al-Isharat fi Ilm al-Ibarat
- Author died
- 873 AH
- Editions
- Dar Al-Fikr
al-Isharat fi Ilm al-Ibarat (al-Ishārāt fī ʿIlm al-ʿIbārāt, "The Indications in the Science of Dream Interpretation") is a comprehensive Arabic manual on Islamic oneiromancy by the Mamluk scholar and military officer Khalil ibn Shahin al-Zahiri (813–873 AH / 1410–1468 CE; another report gives his death in 893 AH) .
Purpose and Scope
Ibn Shahin composed the work to compile the principles and symbols of dream interpretation (taʾwīl and taʿbīr), emphasizing that it is a legitimate discipline anchored in Islamic law that reveals unseen matters, in contrast to soothsaying (kihāna), which the sacred law censures . The author established the scriptural basis of the science by citing Quranic verses concerning the prophets Joseph and Abraham, as well as prophetic traditions highlighting that righteous dreams constitute a portion of prophecy .
Structure and Methodology
The work is organized into eighty chapters, and its opening sermon incorporates the names of several prophets . In presenting dream symbols, Ibn Shahin recorded points of consensus among classical interpreters under a single unified statement, while explicitly differentiating between their individual opinions when they disagreed . When an interpretation was derived through a clear rationale or textual evidence, he noted it with the phrasing "some of the interpreters said" (qāla baʿḍ al-muʿabbirīn) . Alongside classical transmissions, the author incorporated authentic dreams that occurred to him and to others that came to pass clearly .
Sources
The compilation draws on a broad range of earlier authoritative treatises and figures in the field of dream interpretation, including :
- Kitab al-Usul attributed to Daniel the Sage.
- Kitab al-Taqsim of Ja'far al-Sadiq.
- Kitab al-Jawami' of Muhammad ibn Sirin.
- Kitab al-Dustur of Ibrahim al-Kirmani.
- Kitab al-Irshad of Jabir al-Maghribi.
- Kitab al-Ta'bir of Isma'il ibn al-Ash'ath.
- Kanz al-Ru'ya of al-Ma'muni.
- Bayan al-Ta'bir of 'Abdus.
- Kamil al-Ta'bir of Abu al-Fadl Hubaysh ibn Ibrahim al-Tiflisi.
- al-Ishara ila 'Ilm al-'Ibara of Abu 'Abd Allah al-Salimi.
- al-Durr al-Munazzam fi al-Sirr al-Mu'azzam of Muhammad al-Qurashi al-Nasibi.
He also utilized oral and written transmissions from later scholars, such as Awhad al-Din 'Abd al-Latif al-Dimyati, 'Abd al-Qadir al-Ushmuni, Yusuf al-Karbuni al-Iskandari, Muhammad al-Fir'awni, Hasan al-Ramli, Nur al-Din al-Karkhi al-Ghazzawi, Taqi al-Din al-Maqdisi, Sharaf al-Din al-Karaki, and Shams al-Din Hamrun al-Safadi .
Reception and Publication
Bibliographical sources describe the work in manuscript as spanning two volumes . In modern print, the text has appeared as a single volume, often published in the margins of Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi's oneiromantic dictionary Ta'tir al-Anam fi Tafsir al-Manam .
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