How to deal with visions and dreams.

The questioner : We said that the dead do not know anything about the living, but sometimes in a dream, a person sees the dead... in one of the incidents, as if they have knowledge.

The Shaykh: If a living person sees a dream, what is its connection to the dead?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: What is your knowledge, other than through a dream?

The questioner : Through a dream.

The Shaykh: So, what is the value of this dream?!

The questioner : It has no connection?

The Shaykh: Glory be to Allah, this reminds us of a story al-Ghazali mentioned, unfortunately, in *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din*. He said: One of the disciples of some Sufi shaykhs saw in his dream that his shaykh was telling him: "Do such and such." So the disciple asked his shaykh in the dream: "Why?" In the dream. When morning came, the disciple went to the shaykh and said to him: "I saw you in a dream ordering me to do such and such, so I asked you: Why?" Al-Ghazali said: So the shaykh boycotted his disciple for a full month. Why? Because he asked him in the dream: "Why?" Glory be to Allah, what is the value of this dream? And dreams are now very common in Jordan, dominating people's minds in a very strange way. I spent the last three days—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—meaning every day the topic was discussed more than once. This indicates the weakness of men's dreams, let alone women's, with no offense intended, because men are involved in dreams. Even some of our Salafi brothers—what is a dream? A man in the West Bank, we do not see it, but by report, a man in the West Bank saw a dream. What is this dream? Of course, I did not memorize it. If I memorize a hadith or a verse, that is better for me. But the summary of this dream specifies the date, so I recorded it in my notebook. Maybe the seventh day coming, in two days. How many days is today? Five?The student: Seven.

The Shaykh: Seven today, maybe. The summary is that the Jews will attack the Syrian state via Lebanon with eighty planes. So the vision is fully detailed: with eighty planes. The attack will not be from Jordan, but from Lebanon. The Jewish armies will advance and occupy Damascus, and not one of the eighty planes will be spared. Why? Because, of course, there will be fighting between the Syrian army and the Jewish army, and aid will come to the Syrian army. Guess from where? He said: From Iran. From Iran, which, since its existence, the Jews' embassies are located where? In Iran. So the aid will come from Iran, and these Jewish planes will be destroyed; not one will be spared. And so on, there are details that I did not care much to memorize. What is the point? That this army... entered the minds of Muslims, and entered the minds of some of our good brothers. So I did not leave the matter without researching it in detail. And what interested me in this detail, incidentally, was to mention this legal reality. It was reported from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) that dreams are of three types. Meaning, everything a person sees is one of three types: The first type is a vision from the Most Merciful. The second type is the delusions of Satan, Satan playing with the children of Adam. The third type is the talk of the self. The one who has some culture understands this meaning. What does a person think about during the day? Something that pleases him, something that bothers him, he imagines it. Where? At night. So when a person imagines something terrible, he sees it in a dream. Is this a true dream? What is the difference? So any dream any person sees is one of three: either a vision from the Most Merciful, or the play of Satan, or the talk of the self. So I said to that man, later it turned out the man was from the West Bank. This report indicates to us that this vision is one of three. It may be from the Most Merciful, but which is more likely? It will be from the delusions of Satan, or from the delusions of the self. And I said to them: This vision is from the devils of humans and jinn. Because the devils This is one of the methods of Jewish propaganda. When they call it today "nerve numbing," numbing the nerves by spreading such dreams, even Muslims' morale weakens. So they do not send us a vision except from the West Bank. And this West Bank, where that man with this dream is from, is likely one of the deceptions of Satan. And this is the stronger opinion in my view. It is possible that it is...