fbpixel

Our website uses cookies necessary for the site to function, and give you the very best experience. To learn more about our cookies, how we use them and their benefits, read our privacy policy.

Automate your donations for the last 10 nights.

Yaqeen Institute Logo

Afterlife

How to See the Prophet ﷺ in a Dream | The Other Side: Barzakh and Beyond Ep. 5

March 3, 2025Dr. Omar Suleiman

Do you wish to see the Prophet ﷺ in your dream?

What would it be like to see his smile, hear his voice, and be in his presence? The Prophet ﷺ continues to appear in the dreams of the faithful. From the woman in Gaza who foresaw tragedy, to scholars and warriors who received his reassurance, these visions have carried the ummah through generations. But you don’t need to have lived with him to connect with him.

NOTE: All depictions of Barzakh are purely conceptual and only vocals were used in the making of the soundtrack.

Download discussion guides for "The Other Side": https://yqn.io/2e7585

References

  1. Anas ibn Malik served the Prophet ﷺ for 10 years in Madinah. [Sahih al-Bukhari #6038; Sahih Muslim #2309] 
  2. And he said I never saw anyone more beautiful or blessed than him. The best of all creation. The best of all character. [Sahih al-Bukhari #2820; Sahih Muslim #2307]
  3. Al-Muthanna ibn Saeed said, “I heard Anas (ra) say, ‘Hardly a night passes except that I see my beloved ﷺ.’ As he would say that, his eyes would shed tears.” [Musnad Ahmad]
  4. The Prophet ﷺ said: “No one sends salaam upon me but Allah returns my soul to me so that I may return his salaam.” [Sunan Abi Dawud #2041]
  5. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Among the best of your days is Friday; so supplicate Allah more often for me in it, for your supplications will be displayed to me." He was asked: "O Messenger of Allah! How will our blessings be displayed to you when your decayed body will have mixed with the earth?" He (ﷺ) replied: "Allah has prohibited the earth from consuming the bodies of the Prophets." [Sunan Abi Dawud #1047]
  6. The Prophet ﷺ also told Muadh: “The closest people to me are the people of piety, whoever they are and wherever they are.” [Musnad Ahmad]
  7. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever sees me in a dream has truly seen me, for Satan cannot assume my form.” [Sahih al-Bukhari #6997]
  8. Ibn Hajar reports from Muhammad ibn Abi Jamrah: If you see the Prophet ﷺ in a beautiful form, then it is a sign of good religion from the dreamer. But if there is a wound or injury to the Prophet, then that is a sign of a deficient deen from the dreamer [Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari].

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
You can meet the Prophet ﷺ tonight, so long as you live like him today. What would it feel like? To feel his warmth? To feel his presence? To see his smile? Are your loved ones who walked in the Prophet's footsteps now sitting with him? And could they be waiting for you to turn your life around here, so that you could join them there? Did you hear about the woman from Gaza who dreamt about the genocide before it even happened? She had this dream that went viral over so many groups just before the images of destruction to flow in those same groups shortly after. In this dream, she says, I saw the Prophet ﷺ sitting in the courtyard of Masjid al-Aqsa, and there were people from all over the world that were coming to gather around him. But these weren't any people, these were the oppressed Muslims. So she says, I saw Muslims from Syria, I saw Muslims from Yemen, I saw Muslims from Iraq, I saw Muslims from the Uyghurs and Kashmir and Somalia, and all of them were coming around the Prophet ﷺ and gathering around him. So the gathering was getting larger and larger, and the Prophet ﷺ looks at them, and he smiles, and he says, لَتَدْخُلُنَّ الْجَنَّةَ زُمَرًا You will enter into Paradise in large groups. And then he says to them, نَصْرُ اللَّهِ آتٍ فَأَبْشِرُوا The victory of Allah is coming, so glad tidings. Now when he says that, someone says to the Prophet ﷺ, يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ وَمَتَى هَذَا الْفَوْزُ
O Messenger of Allah, when is this victory coming? And the Prophet ﷺ responds, and he says, شَهَادَةٌ is true victory. And then the Prophet ﷺ starts to tell them about his own difficult days with the Sahaba in Mecca. He starts to go through the days that they were tortured, the days that they were run out, the days of their hijrah ﷺ, and all of the difficult moments that the Prophet ﷺ and his companions faced, as if to say, we've been there. And then as he's saying that, this huge army comes, and she says that they were so large in body, and so large in number, that you couldn't count them. And she said they had faces like the full moon. And the Prophet ﷺ points to this army and he says, سَتُنْصَرُونَ بِهَذَا الْجَيْشِ You will be given victory through this army, you will be given victory through this army. And then he pointed to them ﷺ and they started to fight on behalf of the Muslims until they succeeded. So she said at the end of the dream, I looked at him and I said, أَنْتَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ Are you really the Messenger of Allah? And the Prophet ﷺ said, أَنَا نَبِيُكُمْ مُحَمَّدٌ I am your Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. I am your Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. These dreams of the Prophet ﷺ have kept the Ummah of this Prophet going throughout generations, and sometimes also individuals. Anas ibn Malik (رضي الله عنه) said, I served the Prophet ﷺ for 10 years in Medina, and I have never seen anyone more beautiful or blessed than him. The best of all creation, the best of all character. But after living with him and serving him for 10 years in this dunya, Anas lived another 90 years after the Prophet ﷺ. Can you imagine how much he missed him? How much he longed to be with him again? And so al-Muthanna ibn Sa'id narrates that I heard
Anas (رضي الله عنه) say, والله ما من ليلة إلا وأنا أرى فيها حبيبي ﷺ I swear by Allah that a night does not pass except that I see my beloved ﷺ. And while he was saying that, Anas (رضي الله عنه) would cry. So for 10 years he served him here, and for 90 years he would see the Prophet ﷺ in his dreams, and bi-idhnillahi ta'ala he's with him now. And when he said that, he would start to weep (رضي الله عنه), and when he finally dies after being over 100 years old, he asked to be buried with all of the belongings he still had from the Prophet ﷺ, including his hair and his walking stick. Imagine what that reunion in the barzakh must have been like after 90 years of dreaming about the Prophet ﷺ. But here's the thing, you don't have to have lived with the Prophet ﷺ to connect with him. How do you become someone who is honored enough to see him in your dreams? First let's start with the basics. Every time you send salawat upon him ﷺ, the Prophet ﷺ said that there is no one who sends salam upon me except that Allah returns my soul to me so that I can return his salam to him. In another narration the Prophet ﷺ said, amongst the best of your days is Friday. So supplicate to Allah more often for me in it for your salawat will be displayed to me. And he was asked, Ya Rasulullah, how will our salawat be displayed to you when your decayed body would have mixed with the earth at that point? He said, innaAllaha azzawajal harrama ala al-ardi at-sa'd al-anbiya. Allah has prohibited the earth from consuming the bodies of the Prophets. So if you send salam upon him right now, his soul is responding to you fully right now from a body as intact as it was when the Sahaba used to interact with him in Medina. The Prophet ﷺ also told Mu'adh (رضي الله عنه), the people closest
to me are the people of piety, whoever they are and wherever they are. Now it's important to remember that the threshold of righteousness is not seeing the Prophet ﷺ in a dream. It's following him in your daily life. And by the way, some of the most righteous people to live never saw the Prophet ﷺ in a dream. And sometimes someone who isn't that righteous still happens to see him. But perhaps that's what Allah prescribes as medicine to that person to get them to take their next step in their journey to Allah azzawajal. In any case, it's undoubtedly a profound blessing as whoever sees him ﷺ has indeed seen him. The Prophet ﷺ says, whoever sees me in a dream has truly seen me for Shaytan cannot assume my form. So there are two things extremely important here. That number one, Shaytan can't impersonate him and that he has to be in his actual form for it to truly be him. Now how you see the Prophet ﷺ also can be telling you different things. Imam Ibn Hajar (رحمه الله) reports from Abi Jamra. He says, if you see the Prophet ﷺ in a beautiful form, then it's a sign of good religion from the dreamer. But if there's a wound or injury to the Prophet ﷺ, then that's actually a sign of a deficiency in the deen of the dreamer himself. So a person comes to Ibn Sirin (رحمه الله) and says, I saw myself burying the Prophet ﷺ with my hands and Ibn Sirin (رحمه الله) interpreted that as that man being engaged in bid'ah, in innovation, meaning they were burying the sunnah. On the other hand, many of the scholars saw themselves digging up the grave of the Prophet ﷺ. Amongst them was Imam Abu Hanifa (رحمه الله), who said, I saw this dream in which I was digging up the grave of the Prophet ﷺ and then I started to sort out his bones and it was interpreted that he would be sorting out the narrations of the Prophet ﷺ. So it was actually a good dream. Nur ad-Din al-Zangi (رحمه الله), the predecessor of Salah ad-Din (رحمه الله). He
had this dream of the Prophet ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ was looking distressed and he was pointing to two men and he says to Nur ad-Din, save me from these two dogs. So Nur ad-Din immediately sends two soldiers of his to Madinah and he said, look for these two men and he gives them the exact appearance and he finds their two undercover crusaders in the exact appearance that the Prophet ﷺ mentioned in the dream and they were digging underground to try to infiltrate the grave of the Prophet ﷺ. And Imam al-Bukhari (رحمه الله), he saw himself fanning flies away from the Messenger ﷺ and that was interpreted as him removing the fabricated ahadith that were attributed to him ﷺ. When Imam Ahmed (رحمه الله) was being tortured, he would see the Prophet ﷺ saying to him, be patient oh Ahmed. And even those around him would see dreams about him with the Prophet ﷺ. So Imam al-Shafi'i (رحمه الله), he said, I saw the Prophet ﷺ in a dream saying, ya Ibn Idrees, oh Ibn Idrees, give glad tidings to this young man Ahmed that he will soon be tested in the deen of Allah. He will be called to say that which he should not say. When he refuses to say what they want him to say, he will indeed be beaten with a whip. But Allah will surely spread for him knowledge that will not disappear until the Day of Judgment. Another old man said, I saw in a dream yesterday the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr and Umar and they were crossing the canal of Baghdad and the cloak of the Messenger ﷺ fell from his right shoulder. And then you, oh Ahmed, rushed forth and you brought that cloak and you placed it back on the shoulder of the Messenger ﷺ. So the Prophet ﷺ turned to you and so did Abu Bakr and Umar and they said to you, rejoice for you are our companion tomorrow in Jannah. And the old man then said to those who were with Ahmed that the cloak that Ahmed put back
on the shoulder of the Messenger ﷺ was his sunnah ﷺ, which Ahmed will return to the people. SubhanAllah, it tends to be that seeing the Prophet ﷺ visit you in a dream is just like when he would visit you in this dunya. He's affirming you in righteousness, he's advising you to a better way, or he's comforting you in hardship. And that still happens till this day. Dr. Afia Siddiqi, who might be the most wronged woman on the planet, she mentioned that she saw in a dream the Prophet ﷺ was consoling her in her pain as an ummah has forgotten her. And so many others in their most difficult times are given this most precious gift of a dream. One of the most beautiful dreams, Shaykh Kishk (رحمه الله), who woke up on the day of Friday, December 6, 1996. And he turns to his son and he says, how old was the Prophet ﷺ when he died? He said he was 63, you know that. Shaykh Kishk (رحمه الله) said, alhamdulillah, I'm 63. He said, last night I had this dream of the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr and Umar. By the way, all of whom died at the age of 63. And the Prophet ﷺ looks at me and he says, salim ala Umar, give salam to Umar. So he said, I gave salam to Umar and then I died. And then he says, I saw myself in this dream zoomed out with my body being washed by the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr and Umar. And subhanAllah, that same day Shaykh Kishk (رحمه الله) would die in his sujood on a Friday, just as he used to make du'a to Allah for. But that's after living a life of loving the Prophet ﷺ and seeking to extend his light on earth. That's the point. At the end of the day, as Ibn al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) says, this love is established in this dunya, and then in the barzakh, and then in dar al-jaza, the home of the hereafter. And a person will be with whom he loves in all of these abodes.
So strive, strive, strive. And if you aren't gifted with seeing him here, you will be gifted with him receiving you there in the barzakh, inshaAllah, and with his companionship in jannah forever thereafter. Now even if you feel unworthy as you work towards the moment your soul can bask in the Prophet's presence, do you ever dare to dream of meeting the one he and you worshipped? Because if you can see the best of Allah's creation in your dreams, what about seeing Allah himself? No, it is but a word. He speaks it, and behind them is a barzakh until the Day they are resurrected. Al-Fatiha.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
Khutbahs

Allah

217 items
Present
1 items