Salihiya Sect (Salih Qubba): "All Visions are Reality"

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ ، وَعَلَى أَزْوَاجِهِ وَذُرِّيَّتِهِ ، كَمَا صَلَّيْتَ عَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ، وَبَارِكْ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى أَزْوَاجِهِ وَذُرِّيَّتِهِ ، كَمَا بَارَكْتَ عَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ، إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ

 

The Salihiya sect are attributed to the theologian Salih b. Abd Allah known as “Qubba”. Among the examples of the absurdity of kalam theology is to be found in the conclusions and doctrines of this sect: “They hold also that dreams are true and that they are in the category of the wakeful state. Should a man see in a dream that he is in the west while he is in the east, God would have spontaneously created him in the west at that very moment. The proof is that we may witness in the dream state the like of that in the wakeful state. If that were false, vision would be false. What one sees in the mirror is, according to them, merely another man like oneself that God spontaneously creates. The proof is that we may see two things, and if it were possible that one of the two is false, it would equally be possible that the other is false.” (Bab al-Shaytan of Abu Tamam p.83)

Ibn Hazm writes about Salih Qubba: The student of al-Nizam, Salih Qubba, believed that “whatever visions we see are true as seen, so if one sees that he is in China, when he is actually in Andalusia, then at that point Allah has created him to be in China.” (al-Fisl fil-Milal v.5 p.123)

And this doctrine is refuted rationally, but also by the Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ in which he said:

وَمَنْ رَآنِي فِي الْمَنَامِ فَقَدْ رَآنِي، فَإِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ لاَ يَتَمَثَّلُ فِي صُورَتِي

“Whoever sees me in a dream has (in fact) seen me, for Satan cannot imitate my form.” (Bukhari & Muslim)

In this Hadith is implied that Satan is able to imitate forms and show falsehoods to people in dreams, but there is an exception when it comes to the Prophet whose form Satan cannot imitate. Hence, if a person sees the Prophet ﷺ in a dream while sleeping, he has in fact seen the Prophet ﷺ truly and in reality.