Dreaming of Book in Islam

A book is read by which hand takes it, whether it is open, and whether the dreamer can read it. Receiving a book in the right hand is the strongest of the good readings in this chapter — an account settled well, news that relieves. An open book is a matter disclosed and available; a closed or sealed one a matter still withheld, or knowledge not yet earned. Reading fluently and understanding is read as knowledge that has actually been taken in, as opposed to seeing writing one cannot decipher, which is read as a good present but not yet reached. Being given a book by someone known shifts the dream onto that relationship — a trust, a message, an inheritance of something learned. A torn, burnt or discarded book is read as a state in the dreamer's own regard for knowledge, not as a portent about anyone else. Writing a book has been read as putting one's own affair in order so that it can be looked at.

The Arabic kitāb carries both senses at once: the bound book and the thing written down — a record, a decree, a settled account. The Qur'an uses it in exactly that double sense, describing the record handed to a person on the Day of Judgement, given in the right hand to one and behind the back or in the left to another (al-Haqqa 69:19, al-Inshiqaq 84:7). The dream reading of the right hand comes straight from there, and not from any invention of the interpreters.

Because of that Qur'anic image people arrive at this dream expecting a verdict, so it should be said flatly: a dream of a book in either hand is not a judgement on your standing and not information about your end. No one's state before Allah is disclosed in sleep, and the interpreters were firm about that. It is not a ruling and it foretells nothing. If the dream troubled you, seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and do not relate it to anyone.