Dreaming of Ink in Islam

Ink is read by its colour, its quantity, and whether it is used or spilled. Black ink in good supply is the settled reading: knowledge that can be recorded and passed on, a contract that will hold, provision earned through writing, teaching or study. Writing with it clearly is read as a matter set down so it cannot be disputed later. Running out of ink mid-writing is read as a means falling short before the work is finished, and the older interpreters read that as a call to secure the means rather than as failure. Spilled ink is read as words let loose — something said or written that cannot be taken back — and where it stains clothes, as a matter that will be remembered against the dreamer. Coloured ink was read as ornament in speech: attractive words with less behind them than plain ones. Being given ink and a pen together is read as being entrusted with something that will be recorded, whether knowledge or responsibility. Ink that will not mark the page is read as effort that leaves no trace.

The association is not obscure. Writing is how knowledge survives the person who had it, and the Qur'an itself opens its first revelation with reading, and with the One who taught by the pen what man did not know (al-Alaq 96:4-5). Surah al-Qalam takes its name from the pen and swears by it and by what they write. Ink is simply what makes the pen effective — which is why the interpreters read it as the means by which knowledge and agreements are made permanent.

A dream of ink is not a sign that a contract will be signed or that a piece of work will succeed, and it does not confirm that anything written down is correct. It is not a ruling. A student, a writer or anyone waiting on a document will dream this without any meaning attaching to it. If the dream left you uneasy, the response is the one given for any troubling dream: seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and do not relate it to anyone.