Tuesday 1 February 2011

How NOT to do istekhara

Many books/websites mention this method of istekhara found in Syed ibn Tawoos's book.

(i) Recite al Ikhlas 3 times
(ii) recite salawat at 3 times
(iii) then say:

(iv) Open the Holy Quran and derive the indication from the first line of right hand page. 
http://www.duas.org/istikhara.htm

Of course, people are then told "You can not interpret the Qur'an, let a Shaikh do the istekhara for you". How the "shaikh" got the authority to interpret the Qur'an (only Muhammad wa aal al Muhammad have this authority) is another mystery. This type of istekhara has provided booming business to failed "scholars". Check this out:

So, what's wrong with this "istekhara"? Well, this method has been explicitly forbidden in hadith.

Kafi:

عدة من أصحابنا، عن سهل بن زياد، عن محمد بن عيسى، عن بعض رجاله عن أبي عبدالله (عليه السلام) قال: لا تتفأل بالقرآن

A group among our companions, from Sahl b.Ziyad, from Muhammad b.Easa, from some men from Abi Abdullah(as) said "Don't pick lots from Qur'an."
Posted by Bhooka_bhairiya at 01:14
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous6 August 2011 at 20:08

    As Salaamu 'Alaykum

    Brother, would you say this article is accurate in the method of istekara it advises?

    http://islamicinsights.com/religion/clergy-corner/istikhara-to-do-or-not-to-do.html

    ws

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bhooka_bhairiya7 August 2011 at 04:00

    @Anonymous: Wassalam,

    Yes, that article is good in general. Basically istekhara means praying/supplicating to Allah (swt) for "khair" (goodness). All our ahadith books mention that to do istekhara we should pray a 2 rak'ah prayer and then supplicate to Allah (swt) for khair. As for this method of doing istekhara by Qur'an, it isn't exactly mentioned in our classical hadith books. So the article is good in general because it highlights that the proper well known method to do istekhara is to pray 2 rakat prayer of istekhara.

    So basically, since istekhara means praying to Allah (swt) for khair, one should do the istekhara himself by saying the two rakat prayer. This trend of having istekharas done by "shaikhs", "maulanas" etc is foolish. That is like asking a shaikh to pray salatul layl (tahajjud prayer) for oneself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7 August 2011 at 12:38

    Salaam

    Thanks, the method in the article does seem more logical, maybe it is a bit of a stretch to say this, but as games of chance are forbidden, the method of having a sheikh randomly open the Qur'an could perhaps fall into that category (as it is random), and unfortunately many people base many important decisions on a man flicking open the book of Allah.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous13 May 2012 at 15:49

    Salam aleikum

    Maybe you can make the article a bit more expressive with the method of the real isitkhara from our classical books and also show that the Istikhara with the Quran is mentioned less to nearly nowhere.
    That would make the article a bit better qualitywise in my opinion :)
    I only mean well inshallah

    Wa aleikum salam

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bhooka_bhairiya15 May 2012 at 00:31

    @Anonymous: Wa'laikumus Salam,

    Inshallah brother, I'll try to do that.

    ReplyDelete

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