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)
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.
