Dreaming of Mountain in Islam

A mountain is read by whether the dreamer climbs it, stands on it, or is beneath it. Climbing and reaching the top is the strongest good reading: an aim attained after a long effort, and the older interpreters were careful to say the reading belongs to the climb as much as to the summit. Climbing and stopping partway is read as a matter still in progress, not as a failure. Standing on a mountain is read as a position from which things are seen at their true size. A mountain that moves or crumbles is read gravely, since a mountain is precisely the thing that is not supposed to move — the older readings put it as the loss of something that had been relied on as fixed. Being under a mountain, or fearing it will fall is read as living under a weight the dreamer has not measured. A green mountain with water on it is read as a firm man whose benefit reaches others; a bare rock face as strength with nothing coming from it.

The Qur'an fixes this symbol before any interpreter touches it. Mountains are set firm in the earth so it does not sway, and are called its pegs (an-Naba 78:7); and the same text shows the mountain crumbling when what is greater than it appears (al-A'raf 7:143). Both readings the interpreters give — the firm and lofty thing, and the firm thing shown to be small — come straight from there. In ordinary Arabic a man is called a mountain for the same reason: he does not move when pushed.

A dream of a mountain is not a promise that an aim will be reached, and a mountain falling is not a warning about any person's death or downfall. It is not a ruling and not a prediction. If the dream weighed on you, the practice taught for a troubling dream stands: seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and leave it untold.