Just A Dream or A Call for Hajj?

Hajj Sequel 1: Just A Dream or A Call for Hajj?

By Anonymous Posted July 10, 2004

Just A Dream or A Call for Hajj?
It was during the last week of Ramadan when I suddenly realized that for the first time, I have an opportunity to make hajj this year if I wanted to. Since performing hajj became an obligation on me (from financial perspective) some four or five years ago, I never had a practical chance to go to hajj due to some complex personal circumstances. Now, during these last days of Ramadan, I suddenly became aware that I was now free from those situations and going to hajj is now my own free decision that will not cause any problem with anyone or anything.

I made two raka of salat and rasied my hands to Allah in du’a. I asked Him to accept my intention for hajj, make everything easy for me, allow me to perform the hajj the way it is pleasing to Him, and accept my hajj. Then, within a couple of days, I selected my travel agent and hajj organizer and sent them the package money in full, and started doing my preparations.

Another couple of weeks later, I realized that I actually had received a call for Hajj some months back but never understood that call at that time to be anything related to hajj. That call came in a dream and this is what I dreamt:

In one early morning just before fajr about a couple of months before Ramadan, I dreamt that I went to the Prophet’s mosque in Madina with my elder son. It was a Friday. I proceeded to the grave of the Prophet and sat by his grave in way that the grave was on my right side. I was towards one of the ends of the grave. While I have no recollection whether it was the upper (the head side) or the lower end, but I think that it was the lower one. I placed my right hand gently on the grave as if I am touching or caressing someone with deep affection. Then I said:
Assalamu alaikum ya rasulullah.
While my hand was still on the grave, I repeated the salam three times.
I then found myself and my son in a mosque and saw a very strange thing. It was time for prayer. As people stood up, I saw that about half the people facing the Qibla in one direction, and myself with the other half of the people faced the Qibla in the opposite direction. While doing this, I had my firm conviction that I was with the people who were facing the right way. After that, I woke up.

While the first part of the dream was very pleasing to me, I was troubled about the second part, for it was not a good thing that in the same mosque people would be facing the Qibla in the opposite directions.

Two days later, I told my mother, who was living with me at that time, about this dream. She was very happy about the dream and about my giving salam to the Prophet. I omitted from her the discomforting second part of the dream.

At that time, I had not thought about any connection between this dream and hajj. The only feeling I had was that I had a good dream. Nor was I thinking about Hajj during those days. In fact, I was not planning for hajj during the last couple of years as I was handicapped in personal situations.

Months later after my preparation for hajj was already underway, I suddenly realized one day that my dream was a call to Hajj (as this was the first year when I had a chance to do it) or an indication of my future fulfillment of hajj. For who goes to hajj without visiting the Prophet’s mosque and his grave? During my visit to Madina as part of the hajj trip, I stayed there for about 3 full days. Each of these days, I visited the Prophet’s grave, and said loudly:

Assalau alaikum ya rasulullah.

I repeated my salam three times each day. After my salam, I said to myself, “This is the fulfillment of my dream”.

As for the second part of my dream, I am now convinced that what I saw was my future visit to the Quba mosque. That mosque has two Qiblas in opposite directions. There, I made two raka of salat. And I was certainly facing the right qibla in my salat, which is the conviction I had in my dream although some people were facing the opposite Qibla!

Subhan Allah – how one can sometimes see future events in dream! Imam Ghazzali deals with dream at length in his treasurly Kimiyaye Sha’adat, where he discusses dream from Islamic perspective. Experience prove the correctness of his explanations as it also shows the fallacy of some of the explanations made by modern psychoanalysts who deal with dream from secular perspectives devoid of any spiritual and metaphysical connections.

As my intention for hajj was completely independent of my dream that I had few months earlier, that dream now appeared to me as a reassurance that I was answering the call of Allah (swt) to perform the Hajj and that it was the right time for me to do it and that it would insha Allah go well.

>> Next: Sequel 2: Preparations – Logistical, Physical, and Spiritual

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