Dreams in the Sunnah · Bukhari 7046
Abu Bakr, the cloud of butter and honey, and the part he got wrong
The short answer
A man told the Prophet ﷺ of a cloud dripping butter and honey and a rope to the sky. Abu Bakr read it as Islam, the Qur'an and the Truth. The Prophet ﷺ said he was right in part and wrong in part, and would not say which.
Traditional interpretations, not a fatwa and not a prediction. How we source.
In this article
There is a moment in this hadith that every careful reader of dreams should remember. The best of the Companions interprets a dream before the Prophet ﷺ, asks whether he is right, and is told: in part. Then he asks which part, and the Prophet ﷺ will not say.
The dream and the answer
A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and told him what he had seen in the night. There was a cloud giving shade, and from it butter and honey were dripping, and people were gathering it in their hands, some a lot and some a little. There was also a rope joining the earth to the sky. The Prophet ﷺ took hold of it and rose. Another man took it and rose. A third took it and rose. A fourth took it and it broke, and then it was joined again for him (Bukhari 7046, Muslim 2269a).
Abu Bakr asked leave to interpret, and the Prophet ﷺ said: interpret. This is what he said.
| In the dream | Abu Bakr's reading |
|---|---|
| The cloud giving shade | Islam |
| Butter and honey dripping from it | The Qur'an, its sweetness and softness |
| People gathering much or little | Some people learn much of the Qur'an, some little |
| The rope from sky to earth | The Truth that the Prophet ﷺ follows, by which Allah will raise him |
| The next man, and the next | Others will follow it and rise with it |
| The one for whom it breaks and is joined | He will take hold of it, it will break, and it will be joined again for him, and he will rise |
That is the whole of the interpretation, and it is worth noticing what it does not say. Abu Bakr names no one. The tradition later filled in the men with the rulers after the Prophet ﷺ, and that reading is old and common, but it is not in his words. The words say only "another man", three times.
Right in part
Abu Bakr then asks whether he is right or wrong, and the Prophet's answer is brief: you are right in part and wrong in part. Abu Bakr presses him: by Allah, tell me which part was wrong. The Prophet ﷺ answers: "do not swear" (Bukhari 7046, Muslim 2269a).
The narrations stop there. There is no explanation, and none is attached to the Prophet's words. Commentators have offered guesses, and the guesses differ, so we leave them aside. A site like ours is tempted to supply an answer because a gap in a famous hadith looks like an opportunity, and the honest position is that it is a gap. What the narrations do tell us is how it was handled. The Prophet ﷺ declined to specify, and told his closest Companion not to swear an oath to make him.
What is rooted in the Qur'an here
Two of Abu Bakr's readings have an obvious home in revelation. The rope fits the Qur'an's command to "hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together" (Qur'an 3:103), and the sweet, dripping substance fits a picture the tradition already used for the Qur'an: nourishing, easy, taken in the hand. Muslim 2269b adds a detail of timing. It says the man came as the Prophet ﷺ was returning from Uhud. That places the dream after a hard day, and the dream is a consoling one.
None of that tells us which part Abu Bakr got wrong, and it is a good reason not to treat the reading as simply wrong or simply right. It is a Companion's reading, offered with the Prophet ﷺ listening, and the Prophet ﷺ modified it. The phrase he used, that part was right, is itself an instruction in method: interpretation is a skill that can be mistaken, even at the highest level.
What it teaches about reading dreams
The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have asked, after the dawn prayer, whether any of the people had seen a dream (Abu Dawud 5017), and Muslim 2269d has him saying to his Companions that whoever saw a vision should tell it and he would interpret it. The practice gave dreams a place in the community's life, and it took the interpreting seriously enough to correct it.
Three habits follow. Interpret by the image and its function, as Abu Bakr did. Say which parts rest on a text and which are yours. And treat your reading as open to correction, because the one case where a Companion was corrected has been preserved precisely so that nobody forgets it. For another dream where food from the sky stands for knowledge, see the milk the Prophet gave to Umar, and for the method behind all of these, see who was Ibn Sirin and the science of ta'bir. The dictionary entries on clouds and honey show where they are used.
Common questions
What did Abu Bakr say the cloud of butter and honey meant?
He said the cloud with shade was Islam, the butter and honey dripping from it the Qur'an and its sweetness, with some people gathering much and some little, and the rope the Truth that the Prophet ﷺ followed and would be raised with (Bukhari 7046, Muslim 2269a).
Which part did Abu Bakr get wrong?
The narrations do not say. Abu Bakr asked, and the Prophet ﷺ told him not to swear (Bukhari 7046, Muslim 2269a). Commentators have offered various guesses, and these remain guesses. The hadith leaves the question open on purpose or by report, and the honest answer is that we do not know.
Does this mean a skilled interpreter can still be wrong?
Yes, and it is the clearest case in the Sunnah. Abu Bakr was the most trusted of the Companions, interpreted in front of the Prophet ﷺ, and was told that part of it was wrong. The tradition treats interpretation as a judgement that can be mistaken, and that is one reason dictionary readings are labelled.
Reviewed 5 October 2026 by The Editorial Team. We cite our sources and fix mistakes openly: see our editorial standards, or report a correction.