Dreaming of Enemy in Islam

An enemy in a dream is read by the outcome, not by the threat. Defeating an enemy is the settled reading: prevailing over a hardship, or the end of something that had been pressing on the dreamer. Being pursued but not caught is read as a difficulty that stays close without landing. Reconciling with an enemy, or shaking his hand, is read very favourably — safety, and a matter that will be resolved by agreement rather than by force. An enemy who is known to the dreamer shifts the reading onto that relationship, though the interpreters warned that this is where the dream is most often misused. An enemy inside the house is read as trouble arising from what is close rather than from outside. Fleeing is read as avoiding a confrontation, not as losing one, and the older readings did not treat it as cowardice. An enemy who becomes weak or small is read as a fear losing its size once it is looked at directly.

The reading rests on something the sources say plainly rather than on any wordplay: the enemy a person should be most concerned with is not always the one outside. The Qur'an describes Shaytan as an open enemy to man (Fatir 35:6) and warns that among a person's own family there may be what is an enemy to him (at-Taghabun 64:14). Once the enemy stands for whatever opposes a person's good — a habit, a fear, a dispute — the dream readings follow, and prevailing in the dream is read as prevailing over that.

This is the dream most often turned into an accusation, so it must be said flatly: a dream of an enemy does not identify a person, and treating a relative or a neighbour as an enemy because of a dream is a wrong done on no evidence. It is not a ruling, and it forecasts no conflict. A person who went to bed with a dispute on his mind will dream it out. If the dream frightened you, seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and do not relate it to anyone.