Dreams in the Sunnah · Bukhari 7047
The longest dream in the Sunnah, told by Samura ibn Jundub
The short answer
Samura ibn Jundub reports the Prophet's longest dream: scenes shown by two angels, each explained on the spot as a kind of conduct, ending in Paradise and a promise. It is a warning about conduct, not a verdict anyone can read into their own dream.
Traditional interpretations, not a fatwa and not a prediction. How we source.
In this article
Most dream hadith are short enough to quote on a card. This one runs to several minutes when read aloud, and it differs from the others in a way that matters: the interpretation is not given afterwards by the Prophet ﷺ. It is given inside the dream, by the two figures who lead him through it.
How the dream was told
Samura ibn Jundub says the Prophet ﷺ very often asked his Companions whether any of them had seen a dream, and that those whom Allah wished would tell theirs (Bukhari 7047, Bukhari 1386). On the morning of this dream he spoke first. Two people had come to him in the night, woken him and said: proceed. He went with them, and what follows is a series of scenes, each met by the question "who are these?" and the same answer: proceed. The explanation is held back until the end, when he asks what it all meant and is told.
The scenes and their explanations fall into a clear pattern, and a table is the quickest way to see it.
| What he saw | What the two said it was |
|---|---|
| A man lying down, his head struck with a rock that rolls away and is fetched back | One who learned the Qur'an, then neither recited it nor acted on it, and slept through the enjoined prayers |
| A man whose face is torn from one side to the other, again and again | One who goes out in the morning and tells lies that spread across the world |
| Naked men and women in a pit like an oven, with a flame rising | The adulterers |
| A man swimming in a river, with a stone thrown into his mouth | The eater of usury |
| A repulsive man kindling a fire and circling it | Malik, the keeper of Hell |
| A very tall man in a green garden, with many children round him | Ibrahim, and the children who die in the natural faith |
| Men half handsome and half ugly, who bathe in a white river and return in the best form | Those who mixed a good deed with a bad one, and Allah forgave them |
Everything on the left is a picture and everything on the right is a category of conduct or a named person. The dream never says that one individual of the Prophet's time was the man with the rock. Nobody is accused, and the scenes carry no names except two the dream itself gives: Malik, whom the angels name, and Ibrahim.
What the sources attach to the scenes
Several of the categories have a direct support in the Qur'an, which is why the explanations read as familiar to the Companions. The Qur'an warns against going near unlawful intercourse, calling it an immorality and an evil way (Qur'an 17:32). It describes those who consume interest as unable to stand, and sets them against those who stop, whose past is left with Allah (Qur'an 2:275). The last scene echoes another verse: those who confessed their sins, having mixed a righteous deed with a bad one, of whom Allah may turn in forgiveness (Qur'an 9:102).
That last pairing is the one that stays with us. The hadith ends not on punishment but on forgiveness, and on Paradise: a city of gold and silver bricks, a palace like a white cloud, and the angels' answer to the Prophet's wish to enter it. He asked to go in, and they said: not now, but you will. It is a human moment in a grave dream, and the dream ends in promise.
What it cannot be used for
It would be easy to misuse a dream like this, and the temptation arrives in two forms. One is to pick a scene and attach it to a person, a neighbour, a public figure, an enemy. The hadith gives categories, not people, and it does not authorise anyone to say that a particular person is "the one with the rock". The other is to take a frightening dream of your own and read it against yourself.
On the second, the Sunnah is plain, and it is gentler than the dream. A dream you dislike is not to be dwelt on: seek refuge with Allah from its evil, spit lightly to the left three times, and tell no one, and it will not harm you (Muslim 2261a). The long dream was shown to a Prophet, and scholars regard prophets' dreams as revelation, which is a different thing from the images of an ordinary night. A person who dreams of fire or a pit has been given no verdict, and has no reason to supply one.
What the hadith does give an ordinary reader is its list, taken as it stands: the Qur'an that is learned and left, the lie that travels, the prayer slept through, usury, unlawful sex, and, beside them, the kind of person whom Allah forgives. For a nightmare that keeps returning, see recurring nightmares and when to seek help, and for the dictionary's handling of fire and a garden, see their entries. For another dream in which the Prophet ﷺ is shown the Fire and the night prayer follows, see Ibn Umar's dream of Hell.
Common questions
What is the long dream of Samura ibn Jundub?
It is a night vision of the Prophet ﷺ in which two angels led him through scenes of punishment and then of Paradise, explaining each (Bukhari 7047). It is the longest dream narrated from him. Samura reports it from the Prophet's habit of asking after the dawn prayer whether anyone had seen a dream (Bukhari 1386).
Are these scenes about the grave or the Hereafter?
Scholars commonly place the punishments in the period between death and resurrection, and Bukhari files the hadith with the funeral chapters (Bukhari 1386). The hadith itself does not name the period. It names the kinds of conduct the scenes stand for, and that is the safest thing to take from it.
Does a frightening dream of punishment mean I am doing something wrong?
No. This was the dream of a Prophet, and scholars treat such dreams as revelation. Ordinary frightening dreams are handled differently: the Sunnah says to seek refuge in Allah and tell no one (Muslim 2261a), and a dream of this kind is not a verdict on you.
Reviewed 5 October 2026 by The Editorial Team. We cite our sources and fix mistakes openly: see our editorial standards, or report a correction.