Tuesday, 26 May 2026 (10 Dhuʻl-Hijjah 1447 AH)
Question: A man has a prayer-bead strand, and he claims that he knows unseen matters about a person’s conditions by looking into those beads; among what he said of that is his claim of seventy acts of fornication against a man. So what is the ruling on this man? Does the one accused of fornication have the right to take retribution from him, and how would that be?
The answer—and Allah is the One who grants success—is that the owner of the prayer beads who… and so on—is an openly sinful person, a liar, and a slanderer.
As for his being openly sinful, a liar, and a slanderer, that is due to Allah’s saying: "And those who accuse chaste women and then do not bring four witnesses—flog them eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after; and those are the openly sinful—except those who repent…" [An-Nur:4]. And in the other verse: "Then those, with Allah, are the liars." [An-Nur:13]
What also indicates that he is a lying slanderer is what he claims of knowledge of the unseen; and there is no doubt among Muslims that whoever claims it is a lying slanderer.
As for the one accused of fornication: if there were a rightful judge, he would carry out upon him the legal punishment of the slanderers, as Allah, the Exalted, commanded in the Quran.
This being so: the accused person may rebuke the charlatan, scold him, and threaten him until he becomes silent about the accusation and restrains his tongue. Beyond that, he has nothing except patience, because the subjects have no authority in the matter of legal punishments and disciplinary measures; rather, that belongs to those in authority and the judges of the Muslims.
Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.3