Question:
Asalaamualaikum. I was scrolling through facebook and this post came up and said swipe a heart pattern on your phone keyboard (as most keyboards have swipe predictive text nowadays) and post what word pops up. I did this with the intention of curiosity and doing it for fun just to see what would happen. The word that I saw triggered a thought such as “this word is relevant to your life” but I rejected it and knew my intention was curiosity. But then I got this fear that this was like to going to a fortune teller or something similar. My question is, would this action be considered like going to a fortune teller even though you obviously don’t believe that your phone is telling you a fortune or had no intention of doing so?
Answer:
Asalaamualaikum. I was scrolling through facebook and this post came up and said swipe a heart pattern on your phone keyboard (as most keyboards have swipe predictive text nowadays) and post what word pops up. I did this with the intention of curiosity and doing it for fun just to see what would happen. The word that I saw triggered a thought such as “this word is relevant to your life” but I rejected it and knew my intention was curiosity. But then I got this fear that this was like to going to a fortune teller or something similar. My question is, would this action be considered like going to a fortune teller even though you obviously don’t believe that your phone is telling you a fortune or had no intention of doing so?
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
As long as you did not mean to know the horoscope by doing that, but you did it for fun and for play, then you are not sinful, and this is not similar to the work of fortune-tellers and magicians.
Nonetheless, it is better to completely avoid such matters in order not to open for yourself the door of whispering and doubt.
Allah Knows best.