What is the meaning of the hadith: “Whoever sees me in a dream has truly seen me, for Satan cannot impersonate me”?

The questioner : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. The hadith: ?

The Shaykh This is an authentic hadith narrated byThe Shaykh : in “their two Sahihs,” and it has many similar wordings that convey this meaning; namely: that Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) protected His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) from Satan impersonating him to human beings, even in dreams. This is the ultimate protection of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) for the infallibility of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and this is only for the preservation of His Shari'ah (Blessed and Exalted is He); so that the Muslim is not attacked in his sleep by Satan; “Whoever sees me in a dream has truly seen me”; why?
He (peace be upon him) explained this by saying: فإن الشيطان لا يتمثَّل بي For indeed the Shaitan can not resemble me.Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2276, and in another wording: لا يتزيَّا بي He does not take my form.. Some people err, or rather, it is more accurate to say they believe, that they saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) in a dream merely because it was shown to them that they saw him in a dream. When they are asked about his (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) characteristics and traits, given that they claimed to have seen him, they answer with traits that contradict what is known of him (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) regarding his characteristics. This has happened to us often with some of the dreamers; so we would ask them. Some would say: “I saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and his face and beard were entirely white, all light.” He assumes he is describing the reality of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), not realizing that this description is false if applied to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). One who has extensive knowledge of the characteristics of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) knows and understands this. We read in “Sahih al-Bukhari” and others from Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him): “Allah did not adorn the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) with whiteness.” So how can one describe the one seen in a dream as having a white beard, even if he adds that it is made of light? And the Messenger (peace be upon him) cannot be described as having gray hair, for that would be a lie about him (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). It is possible that this lie falls under the general meaning of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: من كذب عليَّ متعمدًا فليتبوَّأ مقعده من النار He who lies about me deliberately will certainly come to his abode in Hell.Sunan Abi Dawud 3651, and in the other wording: من قال عليَّ ما لم أقل فليتبوَّأ مقعده من النار Whoever says something about me that I did not say, let him take his place in Hell.Musnad Ahmad 469. Although the apparent meaning of this hadith is attributing words to him (peace and blessings be upon him) that he did not say, there is no doubt that it also includes attributing to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) characteristics and traits that he did not possess. Among these is describing him (peace be upon him) as having gray hair and a white beard due to the abundance of gray in his beard; this is a lie, as I mentioned earlier from the hadith of Anas. In another narration from him, the white hairs do not exceed twenty in his beard. So this dreamer who says: “I saw him with a white beard,” and so on, indicates that he did not see the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family); for he says (peace and blessings be upon him): من رآني في المنام فقد رآني حقًّا Whoever saw me (in a dream) while sleeping then he has indeed seen meJami` at-Tirmidhi 2276.
من رآني Whoever saw me: Meaning, by my characteristics and my traits, not by an imagination that does not match what I was like in my life. Therefore, the Imam of the interpreters of dreams, who was a distinguished Tabi'i, Muhammad ibn Sirin (may Allah have mercy on him), the one who narrated from Abu Hurayrah, and who narrated extensively from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), was famous for his accuracy in interpreting dreams. When a person would come to him claiming that he saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) in a dream, he would ask him: “How did you see him?” He would describe him with traits that the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not possess in his life. So he would say: “You did not see the Messenger; but that was a Satan who showed you that he was the Messenger.” And the Messenger says: من رآني Whoever saw me; meaning: in my true reality.
This reminds us of another hadith, which is related to another important issue: whether the call of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) is considered to have reached a people or a group if it reached them distorted from the reality of the Islamic call. In this case, has the call reached them, and has the argument been established against them, or are they among those whom the scholars call the people of the period of ignorance (ahl al-fatra)? And does the saying of our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) in the Qur'an apply to them: وما كنا معذبين حتى نبعث رسولًا And never would We punish until We sent a messenger.[Al-Isra 17:15]?
The answer is with a hadith similar to this one in one aspect. That hadith is what Imam Muslim narrated in his “Sahih” from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) said: ما من رجل من هذه الأمة من يهوديٍّ أو نصرانيٍّ يسمع بي There is no man from this Ummah, whether a Jew or a Christian, who hears of me. – here is the point of reference; يسمع بي hears of me just as He said: من رآني Whoever saw me; ما من رجل في هذه الأمة There is no man in this Ummah. – meaning: the community of the call – من يهوديٍّ أو نصرانيٍّ يسمع بي ، ثم لا يؤمن بي إلا دخل النار Whether a Jew or a Christian, who hears of me, then does not believe in me, except that he will enter the Fire..
So his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying in this hadith: يسمع بي hears of me means in its true reality, and in the true reality of what he brought of the call to Islam. If that man is a Jew or a Christian who has not heard of him (peace be upon him) in his true reality, then the call has not reached him; because it reached him distorted. So if he believes in this distorted call, he has not believed in him (peace be upon him). And from this, we understand two regrettable realities:
The first reality: that the Christians, especially in the West and America, when the missionaries who are called by a name other than their true name “missionaries,” and who are in clear error, describe our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) to their people with traits that contradict the purity and perfection of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in character; as he said: إنما بعثت لأتمِّم مكارم الأخلاق I was sent to perfect the noble characterSunan al-Bayhaqi 18:249. When the missionaries describe our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) to their people with these traits, and the result is that they did not believe in him (peace be upon him), then the call has not reached them; because they described him to them as having an overwhelming desire. The evidence is that the Muslims say that he (peace be upon him) forbade his community from having more than four women, while he married and gathered nine women at one time. So they – I mean the lying, fabricating missionaries – say: “So the Prophet permitted for himself, due to the dominance of desire over him, what he forbade for his community.” When the Christians hear such false descriptions, the result is that they do not believe; because the Messenger was described to them other than in his true reality. This is the first regrettable issue.
And the other issue: on the contrary of this, but it is also regrettable. There is a group of Muslims who claim to belong to Islam, who testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and who pray, perform Hajj, give zakah, and fast; but they believe in false beliefs that contradict the Islamic Shari'ah in many of its beliefs that are known from the religion by necessity. Those are the ones known to the majority of Muslims as the Qadiyans, and who call themselves the Ahmadis. They have misguided beliefs that deviate from Islam, including their belief that the door of prophethood after him (peace be upon him) was not closed, and that it is open until the Hour, and that one of them came, whom they followed and were deceived by, and because of that they strayed far, very far, from Islam. He is known as Ghulam Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiyani. These people call to Islam in those European countries and others with astonishing activity, unfortunately, and they have been able to bring many of those Europeans into their Islam, so they believed what they believed about the permissibility of prophets coming after the Messenger (peace be upon him), including Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. So did those who embraced Qadiyani Islam hear of him (peace be upon him) in his true reality and the reality of his call? And does this Islam benefit them or not?
The answer is in the previous hadith: ما من رجلٍ من هذه الأمة من يهوديٍّ أو نصرانيٍّ يسمع بي ، ثم لا يؤمن بي إلا دخل النار There is no man from this Ummah, whether a Jew or a Christian, who hears of me, then does not believe in me, except that he will enter the Fire.. So, whoever hears of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in a manner other than his character and his Shari'ah has not truly heard of him. In that case, he will not be among the disbelievers who are tormented in the Fire, because the argument has not been established against him. On the contrary, those who believed in him (peace be upon him) on the basis that he said prophecy after him is acceptable and easy, and other such beliefs of the Qadiyyah, and I am not now in a position to mention many of them, but I mentioned this by way of deterring people. His saying (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) in the first hadith: من رآني في المنام Whoever saw me (in a dream)Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2276; meaning: whoever saw me in my true physical form and my Muhammadan features has seen me, for Satan does not take my form. And by this we know that many of the visions in which their claimants say they saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when asked for a visual description, their answer is that they saw him in a form he (peace be upon him) did not have; as we gave you an example earlier of the old man whose beard was light, so they saw the Messenger; this is a Satanic vision.
Similarly, for example, it happened to us that we asked, "How did you see the Messenger?" He answers, "I saw him walking slowly, walking with weakness." This is contrary to his features (peace and blessings be upon him), as it is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when he walked, it was as if he were being poured down from a slope; an allusion that he (peace be upon him) walked with strength. So, whoever describes him as walking with weakness, it is not the Messenger (peace be upon him). And so we must understand this hadith, and also the second hadith...
...that it is a sound chain, but it has many routes, and through these routes it rose in my estimation and in the estimation of others who came before me to the level of a good hadith. In reality, it is one of the comprehensive statements of his (peace and blessings be upon him); because it contains many meanings for these few words, لا ضرر ولا ضرار It was narrated from 'Ubadah bin Samit that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ruled: “There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.”Sunan Ibn Majah 2340. It includes many matters that occurred after his time (peace be upon him) by years, indeed by centuries; such as smoke, for example, and hashish and opium and the like of these harmful substances. So this hadith prohibits their use in this concise manner: لا ضرر ولا ضرار It was narrated from 'Ubadah bin Samit that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ruled: “There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.”Sunan Ibn Majah 2340.
Please proceed.