercise of fortunetelling. As to how your friend was able to tell you about your past, she must have learned it from other sources.
Continuous Act of Charity
Q. If a son or daughter arranges for some continuing act of charity on behalf of his deceased parents, will the reward be credited to the parents or to their son or daughter?
M.R. Hussain
A. The son or daughter who makes such an arrangement, establishing a continuing act of charity and requesting God to credit it to his parents will receive a good reward from God for being a dutiful son or daughter. The parents receive the reward of the charity in full. This is a very good way of earning reward for oneself and one’s parents.
