Virtue and context
Abdullah ibn Amr (raḍiy Allāhu ʿanhuma) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said that anyone whom an omen turns back from an intended action has fallen into a form of associating partners with Allah. When the people asked how to expiate it, he taught them to affirm that no omen exists except what Allah decrees, no good exists except His good, and none is worthy of worship besides Him.
The Prophet ﷺ rejected superstitious omen-seeking while expressing approval of al-faʾl—a good and encouraging word. He described it as a favourable word a person hears and was pleased by good names, while never allowing an omen to govern his actions. Other reports explain that the blameworthy omen is the thought that causes someone to proceed with or abandon an affair, and that when he heard a word he liked, the Prophet ﷺ would take it as an encouraging sign from the speaker’s mouth.
He ﷺ also rejected inherited superstitions about contagion, birds, and the month of Safar, while still instructing people to take sensible precautions around serious illness.
