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Intrepretation of Dreams- 

An introduction by Bilal Philips

Islam lays down that only good dreams should be interpreted and bad
ones cast aside, and that the interpretation should be arrived at based
on only on the teachings of the Holy Quran and the Sunna, a Canadian Muslim
Scholar said recently. 

Delivering a lecture on " Interpretation of Dreams", Dr. Bilal
Philips said lot of emphasis has been laid on the interpretation of dreams
and there are many books in Arabic and English giving guidance on how to
interpret dreams. 

" Unfortunately most of these books carry false information and
are full of mistakes. That is why I decided to do some research on Islamic
interpretation of dreams to provide guidelines to those who would like
to know more about this field.", He said. 

Dr. Philips said most of the books on interpretation of dreams, especially
those written in Arabic and translated into English referred to a Muslim
scholar Ibn Sirin. 

While Ibn Sirin was an expert in interpretation o dreams he did not
write a single book to be used as a reference. However many authors referred
to Ibn Sirin and quoted him in many instances." he said adding that
they would not achieve the success that Ibn Sirin had in the interpretation
of dreams. 

Other books in their interpretations referred to Prophet Daniel, without
much Success, he said. 

Explaining dreams, he said psychologists, like Sigmound Freud, related
their dreams and their contents to human desires that are pressurized by
society's norms and regulations, finding dreams the only rooms where they
can be released. 

" Islam, however, has had its own way of interpreting dreams. More
than 1400 years ago Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) divided dreams into three types,
good dreams from Allah, bad dreams from the devil, and dreams reflecting
what is going on in one's life. Also there are true dreams (visions) which
occur in real life and can be good or bad events" he said. 

" Both true and good dreams come from Allah. If one of us, for
example, had a good dream, he should know it is from Allah and he should
tell people about its contents and ask for interpretation." he said.

However, he added, according to Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) we should tell
about the dreams only to people we love and who love us. " As the
true dream is a sign of prophecy, people who have it nowadays, if they
are believers, it means they are honest with people in real life. Since
true and good dreams are from Allah, fabricating the contents of the dream
is considered a major lie." 

As for the second category of dreams, which are bad and come from devil,
Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) spoke about them as well. Citing an example he
said, when one of the companions of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) had dreamt
about something bad happening to a close friend, a relative, or for himself,
he was asked to ignore it and not ask for interpretation. 

As the devil does not want something good for human beings, he tries
to affect them badly through such bad dreams or nightmares, but true Muslim
believers should not think about the bad dreams they had. Dr. Philips said.

" If you have a bad dream, Prophet Mohammed (PBUH() advised you
to spit several times on the left side to change your position while sleeping.
It is also recommended to lay on the right side and to avoid laying on
the stomach" he pointed out. 

Dreams also could be just a mental reflection. Sometimes, Something
of importance to a person may appear in his dream. Such kind of dreams
had been the focus of most scientific theories attempting to find an explanation
for the phenomenon of dreams. 

To conclude, Dr Philips said it is advisable to interpret good dreams,
provided they were interpreted positively. Interpreters on the other hand,
should interpret only good dreams and that too based on the Quran and Sunna.