Question:
Salaam everyone,
I have 3 questons
1) When Mahdi (a.s) comes where is the best place to be, Madina, Syria or some where else and why?
2) When Muhammad (s.a.w) is mentioned i see people kiss there thumbs and touch there eyes or something like that. Is this permitted, if yes why should we do it?
3) Is reading hands permissible in Islam. I hear of people checking others hands and saying this person will have this long live and so much wealth and etc. I don’t know if they do it for a joke or if their serious. Could you please shed some light on this issue.
Jazakkallah and may Allah (s.w.t)
shower is endless mercy upon us Ameen!
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
1) our mashaykh state that Mecca, Madina, upon its most holy inhabitant the perfumed blessings of Allah Most High and His peace, and Sham are the places of safety in the time of the fitan of the Last Days, with Sham being the best.
See Post: “Imam Mahdi (a.s.) and tariqa question”
2) Shaykh Akiti Afifi states:
In fiqh, the discussion of taqbil al-unbulatayn wa mash al-`aynayn is usually found at the end of Bab Adhan. Certain gestures performed during the adhan, and specifically the `amal of kissing the thumbs and wiping the eye, are something known to Shafi`is, and there can be no objection whatsoever by our jurists (and any jurists for that matter) to those wishing to perform this `amal: as far as we are concerned, it is classified under the category of the Fada’il al-A’mal [I’anat, 1:243; al-Jurdani, Fath al-‘Allam, 2:140-1].
Among its legal bases [`ilal] is that it is a Sunna of the first Khalifa of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him!) [i.e., an Athar of the first Khalifa], and it is also based on a number of Hadiths, of which the most well known is the Hadith of Abu Bakr (may Allah be well pleased with him!):
[Whenever he [Abu Bakr] heard the Mu’addhin say: “I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”, he would repeat this [phrase as it is the Mandub of Adhan] and would kiss the tip of the index fingers [or thumbs] and wipe his eyes. The Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him!) said: whosoever does what my friend [i.e., Abu Bakr] did, my intercession will come down upon him] (Related by al-Daylami, with variants).
For complete discussion see: “Kissing the Thumbs, etc. During The Adhan?”
3) I have not found anything permitting palm-reading, rather many fatwas saying it is a form of fortune-telling, and therefore forbidden. See Suyuti’s list of enormities in Reliance of the Traveler (p. 984: 302-16):
Sorcery that does not entail unbelief; teaching it; learning it; having it done; professing to foretell the future, to be “psychic”, or know the unseen (dis: w60.1); considering something a bad omen; divination by pebbles or drawings in sand; astrology; taking auguries from birds; going to someone who claims to foretell the future; going to a “psychic,” a diviner by pebbles or lines, an astrologer, or an augerer or omen-reader from birds;
w ‘Allahu `alam,
Taher Siddiqui
