Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Warns Against TV and Online Dream Interpreters

Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti has warned citizens to stop listening to people on satellite channels and the Internet who claim to know how to interpret dreams. He says they are fakes and out to make money off of people’s gullibility. Marco Werman speaks with Dalia el Sheikh of the BBC Arabic Service about how the interpretation of dreams goes way back in Middle Eastern history.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: An unusual story next out of Saudi Arabia. The Grand Mufti there, a top religious authority, is warning people to stop listening to so called dream interpreters who appear on satellite TV and online. He says effectively they’re fakes who try to get money out of gullible Suadis. Now here’s the background on that story. The interpretation of dreams has a long history in the middle east. That’s why these online and TV dream interpreters are finding an audience. Dalia el Sheikh is with the BBC’s Arabic service. So what do these dream interpreters actually do and how do they run their business? It’s online and TV – people call in or they write in? What is it?

Dalia el Sheikh: Yeah, actually like if you have for example let’s say if someone that you’re interviewing so you just bring him to the studio and you just open the phone line and people start talking and asking him, “Oh, I had this dream. I have the dream and I dreamed blah blah blah,” and just start asking some questions and based on this question they tell them something about their future, something about their past, you have to do X and Y and Z and people started believing them.

Werman: You know, there used to be the Psychic Friends Network here in the United States. It sounds a little like that. How important are dreams though to Saudis and just their kind of lives?

Sheikh: I’ll go back a little bit. Like the dreams itself, it was in the Arab culture long ago and for example in Egypt they used to bring their clergies to tell them what is the meaning of their dreams.

Werman: Mm.

Sheikh: So doesn’t have to do with the Saudi Arabia or Egypt or other countries. It’s just the Middle East area and there is a famous story that was written in the Quran like the king of Egypt dreaming he saw seven fat cows being eaten by seven skinny ones and none of his advisers was able to interpret this. Someone who knows the prophet Yusuf, went to him and told him like there’s someone who can tell you what these dreams mean. Yusuf told the king that Egypt would face seven years of prosperity then they would suffer seven years of famine and that the king should prepare for it to avoid the great suffering. And the king followed the instruction and the land, Egypt, was saved from the great famine.

Werman: So they’re an important part of the culture?

Sheikh: Yeah, it’s a very important part of the culture and after that it became like a sign. Like we have some famous books and some famous people like someone called Ibn Sirin. He was born in 653 and he died in 728. This Ibn Sirin wrote a lot of books about the issue and he has a very famous book where he just say like this symbol…there are some symbols in the your dream and this symbol mean X. If you saw X this means Y. If you saw Y this means Z.

Werman: So with this warning from the Grand Mufti, is he implying then that there is a proper way to interpret dreams and this is not one of them?

Sheikh: Yeah, because it seemed like what he was saying like there were some people who were just fortune tellers and they understand nothing so they are not educated and they don’t have the signs or the basic of the signs to start this process.

Werman: Dalia el Sheikh is with the BBC’s Arabic service.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.