58. One should note that the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) had dreamed that he was sacrificing his son and not that he had sacrificed him. Although at that time he understood the dream to mean that he should sacrifice his son and on that very basis, he became ready to sacrifice him, with a cool mind, yet the fine point that Allah had in view in making him see the dream has been explained by Himself in (verse 105) below.
59. The object of asking this of the son was not that he would carry out Allah’s command only if he agreed, otherwise not, but the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him), in fact, wanted to find out how righteous, in actual reality, was his child for whom he had prayed to Allah. If the son himself was found to be ready to lay down his life for the sake of Allah’s approval and pleasure, it would mean that the prayer had been fully granted, and the son was not his offspring in the natural way only but was morally and spiritually also a true son.
60. The words clearly tell that the son had not taken the dream of his Prophet father to be a mere dream but a command from Allah. Had it not been a command actually, it was necessary that Allah should have explicitly or implicitly stated that the son of Abraham (peace be upon him) had mistaken it for a command. But the whole context is without any such allusion. On this very basis, there is the Islamic belief that the dream of the Prophets is never a mere dream, it is also a kind of revelation. Obviously, if a thing, which could become such a fundamental principle in the divine Shariah, had not been based on reality, but had been a mere misunderstanding, it was not possible that Allah should not have refuted it. It is impossible for the one who believes the Quran to be Allah’s Word, to accept that such an error and omission could emanate from Allah also.