The tongue in a dream

Ibrahim asks for something that English renders as "a reputation of honor among later generations" (Qur'an 26:84). The Arabic is lisan sidq, literally a tongue of truth. The same words come back in Surah Maryam, where Allah gives Ibrahim, Ishaq and Yaqub a "tongue of truth" that is high (Qur'an 19:49-50). In Arabic the tongue is not only an organ. It is a language, and it is also the way a person is spoken of long after he has gone.

That three-way meaning does most of the work in this entry. No verse or hadith interprets a tongue seen in a dream, so we read it as the Qur'an uses the word. We also cover singing here, because the voice is the tongue's work, and there the sources are silent about dreams too.

One word for the organ, the language and the name

The Qur'an uses the word in each of its senses. Every messenger is sent in the "language" of his people so that he can make things clear to them (Qur'an 14:4), and the variety of human languages is listed among the signs, next to the heavens, the earth and the variety of colours (Qur'an 30:22). In both of these the word in Arabic is the tongue. It is also named, with the eyes and the two lips, among the gifts given to a human being (Qur'an 90:8-9). And, as in the opening, a tongue of truth is a lasting good reputation (Qur'an 26:84, Qur'an 19:50).

That gives a reader three ways to take a tongue that appears in a dream: as speech, as a language, or as a name. We think the third is the most useful. A tongue that speaks well, fluently or in praise, is naturally read for the standing it earns, which is the same idea as the Qur'an's tongue of truth. Whether a given compiler used all three meanings, we cannot say. The tradition's third step, Arabic usage and wordplay, allows the move.

Musa's knot, and the tongue that has to answer

The Qur'an's one picture of a stuck tongue is Musa's. He asks Allah to expand his breast, ease his task and untie the knot from his tongue so that people would understand his speech (Qur'an 20:25-28). He says elsewhere that his brother Harun is more fluent in tongue and asks for him as support, since he fears being denied (Qur'an 28:34). Allah's reply is that his request is granted (Qur'an 20:36). The difficulty is real, it is taken to Allah, and help arrives in the form of a person. If you dream of a tongue that will not move, this story is the nearest text, and we offer it as our own analogy.

The Qur'an also says what the tongue will have to answer for. On the Day, their tongues, hands and feet will bear witness against them (Qur'an 24:24). Some are warned for tongues that assert falsehood about what is lawful and unlawful (Qur'an 16:116), and others for passing on a rumour they thought small, though it was tremendous in Allah's sight (Qur'an 24:15). No word is uttered without an observer ready to record it (Qur'an 50:18).

The Prophet ﷺ joined the tongue and the private parts in one promise: he promised Paradise to whoever guards what is between his jaws and between his legs (Bukhari 6474). He also named two phrases that are light on the tongue and heavy in the balance, SubhanAllahi wa bihamdihi and SubhanAllahil Azim (Bukhari 6406). So the Sunnah treats the tongue as the part with the heaviest consequences. That is why a tongue dream is often taken as a reminder about speech, though no hadith says so.

Singing: no text, and what we can say

How little there is on singing should be said plainly. No verse or hadith interprets singing in a dream, and what exists is waking material about song and voice. On an Eid day two girls sang of the battle of Buath in Aisha's house, Abu Bakr protested at "musical instruments of Satan", and the Prophet said to leave them: every people has an Eid, and "this is our Eid" (Bukhari 949, Bukhari 952). A cameleer's chant for the camels got only a gentle word to slow down for the women riding (Bukhari 6210). Abu Musa was told that he had been given one of the sweet voices, the mazamir, of the family of Dawud (Bukhari 5048), and the Prophet himself recited Surat al-Fath in a vibrating, pleasant voice (Bukhari 4835).

Scholars differ on what music is allowed, and we leave that question to them. It was never a rule about dreams. The tradition's method asks for the context, so we would read a dream of singing by what was sung, where, and how it felt: recitation or praise points one way, an idle or sorrowful song another, and a festival song in a happy house a third. That is a method, not a text.

If the dream was about words you were afraid to say, the heart and writing are the nearby entries, and the Qur'an in a dream covers recitation.