Dreaming of Judge in Islam

The judge is read by which side of the bench the dreamer is on and by whether the judgment is just. Standing before a just judge and being given your right is the settled good reading: a wrong put right, a matter that had been left open now closed. Standing before an unjust judge turns it toward a fear of not being heard, and the older interpreters read it as the dreamer's own sense of a grievance rather than as an event. Being the judge oneself was read with care: it is a position of trust, and the readings attached to it are heavier than the honour — the one who judges is answerable for the judgment. Judging between two people one knows shifts the dream onto that dispute and onto the dreamer's part in it. Being judged and found in the wrong was read as a matter in which the dreamer knows his position is weak, and the interpreters read it as a call to settle it before it is settled for him. A court with no judge present is read as a right no one is currently taking up.

The Arabic qāḍī is from qaḍā, to decide and to bring to completion — the same word used for a matter being concluded and for a debt being discharged. That is the whole of the symbol: a judge is where an open thing is closed. The Qur'an commands that when you judge between people you judge with justice (an-Nisa 4:58), and it is the standard of justice, not the office, that the readings turn on.

A dream of a judge is not news about a case, not a verdict, and not a sign of how a dispute will go. Anyone in a real legal matter will dream of courts; that is the case doing it, not the dream saying anything. It is not a ruling in religion either. If the dream distressed you, do what is taught: seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and keep it from others.