Dreams and Prophethood Ibn Sa’ad quotes Aisha (ra) who said: “The beginning of the revelations to the Apostle of Allah sallalahu ‘alaihi...
Dreams and Prophethood
Ibn Sa’ad quotes Aisha (ra) who said:
“The beginning of the revelations to the Apostle of Allah sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam was in the form of
true dreams. He did not have a dream but it came to him like daybreak. She said: He remained
in this condition as long as Allah Most High willed. He loved solitude. Nothing was dearer to
him.” 19
Narrated ‘Aisha:
The commencement of the Divine Inspiration to Allah’s Apostle was in the form of good
righteous (true) dreams in his sleep. He never had a dream but that it came true like bright day
light. He used to go in seclusion in (the cave of) Hira where he used to worship(Allah)
continuously for many (days and) nights. He used to take with him the food for that (stay) and
then come back to (his wife) Khadija to take more food for another period, till suddenly the Truth
descended upon him while he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him in it and asked him
to read. The Prophet replied, “I do not know how to read.” (The Prophet added), “The angel
caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it anymore. He then released
me and again asked me to read, and I replied, I do not know how to read, whereupon he caught
me again and pressed me a second time ‘till I could not bear it anymore. He then released me
and asked me again to read, but again I replied, I do not know how to read (or, what shall I
read?). Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me and then released me and
said, Read: In the Name of your Lord, Who has created (all that exists). Has created man from a
clot. Read and Your Lord is Most Generous who has taught (man) the use of the pen, taught man
what he did knew not. (Qur’an: al-‘Alaq:-96:1-5)”
(Bukhari)
It would appear from the experience of the Prophet sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam himself that true and
good dreams, when they occur continuously, are indicative of the realization of a stage of
spiritual growth and development. That appears to be the stage, for the believers, which
witnesses success in the struggle to achieve inner purity (tazkiyah). It is only when that stage has
been reached that the true process of inner growth can commence. That stage has been achieved
when dreams are invariably good or true. The believers should ponder over the remark of Aisha
(ra) : “The commencement of the Divine Inspiration to Allah’s Apostle was in the form of good
righteous (true) dreams in his sleep. He never had a dream but that it came true like bright day
light.”
It should now be possible for us to understand the true importance of the statement of the
Prophet sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam that good and true dreams are a part of Prophethood:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Allah’s Apostle said, “A good dream of a righteous person (which comes true) is one of forty-six
parts of prophethood.”
(Bukhari)
The Prophet sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, himself, attached such importance to dreams, during his own
lifetime, that he warned that: those who did not believe in dreams did not possess iman (faith).
We are told that every morning, after the morning prayer, he would enquire from those who had
performed the prayers as to whether anyone “had seen anything last night?”:
“Abu Hurairah reported: When the Apostle of Allah finished his morning prayer he used to ask
whether anyone had seen a dream, and used to say: After me there would be nothing left of
prophethood except good dreams.”
(Muwatta, Imam Malick)
After the construction of the masjid in Madina the search began for an appropriate way of calling
the faithful to prayer. A companion approached the Prophet sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam and informed
him that he had a dream of the azan (call to prayer). The Prophet sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam
immediately recognized it as a dream from Allah Most High and decided to adopt the azan as
the Muslim call to prayer:
“When the Apostle first came, the people gathered to him for prayer at the appointed times
without being summoned. At first the apostle thought of using a trumpet like that of the Jews
who used it to summon to prayer. Afterwards he disliked the idea and ordered a clapper to be
made, so it was duly fashioned to be beaten when the Muslims should pray.
Meanwhile ‘Abdullah b. Zayd b. Tha‘laba b. ‘Abdu Rabbihi, brother of al-Harith, heard a
voice in a dream, and came to the apostle saying: A phantom visited me in the night. There
passed by me a man wearing two green garments carrying a clapper in his hand, and I asked
him to sell it to me. When he asked me what I wanted it for I told him that it was to summon
people to prayer, whereupon he offered to show me a better way: it was to say thrice: “Allahu
Akbar. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah I bear witness that Muhammad is the
Apostle of Allah. Come to prayer. Come to prayer. Come to divine service. Come to divine
service. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. There is no God but Allah”. When the Apostle was told
of this he said that it was a true vision if God so willed it, and that he should go with Bilal and
communicate it to him so that he might call to prayer thus, for he had a more penetrating voice.
When Bilal acted as muezzin ‘Umar heard him in the house and came to the Apostle dragging
his cloak on the ground and saying that he had seen precisely the same vision. The apostle said:
‘Allah be praised for that! 20
It would appear that all through the spiritual history of man, good and true dreams have been
accepted as a criterion for recognizing spiritual mobilization and for measuring spiritual growth
and development. In addition, dreams have been the easiest and most readily available vehicle
through which access to the transcendental dimension of existence (al-ghaib) could be effected.
As such, the phenomenon of dreams must be examined with greater attention and with more
importance than now obtains in this age in which materialism has impacted even on Islamic
religious thought. Otherwise the spiritual dimension of human personality will be incapable of
resisting the negative impact which today’s materialism (and its Muslim child, scientific
‘Protestant’ Islam) is making on the authentic religious way of life.
The only possible way that one can explain the phenomenon of a true dream, such as the fire
which destroyed my neighbor's house, is that events exist before they occur. In other words,
the process of creation of an event, which commences with the divine command ‘be!’, is one
which passes through various stages until it culminates as an actual occurance. It is when that
event is intercepted on its way to occurance that a true dream occurs. Perhaps the manner in
which it reaches the sleeping person is that it is transmitted by way of the angel of dreams named
Siddiqun. 21
This explanation seems to be one which has very deep roots in the popular consciousness - for
even those who have no involvement in the religious way of life, and may even be atheists, are
extremely susceptible to this phenomena and to its interpretation when it pertains to such events
as horse racing, casino gambling, betting in lotteries etc.
Perhaps the most important analysis we make in this book is the claim that a true dream can only
be explained if one accepts that reality is essentially transcendental (or spiritual). It is spiritual
‘substance’ which emerges in material ‘form’ in every thing that exists, and every thing that
occurs! All that appears in material ‘form’ were so ‘fashioned’ by Allah Most High that they
might function as symbols (ayaat) which would lead to, and reveal, their spiritual ‘substance’.
If the material is recognized as ‘real’ then the spiritual will reveal itself as ‘ideal’.
And so, the event seen in a true dream would be an event created by Allah Most High which
then first exists only at the dimension of spiritual ‘substance’. It subsequently emerges as
material ‘form’, and the dream becomes a ‘true’ dream. The Sufi epistemology locates
knowledge at the dimension of ‘substance’ and insists that material ‘form’ must first be
penetrated before spiritual ‘substance’ can be discovered. Iqbal has made the acute observation
that “it is the mysterious touch of the ideal that animates and sustains the real, and through it
alone we can discover and affirm the ideal.”22
Sufi epistemology further insists that the act of seeing must extend beyond observation, and
beyond enquiry through sense-perception. Iqbal argues that a complete vision of Reality
necessitates that sense-perception be supplemented by the perception of what the Qur’an
describes as Fuad or Qalb, i.e., heart. He quotes the Qur’an in this respect:
“God hath made everything which He hath created most good; and began the creation of man
with clay; then ordained his progeny from germs of life, from sorry water; then shaped him, and
breathed of His spirit unto him, and gave you hearing and seeing and heart: what little thanks do
ye return?”
(Qur’an: al-Sajda:32:7-9)
and goes on to argue the case as follows:
“The ‘heart’ is a kind of inner intuition or insight which, in the beautiful words of Rumi, feeds on
the rays of the sun and brings us into contact with aspects of Reality other than those open to
sense-perception. (The bodily sense eats the food of darkness; The spiritual sense feeds from the
sun; - Rumi). It is, according to the Qur’an, something which ‘sees’, and its reports, if properly
interpreted, are never false. (Qur’an: al-Najm:-53:11-2). We must not, however, regard it as a
mysterious special faculty; it is, rather, a mode of dealing with reality in which sensation, in the
physiological sense of the word, does not play any part. (Qur’an: al-Hajj:-22:46). Yet the vista
of experience thus opened to us is as real and concrete as any other experience. To describe it
as psychic, mystical or supernatural does not detract from its value as experience.” 23
When the heart sees, it sees with a nur (‘light’) which comes from Allah Most High which, in the
final analysis, permits things to be seen as they ‘are’ (rather than as they merely ‘appear’ to be).
Indeed the Prophet sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam warned mankind to fear the firasa (intuitive
knowledge, acumen, power of discernment) of the mu’min (one possessed of faith) because he
sees with the nur (light) of Allah Most High. (Tirmidhi)
Thus the Sufi epistemology is one which links ‘knowledge’ and the act of ‘knowing’ with nur
(light) from Allah Most High. It directs attention to the statement in the Qur’an that Allah Most
High is the nur (light) of the heavens and the earth (Qur’an: al-Nur:-24:35), and when Allah
Most High sent down the Qur’an He also sent a nur (light) with it (i.e., He sent light with the
Qur’an) (Qur’an: al-Maida:-5:15).
The Qur’an declares:
“O mankind! Verily there has come to you a burhan (convincing proof, i.e., the Qur’an) from
your Lord, and We have (also) sent to you a nur (light) which is plain and manifest.”
(Qur’an: al-Nisa:-4:174)
“O you who believe! Fear Allah and believe in His Messenger, and He will grant you doubly out
of His mercy, and He will provide for you a nur (light) by which you shall walk (through the
world) . . .”
(Qur’an: al-Hadeed:-57:28)
“Believe, therefore, in Allah and His Messenger, and in the nur (light) which We have sent
down.”
(Qur’an: al-Taghabun:-64:8)
The Qur’an further declares of the believers who:
“believe in him (i.e., the Prophet), and to honor and help him, and to follow the nur (light) which
was sent down with him, that they will be successful.”
(Qur’an: al-’Araf:-7:157)
It is only with that nur (light) that one can truly ‘see’:
“ . . . And Allah guides whomsoever He wills to His light . . .”
(Qur’an: al-Nur:24:35)
“ . . . (and) for any to whom Allah gives not light (for such) there is no light.”
(Qur’an: al-Nur:24:40)
It is only with that light that an Iqbal is produced. Iqbal is the living proof of the validity of the
Sufi epistemology. The graduates of the classical education of modern scientific ‘Protestant’
Islam in today’s Al-Azhar University or Darul ‘Uloom Deoband etc. can never be the equal of an
Iqbal. Nor can modern secular education ever produce scholarship who can possibly be the
equal of the scholarship which emerges from authentic Islamic education. The Qur’an asks
rhetorically:
“. . . Are the blind equal with those who see? Or the depths of darkness equal to light. . . ?”
(Qur’an: al-Ra’ad: 13:16)
and again:
“Is one whose heart Allah has opened to Islam so that he is (blessed with) a light from his lord,
(equal to one who is without such)?”
(Qur’an: al-Zumar:-39:32)
and finally:
“Can he who was dead, to whom We gave life, and a nur (light) whereby he can walk amongst
men, be like him who is in the depths of darkness from which he can never come out?”
(Qur’an: al-An’am:-6:122)
The Qur’an then returns to answer the question:
“The blind and the seeing are not alike; nor the depths of darkness and the light.”
(Qur’an: al-Fatir:-35:19-20)
Our study of the phenomenon of true dreams and of their link with prophethood has led us to the
Sufi epistemology which locates knowledge in the dynamic and creative movement of the mind
from material ‘form’ (al-Zahir) to spiritual ‘substance’ (al-Haqiqa). Nowhere is this
epistemology more necessary that in the study of the Qur’an itself. Dr. Ansari has made the
extremely important observation concerning the existence of two levels of understanding the
Qur’an, viz., the level of religious consciousness, which is embraced by unperverted human
common sense, and the level of theoretic consciousness, which necessitates probe and research
below the surface of the Qur’anic text. 24
The understanding of the Qur’an at the level of religious consciousness requires the use of the
Sufi epistemology. And it is only at the level of religious consciousness that both the Qur’an
and Reality (haqiqah) can be grasped as a unity and as an integrated whole. The logical rational
theoretic consciousness is incapable of doing that. “The logical consciousness”, says, Iqbal, “is
incapable of seeing multiplicity as a coherent universe.” The reason for this is because “it’s
only method is generalization based on resemblances . . .” 25 When, on the other hand, says Dr.
Ansari, the believer pursuing the Islamic religious quest arrives at the stage of al-Haqiqah then:
“Allah Most High establishes a light in that servant. The light illumines all the dimensions of his
consciousness to the extent that he lives and moves only under the impact of that light (Qur’an:
al-An’am:-6:122), and not through his desire (Qur’an: al-Nazi’at:-79:40). At that level of
experience his ego transcends, in terms of its approach to the reality of existence, the
phenomenological level of ‘diversity’ and becomes focused in the realm of ‘unity’, - ‘unity’ being
the haqiqah (reality) of existence.” 26
I have been stunned by my discovery that contemporary scientific ‘Protestant’ Islam, which
relishes in demonizing even authentic Sufism with charges of bid’ah (innovations), is itself
incapable of understanding the subjects of riba or dreams. Nor is it at all possible for scientific
‘Protestant’ Islam to penetrate Suratul Kahf of the Qur’an. As a consequence scientific
‘Protestant’ Islam cannot understand the modern age. This is the most likely reason for the
successful embrace and imprisonment of Saudi Arabia, and with it the haramain, by the modern
dominant godless western civilization! The so-called salafi wahhabis cannot see!
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