Telling, Derivation of Names and Signs

It should be noted that telling of things in dreams is like telling of things when one is awake: it is either true or false. One of the Imams of this branch of knowledge said: As for hearing news from animals, trees, inanimate objects or any part of the body, it is true and is to be interpreted according to its apparent meaning. The same applies to hearing it from one who is known to be truthful. News from one who is deceased is true, because it comes from the realm of truth, and what a deceased person tells you in a dream is most likely to be correct, but it may sometimes be a lie. At one time I was suffering from pain in my hand, then I saw (in my dream) one who was dead telling me that the pain would die after a year, and he pointed to my hand. And it did indeed heal, praise be to Allah. That happened about thirty years ago. News in dreams usually turns out as one hears it, without any need for interpretation, but some of it may need to be interpreted. For example, I was in Makkah, may Allah honour it, in 680 AH, and I met a righteous man who was known as Abu 'Abd-Allah ibn Al-Bujjaa'i, who was a scholar and had lived in Makkah for six months and in Madeenah, may the best of blessings and peace be upon its occupant. This Faqeeh, Abu 'Abd-Allah, told me that he dreamt of a man who was riding a horse in the air, and in his hand was a spear and he was saying: I have been sent to take the souls of the scholars from the earth. And the dreamer died straight after that. When I went back to Cairo, I found that the senior Shaafa'i, Maaliki and Hanafi scholars, and others, had died. I told the Qaadi of Alexandria, Naasir Al-Deen Ibn Al-Muneer, about this dream and he wept and said: If death does not come in physical form it may come in intangible form referring to his own calamity. Then he died after that. Naasir-ud-Deen ibn Al-Imami and others also died. One of the students from Granada told me that he had received letters from there, saying that five scholars there had died. When I came to North Africa, I found that a number of scholars had died, and more deaths occurred one after another. Thus this news materialised as told. A teacher in Qafsah died, and he was wealthy. His siblings were his heirs, but they could not find any of his wealth and they began to dispute, each saying to the other: You took his wealth. Whilst the man who knew him was sleeping, (the deceased) came to him and said to him: Tell my brother so-and-so and my sister so-and-so that what I have left is buried in the oven. They dug in the oven and found his wealth there. The author of Fi Maqaamaat Al-Ajwaad said: A poor man had one more child, and he came to a man who used to ask people for money for the poor and told him about his situation, urging him to ask for something for him. That man went, then he came back to him and said: O my brother, I could not find anyone to give me anything. Here is a Dinar; take half of it as a loan. He split it in two and gave half of it to the poor man. Then that kind man saw in his dream a man who was kind to the poor. He greeted him and told him the story. The man in his dream said: I have heard what you said. Go to my son so-and-so and tell him to dig under such and such a box, where he will find a sack in which there are five hundred Dinars. Take them and give them to the poor man. So he went and found the son, who said Wait here. He went in and dug under the box, and he found a sack as he said. He gave it to him, but the kind man said to him: This is your money. The son said to him: He gave it away when he is dead; how can I withhold it when I am alive? Take it and give it to the poor man. So he took it and gave it to the poor man. The poor man opened it and took out a Dinar which he split in two. He took one half and gave the other half to that man in the payment of the loan he had given him before. He said: Take this wealth and distribute it to the poor. This is an example of something foretold in a dream which turned out exactly as it was told. One of the Imams said that (the Caliph) Al-Muhtadi woke up from his sleep one night Feeling scared. He called the chief of police and said: Go to the prison and release so-and-so Al-Husayni (a descendant of Al-Husayn), and give him such and such. He said: I entered upon him and found him in a very bad shape, so I let him go and gave him money. I said to him: I ask you by Allah, what reason could there be for hastening your release? He said: I dreamt that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: O my son, have you been wronged? I said: Yes. He said: Get up and pray two Rak'ahs. Then he said: O Allah, O You Who hears all, O You Who clothes the bones after death, send blessings and peace upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, and grant me relief and a way out, for You know and I do not know, You are able and I am not able, You are the knower of the unseen, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy. He said: I got up and did that, and kept repeating that until you called me. He said: I told the story to Al-Muhtadi and he said: I saw in a dream a black man with a rod of iron in his hand, and he said: Let so-and-so Al-Husayni go, otherwise I will kill you. It was narrated that 'Abd-Allah Al-Maghrebi said: I saw the Prophet (Peace be upon him) in a dream. I said: O Messenger of Allah, I am in need of Allah's help, how can I seek His help? He (Peace be upon him) said: Whoever needs the help of Allah, let him prostrate and say whilst prostrating and pointing with his finger: Glory be to You, verily I was one of the wrongdoers, then his supplication will be answered. It was narrated that Ibn Munabbih said: I went through financial hardship until I was on the verge of despair. Then someone came to me in my dream and gave me something, and said: Open it. I opened it and saw a piece of silk. He said: Spread it out, and written on it in white letters were the words: It is not befitting for the one who knows Allah or His justice to think that Allah is too slow in giving him provision. I woke up and Allah granted me abundant provision and made things easy after they had been hard. It was said by Galen that a man dreamt that a phlebotomist opened the vein between the two smallest toes of his left foot and said: This is beneficial for the blood between the diaphragm and the liver. It was not long before the dreamer had that problem, and he had that vein opened and he recovered. A man was suffering stomach pain, and he saw Galen in his dream, who said to him: Eat Al-Kaba and you will recover. He woke up and asked about the interpretation of that, and he was told that the word Al-kaba in Farsi refers to rose jam. So he ate rose jam and recovered. One of the doctors said to me: I was suffering pain in the eye, and in my dream I saw so-and-so, and so-and-so, referring to two men that I knew who had no knowledge at all, and they said to me: Boil an onion skin and apply it to your eye. When I woke up I said: This is appropriate, because the pain is due to cold and the onion is hot. So I got an onion and took the skin and opened it, and I applied it to my eye and it was soothed. Then the pain resurfaced, so I did it again, then a third time, and I felt something like an ant walking from my eye to my nose, then I recovered.