Dreaming of Pearl in Islam

The pearl is read by how it is come by and what is done with it. Finding a single flawless pearl is read as knowledge or a word of real worth arriving after some effort. A pearl brought up from water keeps the fuller reading, because the diving is part of it: what is valuable was under something and had to be gone after. Stringing pearls is read as ordering what you know, or joining people who belong together. Scattering pearls, or losing one in sand, is read as knowledge spent where it is not received, or advice given to someone with no use for it. Swallowing a pearl is read badly in the older interpretations, as taking in what should have been passed on. A false pearl, or one that turns out to be glass, is the caution against speech that shines and carries nothing. Being given pearls by a parent is read toward a righteous child or an inheritance of character rather than goods.

The image is Qur'anic and does not need to be stretched: in al-Rahman 55:22 pearl and coral come out of the two seas, and in al-Waqi'a 56:23 the companions of Paradise are likened to well-guarded pearls. Preserved, hidden, brought up whole from depth — that is the whole ground of the reading, and it is why pearls attach to the Qur'an, to learning, and to a child kept in good character.

This is not a promise of wealth, a child, or anything else, and no ruling follows from it. Jewellery seen that day, a wish held before sleep, or a story read to a child can each produce the dream, and the tradition holds that most sleep is the day returning. If any part of it troubled you, the response taught is to seek refuge in Allah, turn onto your other side, and not repeat it.