Kitab al-Ru'ya — the Book of Dreams

Kitab al-Ru'ya is a hadith chapter in the two Sahihs, the Muwatta and the Sunan, gathering what is reported of the prophets' and Companions' dreams and their rulings ^{1 2 3 4}.

The two Sahihs hold a whole book called Kitab al-Ru'ya, placed among the chapters on the merits of the Ansar and on righteousness and kinship; it holds the hadiths that the righteous dream is from God and the bad dream from Satan, and what was reported of interpreting them and of the Prophet ﷺ being consulted on them ^{1 2}. The Muwatta has chapters in its Jami', I'tikaf and Funerals books that touch on dreams, including the chapter on what came of dreams and their beginning ⁵. Al-Tirmidhi has chapters on dreams and what pertains to them ⁴.

It gathers three kinds:

• Reports of dreams: the Prophet's dreams of drinking milk, of Umar's palace in Paradise and of the Kaaba and Laylat al-Qadr, and the Companions' dreams of Ibn Zayd's adhan, A'isha's moons, Ibn Umar's silk brocade and Khalid's nightmares ^{1 2 5}.
• Rulings on dreams: that the righteous dream is one forty-sixth of prophethood, that the mubashshirat remain after it, and the seeking of refuge from the bad dream with the left-hand blowing ^{6 7 8}.
• Related fiqh: ihtilam and its ghusl, and the woman's ghusl when she sees in sleep what a man sees ^{9 10}.

The museum presents every report of the chapter under dreams, mubashshirat, the prophets' dreams and ihtilam.

Among the best known in the chapter are the Prophet's dream of milk ¹, the dream of Umar's palace in Paradise ¹, Ibn Umar's dream of silk brocade ², Ibn Zayd's dream of the adhan and A'isha's dream of three moons and the dream of the Kaaba and the Messiah ⁵, and the dream of Laylat al-Qadr ¹¹.

Since the chapter is the greatest of what has reached us on dreams from the hadith, standalone books were written on interpretation, the best known being Tafsir al-Ahlam attributed to Ibn Sirin; the museum reviews its modern discussion in dream interpretation today.

• The hadith scholars: this chapter is among the most comprehensive in the two Sahihs on the subject of dreams; from it is taken that the true dream is from God and has a lawful interpretation among the people of knowledge.
• The jurists: from this chapter are derived the rulings on ihtilam (the dream emission) and ghusl and what relates to dreams in fiqh ¹².