Divination in Folk Islam with Dr. Warren Larson. In this lecture, Warren Larson shares some of the practices associated with divination, particularly within folk Islam across the Muslim world. He also shares a biblical perspective on the concept of divination and how to share the gospel with those practicing it.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Divination in Folk Islam.
Zeroing in now on, in lecture 39, rituals and practices, 0ing in on divination, which is the title here. Divination in the Bible is condemned and I wanted to just read a few passages of scripture here if I can find them in a hurry. One is, Ezekiel. You have to admire these old testament prophets, don’t you? Not just the major ones that we call a major Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and, Isaiah, but the minor ones too because they preached bold messages, you know, courage, phenomenal courage.
They preached against these kinds of things. This thinking here of Ezekiel, the great prophet, Ezekiel 13 and verse 7, he says, the Lord has, he said, these prophets, the Lord has not sent them. He says in verse 6, just a little before we said before their versions are false, said their division’s a lie. They say the Lord declares when the Lord has not sent them, yet they expect their words to be fulfilled. Have you not seen a false vision, false visions, and uttered a lying divinations when you say the Lord declares?
Well, interesting. Then then turning the page over to 13/23, Actually, backing up a little bit, to 18. This is what the sovereign lord says. Woe to the women who sue so magic charms on all their wrists and make veils. What does that sound like?
You know, Islam didn’t get you know, Islam this is just animism through and through, isn’t it? Sew magic charms on their wrists and make veils, of various lengths for their heads in order to ensnare people. Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserve your own? You profaned me among my people for a few handfuls of barley and scraps. And then verse 20.
Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says, I’m against your magic charms, with which you ensnare people like birds, and I’ll tear them from your hands. Then really at the end, 23, therefore, you will no longer see false visions or practice divination. Wow. You know, this is, really something, isn’t it? And, you know, over and over again, the scripture speaks against this.
This is the context. And, I wanted to mention Deuteronomy 1810 through 12. This, by the way, some of you will know that this is, one of the passages that Muslims claim to be about Muhammad because they say in verse 17 of this chapter, the lord said to me, you know, I’ll raise up for you a prophet like you from among their brothers. And then verse 20, but a prophet let’s see. Well, I should actually read verse 15.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. And then verse 18, I’ll raise up for them a prophet like from you from among their brothers. Muslims have said they’ve often said and they they argue this, that this is about Muhammad. But I I say to them, look, if you look at the passage carefully, this is about Moses because, you know, he was one of their brothers, one of the Jews, and it’s not about Mohammed. And so look at the passage carefully.
But what I wanted to point out was that this is the very passage that, talks about, the detestable practices of magic and divination, and it talks about the spirit of divination. In verse 9, you know, you when you enter the land, your god lord your god give gives you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices the son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist who consults the dead? Anyone who does these things is detestable to the lord, and because of these detestable practices of the lord God will drive out those nations. So in other words, god really in other words, he drove them out and, of course, the Israelites came in because of their detestable practices.
Now, it seems that the Jews learned their lesson, from the, you know, the fact that they learned their lesson on some of these things, but Muslims have not learned their lesson and they are very much into this kind of stuff. Now, what forms of divination are there? Well, various and sundry forms. There are, of course, dreams, interpreting dreams as a form of divination. I wanted to make a note here, a point that I’m not against Muslims having dreams.
They do have dreams. They do have dreams and they have dreams of Jesus, so we need to pray that they would have dreams of Jesus and not Muhammad or not their peer, their saint, their, some other person because they will be led astray through those dreams. That said, of course, we recognize that, Satan can use dreams, and we don’t because we have the scriptures, we don’t need to rely on dreams. We you know, I had dreams, dreams last night. I don’t put any stock in them.
Muslims do put stock in their dreams, but we we need to pray that God would give them dreams of Jesus that would draw them to the light and not draw them away from the light. In other words, they’re sometimes Muslims will have dreams saying, you know, don’t have anything to do with with this. Well, we need to, pray that they will have dreams of Jesus, that God, who is more powerful than Satan, would, break through and give them, if he’s gonna have dreams, have dreams of Jesus and then get them into the word so that they would stand firm. But they have you know, there is the, then there’s the casting of lots. There’s arrows.
There’s water, some things like that, consulting the dead, which is necromancer, and, the astrology. I think of this term, teraphim, and, the use of it in scripture remembering Rachel, Jacob’s wife, the beautiful one, that she never you know, took her a long time to get rid of this kind of stuff. Jacob was negligent himself, and he didn’t seem to deal with this kind of thing. He didn’t seem to spend a whole lot of time with his family in the first place till god really got after him and and, finally, when his daughter, Dinah, was raped, then he finally got serious. But I I was thinking of something before that where when, you know, they they run for their lives and there’s Rachel, she has stolen her father’s gods.
Why? Because she thinks that there’s power and blessing through this tariff. I mean, she hides them in the saddlebag and gives the excuse and it works, this lie that she’s having a period and so she doesn’t have to move, But goodness sakes, almost like Jacob’s faith has no influence on her. Leah, on the other hand, through her suffering perhaps, seems to have grown in her understanding, and, she seems to be far more spiritual than Rachel. I don’t know, how that went out afterwards, but finally, when David’s family get into more trouble, 2 of his sons kill off a whole village.
Jacob finally realizes how serious things are, and so, he, gets out of that and he says, okay. We have to get rid of all of these and so he buries them. Wow. I mean, you talk about serious stuff. Now divination in Islam, childbirth, finding out what this baby is going to be, a boy or a girl.
Of course now I suppose with the increase in ultrasound, you don’t have the same, but oftentimes they’ve used this pendulum. Here’s a picture of a pendulum and, swinging back and forth over a black and a white thread. So then when it stops, if it stops over the black thread, what would it be? You guessed it. A girl, and over the white thread, a boy.
Another one is, I guess, the sieve method where half of the sieve is is covered with charcoal and the other is not. And then using the sieve, the the the the, pendulum there again, the the black is the girl and the white is the boy. I mean, it’s it’s prejudice, isn’t it, against baby girls? In Uzbekistan, it’s the, I’m sorry, not Uzbekistan, but the unseen world is used to diagnose diseases. Marriage, as we’ve said before, numerical value of of a name.
You see, the letters equal have numeric value. Cutting the Quran is not cutting it up with a knife, but it is, a term that’s used for determining, getting guidance. And, Ishta Cara, So, someone who’s wondering what to do in a certain situation goes to a practitioner and, gives the, you know, the the need, the request for guidance and, should I marry this girl or should I not? Should I buy the truck or should I not? Should I do this or do that?
Well, then the the practitioner says, well, let’s cut the Quran. So he opens the book at random, takes his hand across the passage, and it says I was just looking at Surah 24 in verse 16. And why did you not, when you heard it say, it is not right of us to speak thus? So I what did the guy say? He would say, don’t do it.
Well, sort of a flimsy way, but, I mean, I suppose if, if he really wants to go for it, he would go and find another sheikh, you know, because sooner or later, it’s gonna you’re gonna do what you want to do, I suppose. But it it it you know, it’s it’s called cutting the crown. I I know of Christians who have done the same. You know, should I what should I do? And then they open the bible that way and read a verse and sort of get find out God’s will.
It’s sort of a dangerous way to to do it. I suppose God can intervene and, but, certainly, it’s done in in Islam. And then looking at the heavens, you know, the waning and the waxing of the moon, the waning moon, meaning one thing and the, you know, the waxing moon means another. So you looking at the moon, stargazing, these are some of the things that are done. In, Afghanistan, actually, the Turkmens look at the water.
They predict certain things by looking at the ripples of the water in a basin. Child in the Sudan. This is a practitioner. Rafiki uses child as a medium of divination. In other words, some way or another way they would use this child as a way of divining the future, finding out what’s gonna happen.
Others would use coffee or tea, looking at the leaves and to know the future, which was we’re probably more acquainted with. Then there is the sand gazing. The Falata of the Sudan look at the sand. That’s what they do. And bones.
Looking at the bones in Kazakhstan, the shaman reads the cracks in the bones and it looks at the sheep sheep’s shoulder. And so various and sundry ways, divination is in Islam is done. Omens, a black, butterfly would mean one thing, obviously, an evil omen, and dogs howling in a central place, would make some people think of death or, you know, superstition. You don’t say you don’t mention death, or you never mention, any type of disease because that can bring bad luck. In the Emirates, what you do to bring a to break a curse is you urinate on the curse package and, which is a wand of folded paper, you know, a bound paper, that so has been put under the put on the mattress, and you broke it by defiling it.
See, these are Phil Parshall talks about those kind of things. Divination in Islam, continuing this topic. Astrology is, of course, reading the stars. There’s just one type of of, divination. A sick person, so, the Hodeje consults the stars.
He writes 3 copies of the prayer dissolved, and it put and puts it in the hat, drinks the water. Through the astrology, you find out when’s the best plant time to plant and with a special prayer. Now not a prayer in the sense that we think of it and, you we’ve already talked about the name change, Would it would it be that easy? Alchemy is sort of a strange old science. It was not really a science, but, zikr meaning, you know, going over god’s names, vows, curses, blessings including knot tying.
Remember, the Iranian man became, he somebody became a kleptomaniac, in other words. He’s stealing everything. And, so the diagnosis is he you know, he must have been cursed by a jinn. So one way or another, that curse might must be broken. You know, it’s in in one way, it’s an easy way to, to, get over things, isn’t it?
I mean, in other words, to not take the blame for what you have done. And then, of course, knot tying, we’ve talked about that as well, and, we could give other examples, but that’s enough.