Stairs (steps) درج

In a dream, stairs indicate the means of ascent, elevation and prosperity in this world and the Hereafter. They indicate properties and being led on step by step (gradual entrapment). They may indicate the stages of a journey and the stations where travelers stop, station by station and stage by stage, and they may indicate the days of one’s life that lead to its end. A known staircase indicates the house servant, and the owner’s slave and his secretary. Whoever climbs an unknown staircase and reaches its top while he is ill will die; if he enters the highest chamber, he reaches a rank in Paradise, and if he is held back below it, Paradise will be veiled from him after death. As for descending stairs: if he is a traveler, he will return from his journey; if he is a leader, he will step down from his leadership and be dismissed from his post; if he is riding, he will walk on foot; and if he has a sick wife, she will perish and he will be separated from her. If he himself is the sick one: if his descent is to a known place, or to his family and home, or to a lot of straw or barley, or to something indicating worldly wealth and goods, he will recover from his illness. If his descent is to an unknown place he does not recognize, or to dead people he knew, then — as mentioned earlier — if his descent was a fall into a pit or a covered well, or to a lion that devoured him, or to a bird that snatched him away, or to an anchored ship that set sail with him, or to a mount carrying a howdah, then the stairs are the days of his life and everything he descended to is his death when his term was complete. If he is healthy and free of illness in waking life but is a tyrant or an unbeliever: if what he descended to indicates goodness — such as a mosque, fertility, winds, or bathing (ritual washing) — he will embrace Islam, repent, step down from what he is on and give it up. If his descent is to the opposite of that, to things indicating great horrors, such as huge, frightening fires, lions, snakes, chasms and bones, then he is being led on step by step and has been given respite (before punishment). Stairs made of sun-dried mud brick are good, and stairs of fired brick are disliked. Some said: the steps of good deeds — the first is prayer, the second fasting, the third zakat (obligatory alms), the fourth charity, the fifth pilgrimage, the sixth jihad and the seventh the Quran. All steps represent good deeds if they are of clay or mud brick, and there is no good in them if they are of fired brick. Steps of clay mean, for a governor, elevation and honor together with religion, and for trade, profit together with religion. If they are of stone, it is elevation together with hardness of heart; if of wood, it is elevation with hypocrisy and showing off; if of gold, he will attain power, abundance and good; if of silver, he will acquire slave girls, as many as the number of steps; and if of brass, he will obtain worldly goods. Whoever climbs a step gains understanding and insight by which he rises. It is also said that a step is an ascetic, devout man, and whoever comes near it inclines toward elevation and devotion. Every step, for a governor, is an office. Going up stairs means dangers he undertakes, and their difficulty or ease is according to how he climbs them. Built (masonry) stairs indicate the easing of affairs; and if wooden stairs become masonry, that may indicate steadfastness in affairs and the covering of what he hopes will stay covered. Climbing stairs is elevation he attains gradually, little by little. Steps are ranks in Paradise, and whoever climbs a number of steps will live as many years as their number. Five steps are the five daily prayers; whatever defect appears in them is in the prayers.