Dreaming of Arm in Islam

The arm is read through its condition and its number. A strong or healthy arm is taken for a brother, a son, or a companion whose support is sound. A broken arm points to the loss or weakening of that support rather than to injury of the body. Both arms together are often read as two brothers, or as a livelihood held with both hands. An arm that has grown longer has been read as generosity and reach; one that is withered as an inability to act. Seeing the arm of someone else shifts the reading onto the relationship with that person.

The association is not arbitrary. In Arabic, ʿaḍud — the upper arm — is used idiomatically for the one who supports you, and the Qur'an uses the image of strengthening the arm in exactly that sense. A brother, in the older Arabic usage, is your arm: the part of you that does the lifting.

A dream of a broken arm is not a warning of an accident and is not a ruling about anything. The tradition distinguishes a true dream from the mind's own traffic and from what disturbs the sleeper, and the great majority of dreams are the second. If a dream frightens you, the prescribed response is to seek refuge in Allah, turn onto the other side, and not relate it to anyone — a distressing dream loses its hold when it is not carried into the day.