An Extraordinary Dream
Al-Bukhari transmited from Samura b. Jundub, may Allah be pleased with him, who said:
"The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would often say to his Companions, 'Who among you had a dream last night?" Then anyone who Allah willed would recount his dream. One morning he said to us, 'During the night two men came to me and said to me, "Come on!" So I went with them. We came upon a man who was lying on his back while another man was standing over him with a stone which he dropped onto his head and crushed it. Then the stone rolled away from him and he went after the stone to retrieve it. When he returned to him, his head was whole again and had become as it had been in the first place. So he went back and hit him as he had done the first time. I said to them, "Glory be to Allah! Who are these two?"
""They said, "Go on! Go on!" We went on and came to a man lying on his back and there was another man standing over him with an iron hook. He went to one side of his face and gashed open the side of his mouth until it reached the back of his neck and then his nostril to the back of his neck and his eye to the back of his neck. Then he moved to the other side and did the same thing as he had done to the first side. When he finished that side, the first side had become whole again. Then he did the same thing all over again." He said, "I said, "Glory be to Allah! Who are these two?"
""They said to me, "Go on! Go on!" and we went on until we came upon something like an oven. In it was a babble and shouting. We looked down into it and it con- tained naked men and women. The flames leapt up at them from underneath, and when those flames reached them, they cried out. I said, "Who are they?"
"They said, "Go on! Go on!" and we went on until we came to a river, red like blood. In the river there was a man swimming and on the bank of the river was a man who had many stones with him. When that swimmer swam and reached the one who had gathered the stones, he forced his mouth open and made him swallow a stone. Then he would begin to swim and would come back to him again. Whenever he came back to him, he forced open his mouth and made him swallow a stone. I said to them, "Who are these two?"
""They said to me, "Go on! Go on!" and we went on until we came to a man with the most repulsive appear- ance you have ever seen. He was at a fire which he was kindling and which he was running around. I said to them, "Who is this?"
""They said to me, "Go on! Go on!" and we went on until we came to a green meadow with every type of spring flower in it. There was, in the middle of the mead- ow, a man so tall that I could scarcely see his head, so high it was in the sky. Around the man were the greatest num- ber of children I have ever seen. I said, "Who is this? Who are those?"
""They said to me, "Go on! Go on!" and we went on until we reached a huge tree and I have never seen any tree bigger or more beautiful than it. They said to me, "Climb it." We climbed it and came to a city built of gold and sil- ver bricks. We came to the door of the city and asked for it to be opened and it was opened for us and we entered it. We were met by men half of whose physique was the most beautiful you have ever seen and the other half was the ugliest you have ever seen. The two said to them, "Go and plunge into that river." There was a wide river flowing there whose water was pure white. They went and jumped into it and when they returned to us, that evil had left them and they had the most beautiful form."
He said, "They said to me, "This is the Garden of Eden, and that is your place." I raised my eyes upwards and there was a castle like a white cloud. They said to me, "This is your place." 1 said to them, "May Allah bless you, let me enter it." They said, "No, not now. But you will enter it."
""I said to them, "This night I have seen marvels, bu what are these things which I have seen?" They said to me, "We will tell you. The first man you came to whose head was being crushed with the stone is a man who mem- orised the Qur'an and then abandoned it and slept through the obligatory prayers. As for the man you came to whose jaw was split to his neck, whose nostril to his neck and whose eye to his neck, he was a man who went from his house and told lies which spread everywhere. As for the naked men and women who were in something like an oven, they were adulterers and adultresses. The man you came to who was swimming in the river and being made to swallow stones used to consume usury. The man with the disagreeable appearance who was at the fire, kindling it and running around it, was Malik, the custodian of Jahannam. The tall man in the meadow was Ibrahim. The children who were around him are all those who were born and died in the natural state."
"Some of the Muslims asked, "Messenger of Allah, the children of the idolworshippers as well?" The Mes-sen- ger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, 'The children of the idolworshippers as well. As for the people who were half beautiful and half ugly, they are the people who mixed righteous actions with evil actions. Allah pardoned them."
The meanings of the expressions in this hadith are explained in the Fath al-Barr. In his words, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. "During the night two men came to me," the two men are, as has come into another variant with Jarir b. Hazim, Jibril and Mika'il.
About his words, "They came to me," Ibn Jubayra says that it means they woke him up. It is possible that he saw in a dream that they woke him up and he saw what he saw in the dream and described it after he was awake, and his dream was like being awake. However what he was saw was a metaphor whose difficul- ty of interpretation indicated that it was a dream.
Regarding his words, "I went with them," Jarir adds in his vari- ant "to the Holy Land", and with Ahmad we find, "to an open land". The hadith of 'Ali has, "They took me to heaven."
His words, "We came to a man who was lying on his back while another man was standing over him with a stone," means thrown onto his back. In 'Ali's hadith we find, "I passed by an angel in front of whom was a human being. The angel had a stone in his hand with which he was beating the human's head."
His word, "crushed it" means to shatter something hollow.
His words, "and the stone rolled away" means went from a high place to a lower one and it is the word used for something rolling down by itself.
His words, "When he returned to him, his head was whole again." Ahmad has here, "His head returned as it had been."
His words, "he gashed open the side of his mouth until it reached the back of his neck" means to split it in two. The shidq is the corner of the mouth. Ibn al-Arabi said, "To gash open the cor ner of the mouth of the liar is to put the punishment in the site of the act of disobedience. It is on this basis that punishment occurs in the Next World, contrary to the way things happen in this world."
His words, "We came upon something like an oven," reads in the variant of Muhammad b. Ja'far. "Built like the structure of, an, oven," and Jarir adds, "Its top was narrow and its bottom wide, and there was a fire kindled under it."
His words, "they cried out" means they raised their voices in such a way that they were muddled up together.
His words, "which he was kindling" means setting fire to. It says in at-Tahdhib, "He kindled the fire with wood, he collected together for the fire scattered firewood. Ibn al-'Arabi says that it means poking the fire.
About the words, "we came to a green meadow", ad-Da'udi said that this refers to a meadow which is covered in green grass.
Instead of his words, "with every type of spring flower in it," another variant has, "all the flowers of spring."
His words, "plunge into that river" means to be immersed in it in order to wash away that attribute by this pure water.
His words, "that evil had left them" means the ugly side became the same as the beautiful side.
His words, "then abandoned it" is that abandoning the Qur'an after memorising it is a terrible crime because he imagines that he sees in it something that obliges him to abandon it. When he aban- dons the noblest of things, which is the Qur'an, he is punished in the noblest of limbs, which is the head.
His words, "and slept through the obligatory prayers" means that he was lazy about performing them in their correct times, and Allah has threatened those people in His words, "Woe to those that pray and are heedless in their prayers." (107:4-5)
His words, "they were adulterers" shows that nakedness is appropriate for them since they deserve to be disgraced because their custom was to conceal themselves in private. Therefore they are punished by exposure. The wisdom in bringing the punishment from underneath them is that their crime was from their lower limbs.
About his words "he used to consume usury," Ibn Hubayra said that the one who consumes usury is punished by swimming in the red river and being made to swallow stones because the basis of usury is to deal in gold and gold is red. As for the angel making him swallow stones, it indicates that nothing satisfied him. It is the same with usury. The one who uses it imagines that his wealth will increase but Allah wipes it out from behind him.
"The custodian of Jahannam" has a disagreeable appearance because that increases the punishment for the people of the Fire.
In the hadith of Abu Umama we find, "Then we went on and there were men and women of the ugliest appearance and the foulest smell, like that of sewers. I said, 'Who are these?" He said,
there were corpses which were very swollen and had the foulest stench. I said, 'Who are these?" He said, "Those are dead of the unbelievers. Then we went on and there were some men asleep under the shadow of a tree. I said, 'Who are these?' He said, ""Those are the Muslim dead. Then we went on and there were some men who had the handsomest faces and most fragrant per- fume and I said, "Who are these?" He said, "Those are the truthful, the martyrs and the righteous."""
Ibn Hajar said that this hadith contains many salutory lessons. Secrets make themselves known to people both in the waking and sleeping states in various ways. It also shows that some rebels are between the two worlds. There is the warning against sleeping through the prescribed prayers, against someone who has memo- rised Qur'an abandoning it, and against fornication, consuming usury and deliberately lying. It shows that those who have a palace in the Garden do not reside in it while in this world, but that hap- pens after death, even in the case of Prophets and martyrs.
Their homes in the Garden are the highest homes, but that does not mean that they have a higher degree than Ibrahim, peace be upon him, since it is probable that he is residing in that place only on account of his tutelage of those children. His station is a station which is higher than that of the martyrs. This was already shown in the hadith of the Night Journey when the Prophet saw Adam in the lowest heaven. He was in that place in order to see the souls of his sons among the people of good and the people of evil, and to laugh or weep accordingly, although his station is in fact in 'Illiyin. On the Day of Rising, all people will be residing in their proper place and on that Day Allah will pardon all whose good and evil actions are equal in weight. O Allah! Pardon us by Your mercy, O most Merciful the merciful!
The hadith also shows the importance of dreams in general by the mere fact that the Prophet asked about them, the excellence of dream interpretation, and the preference for doing it after the Subh prayer because that is the time when the mind is most collected.