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Or 14221
- Record Id:
- 032-003435956
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003435956
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100073295301.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100083588968.0x000002
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Or 14221
- Title:
-
An anonymous treatise on the interpretation of dreams
- Scope & Content:
-
A manual on the interpretation of dreams. The scribe (and 'compiler'?: كاتبه ومحرّره ) is ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Muqrī al-Ḥanafī (عبد الله بن عبد الرحمن بن عبد الله المقري الحنفي, see colophon, f. 477r, lines 8-17, transcribed below). The date of copying (تبع [!] مائة) can be read 12 Rabīʿ I 719/1319 or 919/1513, with the former interpretation preferred on palaeographic grounds.
Many of the interpretations are introduced with isnād-like chains of authority which often invoke Abū Saʿd: presumably Abū Sa'd Naṣr ibn Yaʿqūb al-Dīnawarī (أبو سعد نصر بن يعقوب الدينوري; d. c. 1010), who in 1008 composed a massive dream manual dedicated to the ʿAbbasid Caliph al-Qādir bi-llāh (القادر بالله, r. 991-1031). The overall structure of the present copy, with its 59 chapters, resembles that of Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥasan ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khalīlī al-Dārī ( أبو علي الحسين بن حسن بن إبراهيم الخليلي الداري, fl. ca 11th-13th century).
A number of other individuals are mentioned within the text, including Ibn Sīrīn (ابن سيرين, d.728), the earliest famous interpreter of dreams in the Islamic era to whom a number of later dream manuals are attributed, and Ibn Qutaybah ( ابن قتيبة, d. 889), author of the earliest surviving Arabic dream manual. The text also contains a large number of anecdotes and poetic excerpts.
The copy consists of the second half of an index (f. 1r) and an introductory section (f. 2v-22r), followed by 59 chapters of differing lengths that discuss the meaning of various dream subjects (ff. 22r- 477r).
In accordance with this conservative tradition, the chapters are heirarchically organised, starting with dreams concerning God, the prophets and angels, Islam and the Qur'an, and continuing to ethics (ritual purity, greetings, pilgrimage, charity and fasting, heaven, hell, and the jinn). A long chapter (Chapter 22, ff. 75r-102v) details dreams about different parts of the body, followed by further chapters concerning matters of human existence and social life such as speech, illnesses, eating, drinking, and clothing, kings, war, the crafts and hunting (to f. 231r).
The next few chapters (37-44, from f. 231r to f. 371v) discuss dreams relating to natural phenomena including insects, the stars, the weather, trees, metals, the sea, and fire. The final section from Chapters 45 to the end (ff. 371v- 477r) covers a miscellany of subjects such as writing, sleep, furniture, marriage, and business transactions.
The manuscript circulated within Sufi contexts, as suggested by the waqf notices of the Takiyya of Abū Bakr in Aleppo (Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries [Leiden: Brill, 2004] and Watenpaugh, 'Deviant dervishes: Space, gender, and the construction of antinomian piety in Ottoman Aleppo', International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 37 [2005]) and a reading note by a member of another Sufi order in Aleppo, the Rifāʾiyyah (f. iv-r). Other marginalia include a note referencing the chapter 'On Hope and Fear' from the Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (إحياء علوم الدين) of Abū Hāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (أبو حامد محمد بن محمد الغزالي, f. 3v), and a line of poetry in another hand which appears on f. 160v, repeated on ff. 174v, 246v and 291v:
المنام كالطير كيفما قص وقع
من سبق الخير إلى المنام فهو الخير
Begins (f. 2v, lines 2-3 and 19):
الحمد لله الذي خلق آدم من طين ثم خلق فيه روحًا واصطفاه للرسالة
كما اصطفى إدريس من بعده ونوحًا واتخذ ابراهيم خليلًا وموسى كليمًا
[...]
وأردت أن أجمع كتابًا يشتمل على علم يظهر به المغيبات
Ends (f. 477r, lines 2-7):
ولو رأى أنه أصاب نارًا
في وعاءٍ أو حرزها فإنه مال حرام فإن رأى بيده شعلةً
من نارٍ فإنه يصيب شعبةً من سلطان فإن كان لها
لهب أو دخان كان في سلطانه ذلك حربٌ وهول
والله أعلم بالصواب والحمد لله رب العالمين وصلى الله على
سيدنا محمدٍ وآله وصحبه أجمعين وحسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل
Colophon (f. 477r, lines 8-17):
وكان الفراغ من كتابته يوم السبت اثنتي عشرة
ليلةً خلت من شهر ربيع الأول من شهور سنة تسع عشرة
وتبع [!] مائة كاتبه ومحرّره عبد الله بن عبد الرحمن بن
عبد الله المقري الحنفي حامدًا لله ومصليًا على رسوله
محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم غفر الله له ولمن كان السبب
في نقله وكتابته ولوالديه ولجميع المسلمين آمين وآخر
دعوانًا أن الحمد لله رب العالمين اللهم أحسن
العاقبة في الدنيا والآخرة واخطم لنا بخير يا رب العالمين
آمين ما شاء الله كان وما لم يشأ لم يكن ولا
حول ولا قوة إلا بالله العلي العظيم
- Collection Area:
- Oriental Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-003435956", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Or 14221: An anonymous treatise on the interpretation of dreams" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003435956
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-003435956
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
Codex; ff. iii+477+iv
- Digitised Content:
- https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100073295301.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Arabic
- Scripts:
- Arabic
- Start Date:
- 1319
- End Date:
- 1319
- Date Range:
- 719
- Calendar:
- Hijri qamari
- Era:
- AH
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Eastern laid paper
Dimensions: 248 x 180 mm leaf [190 x 125 mm written]
Foliation: Eastern Arabic foliation in black ink and British Museum foliation in pencil. Ff. 1, 2 and 322 (291 in the Arabic numbering) are replacements, written in a different hand on European watermarked paper.
Ruling: Misṭarah; 17 lines per page; vertical spacing 9 lines per 10 cm
Script: Naskh
Ink: Black ink, with rubricated headings and marginal notes in red
Decoration: None
Binding: Modern British Museum tan leather binding with pentagon flap. Under the same shelfmark is a detached Islamic binding of blind-tooled brown leather on boards, with a pentagon flap and the remains of cloth spine lining and endbands. Dimensions: Height: 250; width: 170; maximum width of flap: 80; depth (spine width): 107 mm.
Condition: Generally good
Marginalia: Extensive marginal keywords in red ink are noted in the margins until f. 127r (apart from ff. 145v-148v), indexing the topics discussed in the text. A full page of notes appears on f.477v, mainly illegible.
Seals:
British Library stamp (post 1973) on f. 1r and recto of first end flyleaf (flyleaf iv-v). A Christie's sale sticker appears on the detached binding.
- Custodial History:
-
Waqf notices naming the Takiyya of Abū Bakr in Aleppo (ff. 28v-29r; 211v);
ʿUmar Nūrī al-Wafāʾī ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī Dādah al-Rifāʾī (عمر نوري الوفائي ابن محمد علي داده الرفائي), his reading note, with place (Aleppo) and date 2 Mārt/Māyis [12]94 in the Ottoman Rūmī calendar, equivalent to 1878 (flyleaf iv-r).
- Source of Acquisition:
-
Purchased from Christie's on 11 June 1984 (lot 139)
- Publications:
-
Lamoreaux, John C.,'Some Notes on the Dream Manual of al-Dārī', Revista Degli Studi orientali, 70 (1996), pp. 47-52.
Lamoreaux, John C., The early Muslim tradition of dream interpretation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002).
Sirriyeh, Elizabeth, Dreams & visions in the world of Islam: a history of Muslim dreaming and foreknowing (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).
Watenpaugh, Heghnar, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2004).
Watenpaugh, Heghnar, 'Deviant dervishes: Space, gender, and the construction of antinomian piety in Ottoman Aleppo', International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 37 (2005).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)