Dreams And Visions In The World Of Islam

People in Western societies have long been interested in their dreams and what they mean. However, few non-Muslims in the West are likely to seek interpretation of those dreams to help them make life-changing decisions. In the Islamic world the situation is quite different. Dreaming and the import of visions are here of enormous significance, to the degree that many Muslims believe that in their dreams they are receiving divine guidance: for example, on whether or not to accept a marriage proposal, or a new job opportunity. In her authoritative new book, Elizabeth Sirriyeh offers the first concerted history of the rise of dream interpretation in Islamic culture, from medieval times to the present. Central to the book is the figure of the Prophet Muhammad - seen to represent for Muslims the perfect dreamer, visionary and interpreter of dreams. Less benignly, dreams have been exploited in the propaganda of Islamic militants in Afghanistan, and in apocalyptic visions relating to the 9/11 attacks. This timely volume gives an important, fascinating and overlooked subject the exploration it has long deserved.

Dreams and Visions is a remarkable collection of stories directly from the world of Islam. Doyle answers the questions: Why would God use dreams to reach the Muslim world? Can dreams be trusted? What happens after these dreams or visions occur? Meet new believers in the Middle East who have truly been touched by Jesus in the most miraculous way.

Dreams and visions have always been important in Islamic societies. Yet, their pervasive impact on Muslim communities and on the lives of individual Muslims remains largely unknown and rather surprising to Westerners. This book addresses this gap in understanding with a fascinating and diverse account, taking readers from premodern Islam to the present day. Dreams and visions are shown to have been, and to be, significant in a range of social, educational, and cultural roles. The book includes a wealth of examples detailing the Sufi experience. Contributors use Arabic, Persian, Indian, Central Asian, and Ottoman sources and employ approaches grounded in history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, religious studies, and literary analysis. This is an illuminating work, showing how ordinary Muslims, Muslim notables, Sufis, legal scholars, and rulers have perceived both themselves and the world around them through the prism of dreams and visions.

"People in Western societies have long been interested in their dreams and what they mean. However, few non-Muslims in the West are likely to seek interpretation of those dreams to help them make life-changing decisions. In the Islamic world the situation is quite different. Dreaming and the import of visions are here of enormous significance, to the degree that many Muslims believe that in their dreams they are receiving divine guidance: for example, on whether or not to accept a marriage proposal, or a new job opportunity. In her authoritative new book, Elizabeth Sirriyeh offers the first concerted history of the rise of dream interpretation in Islamic culture, from medieval times to the present. Central to the book is the figure of the Prophet Muhammad - seen to represent for Muslims the perfect dreamer, visionary and interpreter of dreams. Less benignly, dreams have been exploited in the propaganda of Islamic militants in Afghanistan, and in apocalyptic visions relating to the 9/11 attacks. This timely volume gives an important, fascinating and overlooked subject the exploration it has long deserved."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Throughout history to the present day, religion has ideologically fueled wars, conquests, and persecutions. Christianity and Islam, the world's largest and geopolitically powerful faiths, are often positioned as mortal enemies locked in an apocalyptic "clash of civilizations." Rarely are similarities addressed. Dreaming in Christianity and Islam, the first book to explore dreaming in these religions through original essays, fills this void. The editors reach a plateau by focusing on how studying dreams reveals new aspects of social and political reality. International scholars document the impact of dreams on sacred texts, mystical experiences, therapeutic practices, and doctrinal controversies.

'Dreams in Islam' is a subject which is located in knowledge internally received, and its supreme importance for the believer continually increases as the world grows in godlessness and as the historical process draws to a close. The Prophet (sallalahu 'alaihi wa sallam) said: "When the time (of the end of the world) draws close, the dreams of a believer will hardly fail to come true, and a dream of a believer is one of the forty-six parts of prophethood." One of the signs of the last age, i.e., before the end of the world, is the absence of knowledge (of Truth and, therefore of Islam). Our widespread ignorance of the subject of 'Dreams' and the important place which 'Dreams' occupy in Islam, as well as the widespread ignorance of the subject of the Prohibition of Riba in Islam, is yet another indication that the last age has-arrived! The Sufi epistemology recognizes that knowledge comes from two sources- the first is knowledge that is externally acquired, and the other is knowledge that is internally received. The Sufi epistemology, which was taught by our great teacher, Maulana Dr. Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari (rahimahullah), at the Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies in Karachi, Pakistan, is the epistemology of knowledge internally received, and we hasten to inform the gentle reader that this book is based on that epistemology.

This monograph explores the original literary produce of Muslim mystics during the eighth–tenth centuries, with special attention to ninth-century mystics, such as al-Tustarī, al-Muḥāsibī, al-Kharrāz, al-Junayd and, in particular, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. Unlike other studies dealing with the so-called ‘Formative Period’, this book focuses on the extant writings of early mystics rather than on the later Ṣūfī compilations. These early mystics articulated what would become a hallmark of Islamic mysticism: a system built around the psychological tension between the self (nafs) and the heart (qalb) and how to overcome it. Through their writings, already at this early phase, the versatility, fluidity and maturity of Islamic mysticism become apparent. This exploration thus reveals that mysticism in Islam emerged earlier than customarily acknowledged, long before Islamic mysticism became generically known as Ṣūfism. The central figure of this book is al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, whose teaching and inner world focus on themes such as polarity, the training of the self, the opening of the heart, the Friends of God (al-awliyāʾ), dreams and visions, divine language, mystical exegesis and more. This book thus offers a fuller picture than hitherto presented of the versatility of themes, processes, images, practices, terminology and thought models during this early period. The volume will be a key resource for scholars and students interested in the study of religion, Ṣūfī studies, Late Antiquity and Medieval Islam.

A Wind in the House of Islam investigates the phenomenon of millions of Muslims who are turning to faith in Jesus Christ today. Over the course of Islamic history tens of millions of Christians were absorbed into the House of Islam. But what about the opposite? Have there ever been movements of Muslim communities who voluntarily turned to Jesus Christ and were baptized? The first 13 centuries of Islam's history saw only three movements numbering at least a thousand Muslims turning to Christianity, apart from those that were coerced through wars, Crusades and Inquisitions. Today, the story is changing. Over the past two decades there have been 69 additional movements of Muslims to Christ scattered across the Muslim world from West Africa to Indonesia. In an unprecedented global survey, Dr. David Garrison, Ph.D. University of Chicago, traveled a quarter-million miles throughout the House of Islam to find out why and how this is happening today. His research took him into every corner of the Muslim world where he gathered more than a thousand interviews of Muslim-background followers of Jesus Christ. His core question: What did God use to bring you to faith in Jesus Christ? A Wind in the House of Islam reveals their stories, and David Garrison's journey through all nine Rooms in the House of Islam, where he discovered that the Wind of God's Spirit is blowing through every one of them. A Wind in the House of Islam is a 328-page book written in an engaging style, but also includes a glossary of Islamic terms, a bibliography for further reading, endnotes, 11 maps with data tables of Muslim populations, 46 photographs, and excerpts from more than a thousand interviews. Each of the book's 15 chapters conclude with discussion questions to facilitate small group dialogue and discovery. Learn more about the book at: www.WindintheHouse.org