The Body in dreams

Teeth, hair, eyes, hands, the heart and what the body says in a dream.

The Qur'an uses the body as a language: the eye that whitens with grief, the tongue of truth, the heart that finds rest, the hand that is bound or open. These entries start there. The Sunnah contributes less, a famous line about fetters on the feet, and some silences. No verse or hadith interprets teeth falling out, for instance, and the entry on it says so before giving the dictionaries' readings.

Some images here are intimate: nakedness, blood, pregnancy. We treat them with as little alarm as the sources allow, and we label which part of each reading is a text and which is a convention. Where the dictionaries disagree among themselves, the page shows the disagreement.

The Body A beard The one beard in the Qur'an is Harun's (Qur'an 20:94). The reading of a full beard as dignity and standing comes... Mixed Qur'an The Body Being naked Nakedness is read as the loss of covering, because the Prophet ﷺ read clothing as religion (Bukhari 23) and the... Cautionary Qur'an The Body Being pregnant Pregnancy is read through its Arabic root, which also means a load, and through the Qur'an's picture of carrying as... Mixed Qur'an The Body Blood Blood in a dream is read mainly as a question of lawful and unlawful gain, resting on Qur'an 2:173 and the river of... Cautionary Qur'an The Body Eyes Eyes are read through Surah Yusuf (grief, a lost loved one, sight restored) and the Qur'an's use of blindness for... Contextual Qur'an The Body Feet Feet are read as steadiness: the Qur'an prays for firm feet, and a report from Abu Huraira reads fetters on the feet... Contextual Qur'an The Body Grey hair The Qur'an uses white hair for age and weakness (Qur'an 19:4, 30:54) and for dread (Qur'an 73:17); the Sunnah calls... Mixed Qur'an The Body Hair The Prophet's dreams use hair to identify people, and shaved or shortened hair belongs to the vision confirmed in... Contextual Qur'an The Body Teeth falling out No verse or hadith interprets teeth. The dictionaries tie them to relatives and lifespan, and their readings point... Mixed Classical The Body The hand The hand is read through Arabic idiom (a long hand gives, a chained hand withholds) and through what the Prophet's... Contextual Qur'an The Body The heart The heart is read as the dreamer's inner state, because the Qur'an locates faith and understanding there. No verse... Contextual Qur'an The Body The tongue The Arabic for tongue also means language and reputation, and the Qur'an uses all three (Qur'an 26:84, 14:4). Musa's... Contextual Qur'an