Dreaming of Old man in Islam

The reading depends almost entirely on the old man's bearing. A dignified old man, well-kept and calm, is the standard favourable form, read as counsel arriving, or as the dreamer's own experience speaking back to him. An old man you recognise as your grandfather or a departed relative shifts the dream onto that relationship and onto what remains unsettled in it, which the older readings treated as belonging to the dreamer's memory rather than to the man. An old man who speaks and gives instruction is weighed by what is said: the interpreters looked at the content of the words, not at the speaker. An old man who is ragged, ill-tempered or menacing turns the reading toward a long-standing habit or an old matter that has aged badly. Becoming an old man yourself is read as dignity and slowing at once, and was not treated as a warning about lifespan. Helping an old man, or carrying him, is read as a duty being taken up.

The Arabic here, shaykh kabir, is the exact phrase used of Ya'qub in Yusuf 12:78, where his sons plead that their father is a very old man. In Arabic the word shaykh never meant only age: it carries authority, precedence and the right to be consulted in the same breath. That doubling is the whole symbol, which is why the dream is read as counsel rather than as a picture of ageing.

This dream says nothing about anybody's health, and nothing about how long anybody has. It is not a message from the dead and it is not a ruling to be acted on, whatever the figure in the dream appeared to say. People with an elderly parent, or grieving one, dream this often, and it needs no meaning beyond that. If it distressed you, ask Allah for refuge from its harm, turn onto your other side, and let it go unspoken.