DREAMS

Muslims throughout history have attached great importance to dreams. Portions of the Qur?an were believed to have been revealed to Muhammad in dreams. Muhammad was also thought to have received numerous prophetic dreams. Moreover, dreams were considered the primary means by which God would communicate with Muslims following the death of Muhammad and the cessation of Qur?anic revelation. Indeed, according to tradition, on the day before his death Muhammad declared, "When I am gone, there shall remain naught of the glad-tidings of prophecy, except for true dreams."

Medieval Muslims cultivated numerous forms of literature on dreams. Accounts of dreams were collected to establish the sanctity of those who saw the dreams, a practice especially common among Sufis. Accounts of dreams were also collected to resolve points of controversy, to determine the proper reading and interpretation of the Qur?an, for instance, or to resolve legal or theological debates. Especially important, in this regard, were dreams in which the prophet Muhammad appeared, because, according to tradition, Muhammad himself had declared, "Whoever sees me in a dream has seen me in truth, for Satan cannot imitate me in a dream." Also of great importance was the dream manual, a work that taught its readers how to interpret their dreams. Many Muslim dream manuals were associated with Ibn Sirin (d. 728), the eponymous founder of the genre. While there is little reason to think that Ibn Sirin was in fact the author of a dream manual, it is certain that he was responsible for putting into oral circulation much dream lore.

Famous early dream manuals were written by the litterateur Ibn Qutaybah (d. 889), the historian al-Tabari (d. 923), and the philosopher Ibn Sina (d. 1037). Prominent later dream manuals include works written by al-Salimi (d. 1397), Ibn Shahin (d. 1468), and al-Nabulsi (d. 1730). Many Muslim dream manuals made heavy use of the Greco-Roman tradition of dream interpretation, to which access was had through the dream manual of Artemidorus, a Greek work composed in Asia Minor in the second century c.e. and translated into Arabic by the Christian physician Hunayn b. Ishaq (d. 877). It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of dream interpretation to medieval Muslims. Hundreds of dream manuals have been preserved, some in Arabic, others in Persian and Turkish.

Modern Muslims have been, not surprisingly, divided in their reception of dream interpretation. Some have cast it aside as superstitious nonsense, while others have sought to appropriate it through reinterpretation, suggesting that it foreshadows the discoveries of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Yet others, especially Sufis and traditionalists, have shown little hesitation in proclaiming the continuing validity of this ancient tradition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fahd, Toufic. La Divination arabe. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966.

Katz, Jonathan G. Dreams, Sufism and Sainthood. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1996.

Lamoreaux, John C. The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream Interpretation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

Schimmel, Annemarie. Die Träume des Kalifen. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998.

John C. Lamoreaux