AUGURY AND DIVINATION
Augury and divination played a mojor role in classical antiquity both on personal level and public affair; and more or less are still practiced all over the new world!
The consultation of oracles with Apollo at Delphi was only one of many forms of Divinations.
Omens could be drown from the flight of birds, or from the vital organs of sacrificed victims, and also from celestical phenomena like lightning, meteors, and eclipses.
The practice of augury and omen has been reported in all parts of the world and in many different forms. Example of these are gypsy readings of palms, fingertips, cards and coffee remnants in the cup.
Divination appears to be related to basic insecurities of human life - The need for assistance in making decisions, and hope of finding explanations for mysterious events.
Down here in this town that I live, (BAGHBADORAN- ISFAHAN - IRAN) gypsy palm reading, astrologies, fortune tellings and amulet writings and many other Divination are practised and do a good deal of business, even though their activities are illegal. Faith in fate and luck, and testing the luck is something customary here. Almost all the lovers consult the poetical works of HAFIZ to know the fortune and future of their love. When an owl sings on a tree or wall of one's house, it is taken as an ill omen and bad news!
Many women (particularly the uneducated ones) consult the fortune teller to handle her affair. They do not visit a sick person in wednesday night for believing that the patient will get worse. At new moon, when they see the crescent, they try not to look at the face of whom they think he is not a good one or godfearing, or else in that month they do not live a good life!
So many of such superstitions are practised here that have nothing to do with our religion which is Islam. Our scholars and learned men mock at these- superstitions as they call it and know it as a part of our pre- Islamic culture that we have inherited.TRANSLATION'S NOTE)
