Subcategories Within Different Types Of Dreams

Differentiating Between Dreams from Allah سبحانه و تعالى , Shaitan and Nafs

Posted by Mohammad Awais Tahir

Set of References For Learning How to Differentiate between types of dreams

C- Subcategories Within Different Types Of Dreams:

(1)Dreams from Allah سبحانه و تعالى: It is not possible to give a finite number of types of dreams within the categories.Scholars who have written about dreams have mentioned different sub-categories. In type 1 dreams, the diversity of dreams makes it impossible to give a finite list of subcategories which encompass all the dreams seen by the Sahaba, Tabi'een and the pious predecessors which were surely dreams from Allah سبحانه و تعالى. Nevertheless, Al Muhallab رحمه الله has given two broad sub-categories of dreams from Allahسبحانه و تعالى:


(a)Direct dream: something one would see in a dream and the exact scene repeats itself in day-time when you are awake and this dream does not need interpretation.


(b) A dream the comes in symbols and it needs to be interpreted.(Fath ul Baari) Different examples of dreams from Allah within type (a) are :


(i) True Dreams ( رؤيا صادق): Dreams that become a reality. These are the dreams which are the 46 part of prophethood, for the prophet Muhammad had these dreams continously for six months and the total period of his prophethood was 23 years, which makes it 46th part of the total. Different prophets has different periods of Prophethood, but as prophet Muhammad's prophethood was the most complete, hence it is referred to as the 46th part of prophethood, and Allah Knows best.


(ii) Meeting the Arwaah of the Dead in dreams


(iii) Meeting the Arwaah of the living in dreams : Is it possible for two living person's ruh to meet in dreams? This is a subject of difference amongst scholars and Ibn al Qayyim has quoted the various opinions in his book Kitab ur Ruh.


(iv) Glad tidings (مبشرات): A glad tiding for some victory or fulfillment of wish in near or distant future. (See Reference # 9)etc.


Dream from type (b) are actually: Tamseelat (تمثيلات); Dreams which don't convey a clear cut meaning. They are messages in a code superior to that which the brain can cope with. These have to be interpreted through the knowledge of Ta'beer. Within Tamseelat we can have dream which inform us of some near future happening. One can also have dreams that are for distant future (like the dream of Yusuf AS, See reference # 2). Also,these dreams might serve as an encouragement or some warning sometimes.

Note:The sleep of Prophets is unique. As we know the Prophet Muhammad informed us that his 'heart' remained awake even when he slept, so he didn't need to redo ablution on waking up from sleep. Also, he informed us that Allah سبحانه و تعالى fed him during the night, for that reason he kept 'Sawm Al Wisal', which is forbidden for others. So, though prophets are human beings like us but in some regards 'none of us is like them'. Also, Prophet Muhammad informed us that there is a shaitan (jinn) with everyone, but he made the jinn with him a Muslim, by the grace of Allah سبحانه و تعالى. So, the dreams the Prophet had always used to be from Allah. Also, the dreams of Prophets used to be an order from Allah, and were of a legal importance unlike the dream of anyone of us (See Reference # 5).


(2) Dreams from Shaitan: These can be further categorized as:

(a) Dreams which try to make one worried by evoking some fear

(b) Dreams which try to make one worried by evoking hopelessness

(c) Dreams which contain indecency etc.


(3)Dreams from Nafs: Dreams from Nafs also can be categorized as either those who are clear-cut or those who appear in the form of symbols and signs.

(a) As a result of some fear

(b) As a result of constant thinking on some subject

(c) As a result of some extreme pending wish

(d) As a result of some experience you had in near or distant past

(e) Some embedded thought or feeling in corner of mind taking some random shape during dream

(g) As a result of some extreme love or hatred towards someone

Copyright © 2011 Islam and Psychology. Feel free to spread.

Source

The Strategic Role of Dreams and Visions In Islam 

By Sheikh Imran Hosein

Porn Addiction Relapse & Recognizing Triggers

Top 5 Causes of Addiction Relapse

There are a million reasons why someone relapses, but addiction specialists agree that avoiding triggers-the situations and emotions that make drugs attractive-is half the battle. According to Elizabeth Hartney, a leading addiction specialist, the top 5 reasons that those struggling with addiction relapse are:

1. Stress: Stress is one of the top causes of relapse. While one can’t avoid all forms of stress, making lifestyle, relationship, and priority changes can help the recovering addict to avoid situations that spark tension and other negative emotions associated with relapse.
2. People or Places Connected to the Addictive Behavior: Being around people and places associated with one’s addiction can often push a person to relapse. For example, going back to a favorite bar may tempt an individual to pick up the bottle again. It’s better to avoid these temptations, especially in the early phases of recovery.
3. Negative or Challenging Emotions: While negative emotions are a normal part of life, those struggling with addiction often cite frustration, anger, anxiety, and loneliness, as triggers for relapse. Therefore, usually as a part of therapy, it’s essential to develop effective ways of managing, these feelings.
4. Seeing or Sensing the Object of Your Addiction: In recovery, even a slight reminder of the object of the addiction, such as seeing a portrayal of addictive behavior on television, can lead to relapse. While it is impossible to avoid such reminders forever, developing skills for managing any urges or cravings can aid in preventing relapse.
5. Times of Celebration: Most situations that can trigger relapse are perceived as negative. However, sometimes positive situations such as times of celebration, where alcohol or drugs are present, are just as risky. Avoiding such events or bringing along a trusted friend can assist in preventing relapse.

While relapse may happen for some and not others, it’s important to remember that relapse does not mean failure. Recovering from addiction is a life-long process of hard work and dedication to one’s program and recovery path.

Recognizing Triggers

An easy way to look at triggers is to think of them as synonymous with temptation. While you may not always be able to control whether you experience a trigger or a tempting thought, you do have power over whether you succumb to them. In other words, just because you’re tempted to do something you know is bad for your sobriety doesn’t mean you’ll blindly follow through on the urge. Learning to trust your ability to say no and surrounding yourself with people and situations that support you help to build the “muscle” of sobriety.

Triggers can include people, places and things; in general, anything that you associate with substance abuse and/or the compulsive behavior can be a trigger. This can include seeing or hearing something on TV about drinking or gambling; the sound of ice cubes hitting a glass as a family member gets ready to pour a refreshing soda; the smell of pot at a public venue; being around too many people, or being alone; not taking your medication and many, many more sights, smells, sounds, tastes, words, music — the list of possible triggers can seem endless sometimes.

Many self-help support groups use the acronym “H.A.L.T.” to describe certain triggers. The letters stand for Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired; for many, these are common situations that make it more likely you’ll use or drink.

What serves as a trigger for you may be completely different for someone else. However, these are some common triggers, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

• The anniversary dates of losses or trauma
• Frightening news events
• Too much to do; feeling overwhelmed
• Family friction
• The end of a relationship
• Spending too much time alone
• Being judged, criticized, teased or put down
• Financial problems; getting a big bill
• Physical illness
• Sexual harassment
• Being yelled at
• Aggressive-sounding noises or exposure to anything that makes you feel uncomfortable
• Being around someone who has treated you badly
• Certain smells, tastes or noises that remind you of your drug of choice

Once you’ve learned to identify your triggers, you can take the proper steps to deal with them effectively. For some, it helps to keep a list of coping techniques that have worked in the past — such as going for a run, calling a close friend or your sponsor, or “urge surfing”(imagine yourself as a surfer who will ride the urge, staying on top of it until it crests, breaks and turns into less powerful, foamy surf) — along with how you felt after afterward. For example, remembering the good feeling of exhaustion and inner quiet after a long run, or the sense of pride and power you felt after riding out the urge. It’s also important to keep a list of people you can call if triggers become overwhelming. That human connection in the moment may be enough to give you the support and encouragement you need to get through without giving in to the trigger.

And remember to share what you’ve learned with others in self-help support groups or group therapy. There’s great collective wisdom in the rooms of recovery and many opportunities to provide and receive suggestions for excellent coping techniques for triggers.

Signs You’re About to Relapse

 

How do I know if I’m slipping? If you’re asking yourself this question, it could be that you already suspect your recovery might be in jeopardy. Or you might just be a bit cautious. Either way, knowing the signs of relapse can give you the time to take proactive steps to avoid slipping back into using.
Here are 10 common signs of an impending relapse; you don’t need to experience all of them to be at risk. For some, a single trigger can signal relapse is on the way. The key is learning how to recognize the warnings and reaching out for support at the first sign of trouble.

10 Warning Signs of Relapse

1. Negative thinking. You find yourself regarding daily life as bleak and the tasks you need to do as burdensome. You feel like you have a great weight on your shoulders. Increasing feelings of hopelessness or negativity should alert you that you could be in danger of relapsing.
2. Easily angered or annoyed. It’s as if your nerves are on hair-trigger sensitive. You become mad, even furious, often without warning and increasingly over small things. This isn’t like you, but you can’t seem to pull out of it. Getting into arguments with loved ones and family members more frequently is another clear sign that you could be on the verge of relapse.
3. Complacency or overconfidence. After being in recovery for a while, it starts to seem like you’ve got it all down. You know what to do and begin to feel like you can handle any situation. As a result, you may let some of your regular recovery to-do items slide, for example, attending 12-step meetings or practicing self-care habits like healthy eating or exercising. If you find yourself becoming complacent or overly confident about your sobriety, you may need to reassess and reinvest in your recovery program.
4. Increased stress. Without the comfortable crutch of alcohol, drugs or a problematic behavior to smooth over daily aggravations or unexpected situations, you may find your stress level is at the breaking point. Worries about finances, performance at work and how your recovery may be affecting your loved ones can all take a dramatic toll, wearing you down and increasing the likelihood of relapse.
5. Skipping meetings. Not everyone needs to attend self-help support group meetings as part of their recovery. But if you’ve been in recovery for a period of time and you have found meetings helpful, after a while it may begin to seem tedious and unnecessary to keep going. Maybe you feel that you don’t need the regularity of meetings to keep you on course and that you’re perfectly fine on your own. That may in fact be true, but it’s worth paying attention to this tendency, as some may find it’s a short distance from cutting back or skipping recovery meetings to sliding into relapse.
6. Putting yourself in risky situations. If you find that you’re going back to your old haunts and hanging out with friends you used to use with, that’s a precarious situation — and one likely full of old triggers. So guard against thoughts of revisiting the people, places and things you associate with using.
7. Denial. Questioning whether you ever really had a problem or denying to others that you have a problem are both signs that you could be in danger of relapse. If others notice and comment on a difference in you, yet you continue to insist that you’re on top of your recovery, it may be time to slow down and reflect before you slip back into addictive patterns.
8. Isolation. Holing up in the house, refusing to see friends and keeping your distance from family members are troublesome signs of relapse. When you’re in recovery, you need sober, supportive people in your life who reinforce this positive path you’re taking. If you feel depressed, disheartened or angry or alone, instead of sitting home and feeling miserable, get out and surround yourself with people (or at least one person) you trust and with whom you can share some time, even if you’re not ready to open up about how you’re feeling.
9. Loss of interest in family, friends and activities. When problems start to mount and you feel like everything’s about to come crashing down on you, you may notice in yourself a tendency to withdraw from people and activities you once enjoyed. To safeguard your hard-won recovery, it’s important to talk about what’s bothering you, either with a trusted loved one, your sponsor, your therapist or counselor or a member of the clergy.
10. Losing hope. When life looks completely black and you feel a sense of hopelessness and despair, this is a critical warning sign of impending relapse. Take such feelings seriously and get help right away.

 Source: Internet

 

Secrets of Sexual Relations - Islamic Guide To Sexual Relations

READ DISCLAIMER BEFORE PROCEEDING

1)   Secrets of Sexual Relations

Allah Most High has made the husband and wife garments for one another, for He Most High says:

"It is made lawful for you, in the nights of fasts, to have sex with your women. They are your garments and you are their garments ...”

(Qur'an 2:187)

It is known that if a garment is not long, complete or loose-fitting, and not free of holes and tears, it is not fit to cover one's nakedness. In a similar manner, the spouses are garments for one another, and if they fail to conceal each other's secrets, they will not be fulfilling their duties. Marital relationships are based on trust and secrecy, and as such, each spouse is duty-bound to conceal matters that are revealed to them by their spouse under this trust.

Concealing secrets is more important when it comes to intimate issues. It is categorically forbidden (haram) for the husband and wife to reveal their sexual secrets to others. It is a shameful and sinful practice that has been emphatically condemned by the Messenger of Allah (sa). SayyidunaAba Sa'id al-Khudri (r) relates that the Messenger of Allah (sa) said:

"The most evil of people in the sight of Allah on the Day of Judgment is the man who has sex with his wife and she has sex with him, then he reveals her secret."  

(Sahih Muslim 1437)

The warning against revealing sexual secrets is not only for men, but rather it includes women too. It is unlawful to discuss with others what takes place in the bedroom. Sexual matters are private and must remain that way. Sharing them brings such thoughts to the minds of others, potentially leading to fornication of the heart. It is also a means of harming one's spouse, as he or she would not want details of their sexual behaviour revealed to others.

''We, as men and women, were sitting in the company of the Messenger of Allah (sa). The Messenger of Allah (sa) said, "May a man be talking [with others] about what goes on between him and his wife, and may a woman be talking [with others] about what she does with her husband?" The people remained quiet and did not answer. So I said, ''Yes, by Allah, O Messenger of Allah! The men do that, and the women do that too." He said, "Do not do that, because doing that is like a male devil (shaytan) meeting a female devil (shaytana) in the middle of a road, and having sex with her whilst people are watching." (Al-Mu'jam al-Kalar of Tabarani 24: 162-163. A similar report is recorded in Sunan Abi Dawud and Musnad Ahmad)

A tendency exists in some people to relate graphic details of their sexual encounters to friends. Some men boast about their performance in bed and what their wives do with them, whilst some women enjoy boasting about their sexual relationship with their husbands. The above hadiths should suffice in deterring such people. They should realize that they are answerable to Allah Most High on the Day of judgement, and must completely shun such shameless behaviour. This prohibition of revealing intimate secrets pertains to normal situations. However, if there is a genuine need to discuss one's marital affairs, such as when seeking religious guidance or counselling, or when one is a victim of injustice and is complaining to those in authority, then the prohibition is suspended. However, in this case too, graphic details that do not need to be mentioned must not be disclosed. (See: Al-Minhaj Shari} Sahih Muslim, commentary on hadith 1437)

Source: Islamic Guide To Sexual Relations

To Be Continued....

Allah, Most High, wages war against Israel - JERUSALEM IN THE QUR’AN

Allah, Most High, wages war against Israel

Allah the Supreme spoke with such forceful language concerning the sin of Riba that it is, perhaps, the greatest sin (other than Shirk) that exists in the realm of belief or conduct. Allah’s anger against the oppressor (because of the oppression of Riba) is so great that they will stand before Him after their resurrection as a people who appear to be driven to madness by the touch of Satan. When the Jewish State of Israel engages in Riba then Allah will not simply punish such people in the next life, rather He and His Messenger (‘alaihi al-Salam) will wage war against them in this world.

“O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if ye are indeed believers. If ye do it not, take notice of war from Allah and His Messenger...”

(Qur’an, al-Baqarah, 2:278-9)  

This book directs attention to the fact that Jews control the banking system around the world today. Yet the above verse of the Qur’an is indicative of the supreme importance Allah Most High attaches to the prohibition of Riba. In the entire history of divine revelation, to the best of my knowledge, Almighty Allah has never used such extremely strong language for anything else besides Riba.

After the death of Solomon (‘alaihi al-Salam) the Israelites corrupted the Torah by rewriting it several times in several different versions. The Harvard-trained American Biblical scholar, Richard Friedman, has conclusively demonstrated this in his very important work entitled: "Who Wrote the Bible?" (New York: Harper and Row, 1989).

The Israelites removed all references in the Torah to the temple (or masjid) built by Abraham (‘alaihi al-Salam) and Ishmael (‘alaihi al-Salam) in Arabia. The Ka’aba and the Hajj are no longer to be found in the Torah. They also substituted all references to Ishmael (‘alaihi al-Salam) as the son of the sacrifice with the name of his brother Isaac (‘alaihi al-Salam), even though Isaac (‘alaihi al-Salam) was not even born when the trial of the sacrifice took place. In addition, the child of the sacrifice was described by Allah in the Qur’an as Haleem (patient and forbearing) (Saffat, 37:101), whereas the son to be born to Sarah was described as Aleem (wise) (al-Hijr,15:53). They substituted Arabia with Palestine as the place of the sacrifice. Zam Zam, the miraculous spring of water that sprang from the desert sand when Gabriel (‘alaihi al-Salam) rubbed his heel on the sand, now became a well in Palestine. They demonized Ishmael (‘alaihi al-Salam) in the Torah as “a wild ass of a man” and excluded him from Allah’s covenant so that they could claim exclusive title to being the ‘chosen people’ of Allah. Most dangerous of all, however, was their corruption and willful distortion of the divine prohibition against Riba. They rewrote the Torah to make it permissible for money to be lent on interest to non-believers while maintaining the prohibition against Riba in intra-Israelite transactions (Deuteronomy, 23:20-21).

Allah the Almighty responded to this heinous crime by sending against them one of His creatures who possessed mighty prowess. The Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, overran Palestine, defeated the Israelites, enslaved all those whom he captured, destroyed the State of Israel and Masjid al-Aqsa (which had been built by Solomon), and transported the Israelites as slaves back to Babylon (al-Isra, 17:4,5). This was most certainly a powerful demonstration of Allah’s capacity to wage war.

There was a second demonstration when the Roman Emperor, Titus, ravaged Jerusalem and destroyed the temple (or masjid) a second time (al-Isra, 17:7, 104).

This, also, was related to Riba. Allah had sent three Prophets, Zakariah (‘alaihi al-Salam), John (‘alaihi al-Salam), and Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salam), to the Israelites. That part of the Israelites who rejected these Prophets became known as Jews (al-Yahood). The Jews murdered Zakariah (‘alaihi al-Salam) inside of Masjid al-Aqsa (Matthew, 24:35, 36; Luke, 11:51). John (‘alaihi al-Salam) was beheaded by way of deception. And, finally, the Jews boasted of how they had killed Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salam). In all three instances the Prophets of Allah had attacked them and denounced them for their wickedness. This included their denunciation of the Jews for the crime of changing the Torah and for consuming Riba. Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salam), for example, went into Masjid al-Aqsa and found them engaged in Riba. He cursed them, turned over their tables, chased them out of the temple (Masjid) and declared: “You have taken the house of Allah and transformed it into a den of thieves.” Thus it was because the Prophets of Allah exposed their wickedness of consuming Riba, among other crimes, that they killed them (except for Jesus, whom Allah saved miraculously). Allah Most High responded to this wickedness by sending a Roman army that destroyed the State of Israel for a second time. (It will be destroyed for a last time by a Muslim army led by Imam alMahdi.)

The warning of a declaration of war from Allah Most High for the consumption of Riba, assumes even greater importance when we reflect over the fact that Allah Most High intervened to protect the first Masjid (i.e., Ka’aba) when Abraha came with his army of elephants to destroy it (Qur’an, al-Fil, 105:1-5). Even when the Ka’aba was filled with idols, Allah Most High still intervened to save it from destruction. And yet, even though there were no idols in the second Masjid (i.e., Masjid al-Aqsa), Allah Most High twice sent armies to destroy it. Such is the state of Divine anger over the oppression caused by Riba.

The dire warning for the Jews is that the Shirk of the secular State of Israel and the Riba in its economic life both manifestly violate the divine conditions for inheritance of the Holy Land. The consequence of such violation is that Allah Most High would respond by punishing them.

 

Source: Jerusalem in the Qur'an by Imran N. Hosein

to be continued....