Function of Dreams and Dreaming in Classical Islam: David Cook, Rice University

1. Revelation (prophets, healing, visions, Night Journey and ascension to Heaven) Role of Muhammad, Jesus, Joseph and al-Khidr Al-Ruhi, who said: A weakness in my sight came over me, and then I saw the Prophet [Muhammad] in my dream, and I complained about this to him. He said: Take the shell of a sweet almond, burn it and rub it with antimony (ithmid), and smear your eyelids with it.’ I did this, and the light of vision returned to me.1

2. Identity (question of prophet’s identity, personal identity) Yazid al-Farisi, who used to copy the codices of the Qur’an (wa-kana yaktubu al- masahif) said: I saw the Prophet in a dream during the time of Ibn Àbbas and I said to Ibn Àbbas: “I saw the Messenger of God in my sleep.” Ibn Àbbas said: “The Messenger of God used to say: Satan is unable to impersonate me, so whoever sees me in a dream has really seen me. Can you describe the man you saw in your dream?” I said: “Yes, I will describe for you a man among two other men, his body and his flesh were brown to white, with dark eyes, who had good laughter. The ovals of his face were beautiful, and his beard filled from here until here—filling his neck.” Àwf [b. Abu Jamila] said: “I do not know what to make of this description.” But Ibn Àbbas said: “If you had seen him in a waking state, you could not have described him better than that.”2

3. Vision “Al-Hadrami said: I slept together with Abu Hamza al-Qubani on a roof, and I began to watch him toss and turn on his mat until the morning. I said: O Abu Hamza, how did you sleep this night? He said: I had only laid down, when a houri appeared to me, as if I felt her skin touching mine.”3

Abu al-Hasan `Ali b. Haytham said: A man said to me I saw in a dream during the days of the plague (ta`un) that 12 coffins were taken out of my house. My family and I were 12, and 11 of them died; only I remained. So I said to myself: I am the twelfth! So I left my house, and when I returned the next day there had been a robber who had entered in order to steal. The plague had taken him, and he was the twelfth.4

A man said to Nawf b. Bikali: “I saw you in a dream. Nawf said: Tell it. He said: I saw you leading an army, when you had a long spear with you that had a candle lighting the way for the people at its tip. Nawf said: If you are right, then I will be martyred.”5

4. Authority Najm b. al-Fudayl from the village of Masti in Khawarazim said: I saw as a sleeper does as if I was in one of the villages of Bukhara, sitting by the side of the city road. I saw the Messenger of God, as if he was departing from the city on foot, while Muhammad b.

1 al-Sama`ni, Ansab, vi, p. 186. 2 Al-Tirmidhi, Shama’il, pp. 190-1 (no. 412). 3 Ibn Abi al-Dunya, Sifat al-janna, p. 209 (no. 313). 4 Ibn Habib, Ta’rikh, p. 106; see also the version in Ibn Qutayba, Ta`bir al-ru’ya, p. 91 (no. 122). 5 Ibn al-Mubarak, Kitab al-jihad, p. 110 (no. 135). Isma`il [al-Bukhari] was right behind him. He looked every time the Messenger of God lifted his foot, and placed his foot in exactly that same place.6

Role of urination = progeny (`Abd al-Malik, Seljuq, Osman)

Àli b. Àbdallah b. al-Àbbas…in his sleep as if there was a house filled with vipers, and as if a black snake (thu`ban) emerged from under Ùmm Àbdallah b. Àli and ate them. Then fire emerged from under Ùmm Abu Ja`far and burned the snake. When he woke, he told his dream.7

5. Ascent Al-Khaldi said: I saw al-Junayd in a dream, and I said: “What has God done with you?” He said: “All of those symbolic expressions were swept away, all of those interpretations have vanished, that knowledge has perished, and those formalities have been exhausted— nothing benefited us but the small bendings (rukay`iyat) for prayer that we would do in the mornings.8

6. Paradise Abu Ùbayd al-Busri said: I saw in my dream as if the Resurrection had occurred (al- qiyama qad qamat), and I rose from my grave. I was given a mount and I rode it, and then was taken up (ùrija bi) to the heavens. Behold! In it, there was a garden, and I wanted to descend, but it was said to me: ‘This is not your place.’ So I was taken up heaven by heaven—in each heaven there was a garden—until I came to the highest Ìlliyin, and I dismounted in it. Then I wanted to sit, but it was said to me ‘Will you sit before you see your Lord, most blessed and lifted up?’ I said: No, and I rose, and they took me, and suddenly I was with God, mighty and majestic. Before Him was Adam making the reckoning. When Adam saw me, he looked at me with the furtive eye of one who asks for help, and I said: ‘O Lord, the proofs have been afforded to this shaykh, so please have clemency upon him.’ I heard God say, ‘Rise, O Adam, I have had clemency upon you.’ The shaykh Abu Ahmad b. Bakr was present, and he heard me, and it is as if I wondered at the greatness of the position of Abu Ùbayd. The Shaykh said to me and those who were present: ‘The decree and the merit return to Adam, since Abu Ùbayd is of his descendents.’9

7. God Zayn al-Islam Abi al-Qasim al-Qushayri said “I saw the Lord of Power (rabb al-`izza) in a dream. He would address me, and I would address Him. During this, when the Lord, may His name be lifted up, said: A righteous man approaches, and I would turn, and behold! It was Ahmad al-Tha`labi who approached.”10

6 Ibn Àsakir, Ta’rikh madinat Dimashq, lii, p. 78; al-Dhahabi, Siyar, xii, p. 405. 7 Akhbar al-dawla al-Àbbasiyya, p. 138. 8 al-Ghazali, Ayyuha al-waladu, p. 11; often cited, e.g., Ibn Abi Ya`la, Tabaqat al-hanabila, i, p. 129. 9 Ibn Àsakir, Ta’rikh madinat Dimashq, lii, p. 281. 10 Ibn al-Qifti, Ta’rikh al-hukama’, i, p. 120.