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Seeing the Prophet in a Dream
By Muhammad Safwat Noor al-Deen
Abu Hurairah (radhiallahu
anhu) said that the Prophet (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam - SAWS) said: 'Name
yourselves with my name, but do not call yourselves with my nickname; and
whoever sees me in his dream, he has [truly] seen me, for Shaytaan (Satan) never
appears in my image. And he who purposefully speaks a lie against me, will have
his seat in the Fire.' (Al-Bukhari)
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said, "It is mandatory for us to love the Prophet
(SAWS) more than ourselves, our parent, our children, our families, and our
wealth. We must revere him, honour, and obey him, outwardly and inwardly. We
must also befriend and ally ourselves with those who support him, and
disassociate ourselves and maintain enmity with all who oppose and disbelieve in
him.
"We know that there is no path to Allah, except by following His Messenger's
(SAWS) way, and one cannot be a friend of Allah, or a true believer, nor can one
be saved from punishment - by any means - except by believing in him, and
following him, both inwardly and outwardly, And there is no means of achieving
nearness to Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala) except by believing in and obeying him
(SAWS), he is the best of all who lived before, and all who will live, he is the
seal of the Prophets. He alone has been distinguished with the great
intercession on the Day of Resurrection, making a distinction between himself
and all of the other Prophets, as Allah has granted it.
"He is the one who holds the most praised rank, he will carry the banner of
praise [on the Day of Resurrection]. Adam and all who came after him will be
under his [Muhammad's] banner. He will be the first to open the door to
Paradise, thereupon the door keeper will say, 'Who is it?' and the Prophet
(SAWS) will reply 'I am Muhammad.' The door keeper will say, 'I have been
commanded to open the door to Paradise for none before you.'"
Those who understood this love, and acted according to its requirements in the
best fashion are the noble companions of the Prophet, and those great scholars
and guided leaders who followed them. They were the best at understanding the
Book and the Sunnah, so if they agreed upon a matter, then it is the truth, for
his (SAWS) nation does not agree upon error.
In the case of any disputes that they suffered, they were directed, upon the
tongue of the Prophet (SAWS) to refer back to the Book and the Sunnah, as Allah
(subhanahu wa t'aala) said (which means), "O you who believe!
Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. If you
differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger if you
indeed believe in Allah and the Last Day, that is better and more suitable for a
final determination." (An-Nisaa' 4:59)
The Prophet (SAWS) said, "Indeed whoever lives after me among you will see much
difference. So adhere to my Sunnah and to the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided
Khalifahs after me. Cling to it firmly, and beware of newly invented matters,
for every newly invented matter is an innovation and every innovation is
misguiding." (A well known authentic hadith recorded by at-Tirmithee and others)
Among these newly invented matters is the claim of seeing the Prophet (SAWS) in
a vision while awake, and that he hears those who greet him, and returns their
greetings. Truly, these are some of the newly invented matters and deviations
that neither existed among the companions nor among the best of the Ummah.
Rather this is misguidance from Shaytaan who inspires people, confusing them
when they violate the shariah (legislation). So he causes them to fall victim to
the same things the previous nations and disbelievers fell victim to.
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said, "The people of India [claim to] see someone
from among their pious people who they revere. The Christians see personalities
from among their prophets, the disciples and others whom they revere. The
deviators among the people of the qiblah [i.e, Muslims] see those whom they
revere, whether it be the Prophet (SAWS) or another prophet. This occurs while
they are awake, and he speaks to them, and they to him. They might seek his
advice and ask him questions regarding some hadiths so he answers them. To some
of them, it [miraculously] appears as if a rock has opened up and the Prophet
came out of it and embraced the onlooker and his companions. Some might imagine
that he gave them salaams (greetings) in a loud voice, such that it reached the
distance of days or a distant place!"
Shaykh 'Abdur-Ra'oof Muhammad 'Uthmaan wrote a splendid section in his book Love
of the Prophet. Some of it follows, "But these myths occurred only among some
latter ignorant people, taking advantage of the ignorant state of that Muslims
suffered from, leading them into the captivity of myths and legend - like
fables. [For example]: 'Umar bin Sa'eed an-Noonee wrote in his book ar-Rumaah,
that the awliyaa' see the Messenger of Allah (SAWS) while they are awake, he
attends any gathering or any place he wishes in both body and soul, he moves
freely throughout the earth and the universe, doing so as he is, as he appeared
before his death, nothing having changed. And that he is normally hidden from
the vision of humans just as the angels, who although they have forms, they are
normally unseen!
"Therefore if Allah desired any servant to see him He would lift the veil so
that the Prophet could be seen in his original form! Such innovations lead many
different Sufi cults to call themselves the "Muhammadiyyah" Path. Their
followers claim that these rituals of theirs have been taken directly from the
Prophet. Examples of these groups include the Tijani order, the Ahmadiyya
Idreesiya order, and others among the different Sufi tareeqahs. Such ideas also
founded the Hadras and Mawlids.
"The Sufis claim the hadra that they participate in was so named because the
Prophet attends these gatherings, attending either with his soul, or with both
his body and soul. They also believe in such ideas regarding their Mawlid
celebrations for the Prophet. This is a time when they get together and chant
verses of poetry, read the Qur'an, and await the arrival of the Prophet. One of
them will say, 'The Prophet has come! The Prophet arrived!' To ensure the
misguidance of the people, they will say, 'Only the perfect worshippers will be
able to see him. Those who are not perfect, the sinners, he will be shielded
from their vision. Similar to their beliefs about the Qutb, one whom they
believe is unseen none can meet him except for the great awliyaa."
So the subject of this article concerns the Prophet's (SAWS) saying, 'Whoever
sees me in a dream, then he has [truly] seen me.' (al-Bukhari, Muslim and
others). In one narration, 'Then he will see me while awake.'
There are other hadiths with slightly different wordings, which speak of seeing
him in a dream. The meaning of these statements is that seeing him in a dream is
not falsehood, or misleading, because Shaytaan cannot assume his appearance.
Is it possible for anyone to see the Prophet while they are awake?
The answer to this question is that the Prophet (SAWS) after his burial, will
not be seen in this world while they are awake. But his (SAWS) saying, 'Whoever
saw me in a dream shall see me while awake.' This refers to the people of his
time who believed in him, although they did not see him, meaning that they would
migrate to him and see him. So Allah granted such a dream to them. It has also
been said that the meaning of this is that they will see the Prophet in the
Hereafter. So it is not possible to understand these hadiths to mean that the
Prophet (SAWS) can be seen by someone who is awake during this life as the Sufis
and the people who follow their declaim.
Ibn Hajar said, "This is a severe problem. If it were interpreted as it appears,
then these people who see him would be Sahaabahs (companions of the Prophet),
and until the Day of Resurrection one could join the rank of the Sahaabahs. To
cause further problem for such claim, there is a large number of people who saw
him in a dream, but none of them claimed to have seen him while awake, and what
he (SAWS) informed us of could not be contradicted. That is if this meaning was
correct, then everyone who saw him in a dream would be one who actually saw him
while awake!"
Does the person have any influence over the dream?
As for the hadith: "Whoever has seen me in a dream has seen me, for Shaytaan
does not appear in my image." And the hadith of Abu Hurairah, "The dream is one
of three: the good dream, which is good news from Allah, a sad or bad dream,
which is from Shaytaan, or a dream in which the dreamer speaks to himself."
This hadith has revoked any chance of Shaytaan appearing in the Prophet's form,
but it leaves the chance that Shaytaan could appear in a different form. The
scholars agree that if one has a dream, but the descriptions of the Prophet
(SAWS) do not match the real descriptions of him, then this is from the
dreamer's imagination as if it were to say he was talking to himself in the
dream.
Ibn Abi Jamrah said, "There are those who say that the Shaytaan cannot assume
his exact appearance, so whoever sees him in a good appearance, that is because
of the goodness of the religion of the one dreaming, and if the appearance was
bad then that is because of a deficiency in the religion of the one dreaming.
And he said that this is the truth." Then he said, "Similarly what he said about
his (SAWS) Sunnah during the dream, whatever agrees with it is good, and what
contradicts it then it suffered from the influence of the one listening. So the
dreamer's vision of his noble presence is true, while the bad influences are
from the dreamer."
Additionally, it is not feasible to limit the statement, 'And whoever saw me has
[truly] seen me', to apply only to the companions, since the companions did not
mention such limitations, rather the opposite of this has been reported from
them. As in the case of Ibn 'Abbaas when he asked a person who claimed to have
seen him (SAWS) in a dream to describe the vision he had in the dream, in order
to validate or invalidate it. Similarly this was done after him by the great
Imaam of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Seereen. So the hadith is generally
applicable to all dreamers, yet the validity of actually seeing him can only be
ascertained by those who are familiar with his appearance, like the companions,
or the next generation who saw his resemblance in his close relatives like
Faatimah and her children, or al-Hasan and his children, may Allah be pleased
with them.
Is seeing him as he really looked a condition for the validity of the dream?
Ibn Hajar wrote: "Whenever Muhammad bin Seereen was told by someone that he had
seen the Prophet (SAWS) in a dream he would say; 'Describe what you saw to me.'
If the person described unfamiliar characteristics to him, he would reply, 'You
didn't see him.' [The chain for this report is authentic]. And there is support
for this from al-Haakim by way of 'Aasim bin Kulayb who said that his father
told him, 'I said to Ibn 'Abbaas, I have seen the Prophet in a dream.' He said,
'Describe him for me.' He replied by mentioning that he looked like al-Hasan bin
'Ali. Ibn 'Abbaas said, 'You saw him.' [The chain for this report is good.]
There is also support for this in the Musnad of Ahmad, where Yazeed al-Faars
said, 'I saw Allah's Messenger in a dream during the time of Ibn 'Abbaas.' A
narrator said Yazeed was a Qur'anic scribe. 'I said to Ibn 'Abbaas, "I saw
Allah's Messenger (SAWS) while dreaming." Ibn 'Abbaas said, "Allah's Messenger
said, 'Shaytaan is not able to appear as me, so whoever has seen me in a dream,
he has [truly] seen me.' So are you able to describe this man you saw to us? I
said, "Yes,...[he was] between brown and white, with a good smile, appearing to
have kuhl around his eyes, a handsome face, his beard flowing from here to here,
down to his chest." 'Awf said, "I was not aware of all of these descriptions of
him." Ibn 'Abbaas said, "If you had seen him while awake, you wouldn't be able
to describe him more accurately.'"
This proves that the decisive scholars considered it a condition for the
correctness of the dream that the vision be in accordance with how he actually
appeared, a portrait which Shaytaan is unable to imitate.
Is one who sees him in a dream considered one of the Sahaabah?
The answer to this question is no, because the sahaabah are those who saw him
during his life.
Are the hadiths heard from him during a dream argumentative evidences?
The answer to this question is no, due to the condition for evidence being that
it was transmitted via precise hearing, and the one sleeping is not in such a
state.
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