Dreaming of Horse in Islam

The horse is read by its condition, its colour, and by whether the rider had control. Riding a well-behaved horse is the settled good reading: standing among people, a matter one is in command of, honour arrived at rather than claimed. A horse that throws the rider or bolts reverses it toward a position held without the competence to hold it, or authority that has gotten away from the person carrying it. A saddled horse without a rider was read as a rank waiting to be taken up. A horse in one's own house or yard was read as good coming to that household. A lame or emaciated horse points to a support that will not carry what is being asked of it. Selling or losing a horse was read as parting with a standing rather than with property. Colour shifted the older readings: light-coloured horses read most favourably, and a horse of unusual appearance was read as a matter people would talk about.

The Arabic has the association built in. Khayl — horses — sits beside khuyalāʾ, pride and swagger, and the horse in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic world was the visible instrument of both honour and warfare; wealth in horses was standing itself. The Qur'an names horses among what was created for people to ride and as adornment (al-Nahl 16:8), and elsewhere lists them among the things people's hearts are drawn to. So the horse carries honour, mobility and the danger of vanity all at once, and which of them a dream means shows in whether the rider had the animal in hand.

A dream of a horse is not a promise of promotion, wealth or victory, and losing one is not a warning of a demotion. It is not a ruling and does not report the future. Ambition and worry about status manufacture this dream reliably. If it disturbed you, the taught response is to seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and not to relate it.