Dreaming of Hand in Islam

The hand is read by which one, its condition, and what it holds. The right hand is read for strength, lawful earning and what a person does openly; the left for what is done aside from that, and the older readings are careful not to make the left an accusation. A strong, clean hand is capability and honest gain; a withered or bound hand is being prevented from acting rather than being punished. An open hand is generosity — in Arabic, an open hand is generosity — and a closed fist is holding back. Washing the hands has been read as leaving off a matter one no longer wants a share in. Shaking hands with someone is read as an agreement or a reconciliation with that person. Seeing more hands than one has is read as help arriving from more directions than expected, or as taking on more than one pair of hands can do. Cutting or losing a hand is read as the loss of the means by which one acts — a partner, a livelihood, a capacity — not as a punishment and not as an injury foretold.

Arabic hardly distinguishes the hand from power and favour. Yad is used for a benefaction owed, for authority, for the upper hand; the Qur'an says the hand of Allah is above their hands (al-Fath 48:10), meaning power over them, and the companions of the right hand are named by that same side. So a dream of a hand is rarely about a hand, and the interpreters read it as what a person is able to do and what he does with it.

A dream about the hands is not a warning of injury and carries no ruling — least of all the fear some people bring to it, that a cut hand means a punishment or a sin exposed. It does not. Most of what is seen in sleep belongs to the sleeper's own day. If it disturbed you, seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and do not relate it.