Dreaming of Ear in Islam

The ear is read by whether it hears and by what reaches it. Sound, open hearing is the settled good reading: advice accepted, knowledge received, a person who is teachable. Deafness, or an ear that is blocked, is read as a refusal to hear rather than as a defect of the body — something is being said and not taken in. Hearing something beautiful — a recitation, a call to prayer — is among the strongest good readings in the whole chapter. Hearing what is foul or slanderous turns it over: company that damages, or listening kept where it should not be. The older interpreters commonly read a man's ears as the women of his household — a wife, a daughter — so an ear cut or injured was read as something touching them, and an ear adorned as their honour. Many ears was read as many listeners: influence, or exposure, depending on what was being said.

The connection sits in the language itself. In Arabic, hearing and obeying are one gesture — samiʿnā wa aṭaʿnā, we have heard and we have obeyed (al-Baqara 2:285) — and to say a person has an ear for something is to say he takes it. The Qur'an also names the ear alongside the eye whenever it speaks of what a person will be asked about, which is why the interpreters treated the ear as a matter of religion and not only of the head.

A dream about the ears is not a warning about your hearing, nor a sign about anyone in your family. It settles no question and is not a ruling. Ear pain, a loud day, and a conversation you have been avoiding all make this dream by themselves. If it left you uneasy, do what is taught for any dream that disturbs: seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and do not carry it into your day by telling it.