Q128 :Is it true that diamonds and other precious
stones should be bought only for personal use and this be determined on
the basis of knowing one’s exact date of birth. Some people suggest
that if this is not taken into consideration, these precious stones may
have a curse and bring bad luck to the wearer.
A128 : May I ask: What happens to a person who does
not know her exact birth date, or indeed the year in which she was
born? You may recall that until recently, the majority of people in
large areas of the world did not have any official records of births
and deaths. Before the turn of this century, such registration was not
legally required in many Muslim countries. Tribal areas in Africa and
Asia may have kept certain records, but these were hardly on the basis
of days, dates, months and years. Women have always worn ornaments and
have used precious stones for this purpose. If what you say is true,
bad luck would have hit so many millions of people and that was sure to
disrupt human life, as a whole. The fact is that there is no truth
whatsoever in this superstition. However, your question gives me the
opportunity to state clearly that the time of birth has no significance
whatsoever. I realize that people attach some importance to the time of
birth, which act can at times be very much exaggerated. Astrologers
tell us that if they know the exact time of someone’s birth, they can
set up his or her horoscope and they can tell that person a great deal
about his or her personality and future. They claim that by knowing the
exact time of birth, they can calculate which star was rising and which
was descending, and these movements indicate certain things for human
beings. Besides, newspapers and magazines in most countries have a
horoscope column which tell people, who are born between certain dates,
what to expect in the period immediately after the publication of that
issue of the paper or magazine. Although most people read these for
fun, some of them take them seriously. From the Islamic point of
view, we accept nothing of these claims. Indeed, the Prophet warns us
against consulting any fortune teller, regardless of the method he or
she uses to tell us our fortunes. Moreover, the Prophet describes
fortune tellers as liars, even when they happen to say the truth [i.e.
fore-tell correctly.] That means that if a fortune teller tells us
something and it turns out to be as he had said, he still is a liar
because when he told it to us, he did not know it for certain. He was
simply guessing. When a person tells us something which is only guess
work, he must be a liar. Indeed the prohibition to fortune tellers
including astrologers is very strict. To believe that someone may know
the future is tantamount to disbelief in Allah, because it suggests
that these people know something which in fact is known only to Allah
Himself. May I also say that the idea of something having a curse is
totally alien to Islamic thinking. Islam accepts nothing of the sort.
Diamonds and precious stones do not have a will of their own. Nor
indeed have they any power to cause any good or harm. They are
lifeless objects. Therefore, they cannot bring us any good or bad luck.
Anyone who suggests something of the sort, needs to have his mind
examined.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )