Title: Results of Istikhara From Both Mothers-in-Law Question: If two persons want to get marry with one another and their mothers perform istakhara. Istakhara of the girl mother brings good result and she sees greenery and brightness but the mother of boy see fire in her dream what should they do get marry or not? Answer: Istikhara literally means to ask for good. Its religious meaning is the same as its literal meaning. Contrary to what many Muslims believe, Istikhara is not to ask God to tell us which decision to make. It is to ask God to support us in our decision so that we end up with positively for both our religion and our life. The famous prayer ( du'a ) for Istikhara that is to be read after 2 Rak'ats of prayer ( Salah ) is as follows: "O Allah, I ask you for good through your knowledge, and I ask you for power, through your ultimate power, and I beg you to grant me your tremendous favour, for you have power, while I am without power, and you have knowledge, while I am without knowledge, and you are the one who knows all things invisible. O Allah, if you know that this undertaking is in the best interests of my religion, my life in this world, and my life in the Hereafter (in another version: in both the short term and the long term), then make it possible for me and make it easy for me, and then bless me in it. And O Allah, if you know that this undertaking is bad for my religion, my life in this world, and my life in the Hereafter (in another version: in both the short term and the long term), then turn it away from me, and bring me good, wherever I may happen to be, and make me content with Your verdict." - Sahih Al Bukhari 1109 A number of things can be understood from the above prayer: The person who needs to make a decision will read the prayer. The person does not ask God to directly show him the correct decision. The person has already decided about what he wants to do. He asks God to facilitate what he wants to do if it is good for him and to make it impossible for him to follow through if it is not good for him. The person asks God to make him content with the outcome (as the result of this prayer). There is no mention of seeing dreams, signs to make the correct decision, etc... Most of the versions of the Hadith do not refer to this. Where it is referred to, it should be seen as one way that the prayer can be answered rather than a definite result of the prayer. This means the person should not expect to see dreams or signs as the result of his prayer. According to the above, Istikhara of mothers for marriage of their kids in the way illustrated in the question is not that relevant to what is reported from the Prophet (pbuh). A correct way of Istikhara for the above case would be as follows: The boy and the girl with the help of their parents will do their best to understand whether they are appropriate for each other for the purpose of marriage. If they decide that this seems to be a good course of action they will then do 2 Rak'ah prayer and will read the above prayer afterwards. This means they will ask God to make this marriage easy for them and to support them in it if it is good for their life and religion, and to make it impossible for them to marry if the marriage is harmful to their life and religion and to satisfy them with either of these situations. If the boy and girl are absolutely unsure about the marriage, they can still do the above with the intention that what will seem to be naturally coming for them (marrying or not marrying) will be what God wants for them. Abdullah Rahim September 13, 2007