What is the ruling on taking payment for interpreting visions and dreams?

It is not permissible to take a fee for interpreting visions and dreams for the following reasons:

1. Interpreting dreams is a benefit that is unknown and unregulated. A fee is taken in exchange for a known benefit, and this resembles judgeship, for which it is not permissible to take a fee.

2. The closest thing to which dream interpretation can be analogized is giving a fatwa (religious legal opinion). The majority of scholars have forbidden a mufti from taking a fee for his fatwa, and dream interpretation is a type of issuing a fatwa.

3. It is not correct to analogize dream interpretation to ruqyah (spiritual healing), for which it is permissible to take a fee, because ruqyah falls under the category of treatment and medication.

4. Citing what was mentioned in the book "Majma' al-Anhur" regarding the permissibility of taking a fee for "interpretation" is inaccurate. The intention there is teaching the "science of interpretation," not interpreting dreams itself. The difference between the two is like the difference between teaching religious knowledge and issuing a fatwa on a religious ruling.

5. Shaykh Ibn Jibreen mentioned that it is not permissible to take a fee for interpreting dreams, because dream interpretation relies on conjecture, and it is not permissible for the interpreter to assert the interpretation with certainty.