would soon perish. Like the worldly leaders of the verse quoted above, these diviners are also spoken of in the Holy Qur’ān as shayāṭīn (devils), because they led people to evil courses of life.

The other word of which the meaning has been misunderstood, is rajm (used in connection with these devils or diviners). Rajm, no doubt, does mean the throwing of stone, but it is also used to indicate conjecture (zann), superstition (tawahhum), abusing (shaṭm) or driving away (ṭard) (R.). It occurs in the sense of conjecture in 18:22 — “Making conjectures (rajm-an) at “what is unknown”—, and in the sense of abuse in 19:46 in which the word la-arjumanna-ka is explained as meaning, “I will speak to thee in words which thou dost not like” (R.). And it is added that shaiṭān or the devil is called rajīm, because “he is driven away from all good and from the high places of the exalted assembly” (mala’al-a‘lā) (R.).

The two words explained above occur in the following verse: “And We have adorned this lower heaven with lights and We have made them rujūm-an li-l-shayāṭīn,” which words are wrongly translated as missiles for the devils.34 In the light of what has been stated above, the meaning clearly is means of conjecture for the devils or kāhins, ie., the diviners and the astrologers. The following significance is accepted by the best authorities: “We have made them to be means of conjectures to the devils of mankind, i.e., to the astrologers” (LL., Bdz., TA). Another commentator says: “It is said that the meaning is that We made them so that the devils of mankind who are the astrologers make conjectures by them” (RM.). Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr, gives the following explanation: “It has been said that by rujūm are meant the conjectures which were made, … and what the astrologers state by guesses and surmises and by their coming to certain conclusions on account of the combination of the stars and their separation, and it is they that are meant by shayāṭīn, for they are the devils of mankind. And it has been stated in some ḥadīth that whoever learns anything from astrology … learns the same from sorcery, and the astrologer is a kāḥin (diviner or soothsayer) and the kāhin is a sorcerer and the sorcerer is an unbeliever, and thus the astrologer who claims to acquire a knowledge of the stars to decide the happenings (of the future) thereby, and ascribes to them the sources of good and evil, is