{"id":5467,"date":"2025-11-05T20:44:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T20:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/?p=5467"},"modified":"2026-01-20T02:03:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:03:32","slug":"5467-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/5467-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream of the Shah"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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<\/p>

Iraj E. Ghoochani<\/span><\/h2>

This essay serves as a supplementary reflection on my dissertation titled\u00a0B\u0101b\u0101 \u0100b D\u0101d: The Phenomenology of Sainthood in the Culture of Dreams in Kurdistan, with an Emphasis on the Sufis of the Q\u0101derie Brotherhood\u00a0(Esmaeilpour Ghoochani, Iraj, 2017). (URL: https:\/\/edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de\/21528\/) This work was completed at LMU M\u00fcnchen, Faculty of Philosophy, Science Theory, and Religious Studies. For reference, when I mention “dissertation” in this essay, I am referring to this specific document.<\/p>

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>

This essay is about the rivalry between kings and poets within Persianate societies, illustrating the tension between the “word of power” held by rulers and the “power of words” wielded by poets. It posits that the nature of dreams differs significantly between members of the elite and ordinary subjects, reflecting their respective positions within the social hierarchy. Through an exploration of dreams, it asserts that the narratives of kings are imbued with authority and political significance, while those of ordinary individuals are bound by societal norms, often limiting their expression and interpretation. Drawing from hagiographical and ethnographical material, the essay contextualizes dreams as mirrors of the symbolic order, revealing how these narratives are homologous to the dreamer\u2019s social identity. By examining the Kurdish dream culture, the study highlights the interplay between individual aspirations and cultural frameworks, illustrating that dreams serve as both personal expressions and reflections of broader societal constructs. Ultimately, the essay contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex role that dreams play in shaping identity and reinforcing social hierarchies within Persianate and Kurdish contexts.<\/p>

Introduction: From the Garden of Night-tales to the Desert of Dream (ze b\u0101gh-i ghe\u1e63e be dasht-I kh\u0101b)<\/em><\/p>

Dreams hold a significant place in Islamic culture, often described as central to the spiritual and social fabric of Muslim societies. Iain R. Edgar emphasizes this in his observation that “Islam has the largest night dream culture in the world today” (Edgar, p. 1). Among the regions contributing to this rich tradition, Iran occupies a pivotal role. This prominence is intertwined with the legacy of Ibn-i Sirin, widely regarded as the founder of the Muslim tradition of dream interpretation. Interestingly, Ibn-i Sirin was the son of an Iranian captive taken during the Muslim conquest of the Persian Empire.<\/p>

His influence endures today, as his dream manual remains a cornerstone of dream interpretation in Iran and Kurdistan. However, the origins of this manual are shrouded in ambiguity; it is likely a product of collective memory rather than his own authorship (Lamoreaux, p. 19). Despite this, Ibn-i Sirin’s name resonates strongly across Kurdish oral traditions. During my research into the Kurdish culture of dreams, every interviewee unequivocally identified Ibn-i Sirin as a “Kurd” (Esmaeilpour Ghoochani, 2017). This perception highlights the unique way his historical persona has been adapted to fit the region’s narrative needs.<\/p>

Kurdish oral culture, deeply rooted in pre-Islamic traditions, often relied on archetypal figures to encapsulate and transmit its vast troves of lore. Ibn-i Sirin, as a historical figure from early Islam, proved an ideal vessel for preserving and conveying this legacy. While his actual authorship of a dream manual remains uncertain, his role as a symbolic figure in the Kurdish tradition underscores the interplay between oral history and cultural identity.<\/p>

Dream Narratives in Persianate Societies<\/p>

Dreams occupy a vital role in Islamic culture, deeply intertwined with oral and literary traditions. Ibn-i Sirin, the son of an Iranian captive, stands as a central figure in this tradition. His name is associated with the most influential dream manual in the Islamic world, though the manual itself is likely a product of oral transmission rather than his own writings (Lamoreaux, p. 19). The oral nature of Kurdish culture, in particular, shaped the transmission of his lore, embedding Ibn-i Sirin as an archetypal figure whose legacy continues to influence dream interpretation in the region.<\/p>

The uniformity of early Muslim dream traditions, as described by Lamoreaux, highlights their enduring consistency. For example, the interpretation of symbols such as a frog has remained unchanged from the second to the fifth centuries A.H. and across vast regions, from North Africa to Iran (Lamoreaux, p. 104). This homogeneity suggests that the written texts of dream manuals are reflections of a robust oral tradition that preceded and paralleled literary documentation.<\/p>

Night dreams and oral tales share profound connections, especially in Kurdish contexts, where dreams frequently feature as pivotal elements in storytelling. Both forms rely heavily on associative symbolism and occur in nocturnal settings, emphasizing their mutual role in cultural expression. Dreams often transcend the boundaries of day-to-day experiences, becoming precursors to poetic forms and creative intuitions. Annemarie Schimmel, a scholar of Sufi literature, highlights how dreams and tales in Persian and related literatures, such as Kurdish, Urdu, and Turkish, are deeply intertwined. She suggests that storytelling can transport listeners into a dream-like state, seamlessly blending the boundaries between narrative and dream (Schimmel, pp. 298\u2013299).<\/p>

This interplay is exemplified in iconic works like 1001 Nights<\/em> and the tales of Scheherazade, where narratives extend into dream-like continuations, guiding the audience into a liminal space of imagination and slumber. The parallel between tales and dreams underscores their shared function as vessels for exploring subconscious realms and transcending linguistic and cultural boundaries.<\/p>

The central premise of this article is that in oral cultures such as Kurdistan, the ontological foundations of dreams and stories are intrinsically linked. This shared basis offers valuable insights into the narrative structures of Kurdish prophesying dreams, hagiographies, and folk stories. A fascinating connection emerges between the concept of fate and the written word, evident in linguistic parallels such as the Persian sarnevesht and the Kurdish ch\u0101rehnousa, both meaning \u201cwritten fate (on the face or head).\u201d This linkage resonates with Islamic philosophy, which delves into the relationship between fate (gha\u1e0d\u0101) and the written word (maktoub). While this philosophical perspective is only briefly addressed here, its relevance to the discussion is significant.<\/p>

A key focus now is how societal hierarchies and social order are mirrored in dream narratives, particularly those involving kings or Sultans. These \u201croyal\u201d dreams are explored within the framework of Max Weber\u2019s concept of sultanism. In his analysis of patrimonialism, Weber identifies sultanism as a form of administration characterized by extreme personal authority and control, leading to a system that is essentially arbitrary and often violent (Weber, 1922, p. 175). Weber\u2019s choice to use the Arabic term \u201cSultan\u201d reflects its historical roots, as this mode of governance finds its archetypal expression in the Near East (Chehabi & Linz, 1998, p. 6).<\/p>

Dreams involving kings or Sultans thus serve as reflections of these deeply rooted societal structures, revealing the dynamics of power and authority within oral narratives. The interplay between fate, authority, and narrative underscores the profound connections between cultural traditions, philosophical concepts, and social hierarchies in Persianate states.<\/p>

Inalcik also states this:<\/p>

What Max Weber meant by Sultanism was originally derived not from Islamic precepts but from the caliphal state organization, which owed its basic philosophy and structure to the Byzantine and Sassanian heritage. This Iranian state tradition was transmitted to the Ottomans through native bureaucrats and the literary activity of the Iranian converts who translated Sassanian advice literature into Arabic. (Inalcik: 22)<\/p>

This literary activity appears to exist in a symbiotic, if not causal, relationship with social hierarchy. Friedrich Engels, in his seminal work Anti-D\u00fchring (1878), observed a causal link between “administrative regulations” and the emergence of “administrative despotism,” underscoring the interconnectedness of societal structures and governance with cultural expressions.<\/p>

Inalcik continues with a synopsis of Tansar-n\u0101me, a royal advice-letter from Sassanian times that is worth including here because it portrays the general social pyramid of a Persianate society as well as its social castes:<\/p>

Man are divided into four estates\u2026and at their head is the king. The first estate is that of the clergy\u2026the second estate is that of military\u2026 the third estate is that of the scribes\u2026 the fourth estate is known as that of the artisans, and comprises tillers of land and herders of cattle and merchants and others who earn their living by trade\u2026Assuredly there shall be no passing from one to another unless in the character of one of us outstanding capacity is found\u2026 The King of kings\u2026 kept each man in his own station and forbade any to to meddle with a calling other than that for which it had pleased God\u2026to create him. He laid commands moreover on the heads of the four estates\u2026All were concerned with their means of livelihood and their own affairs, and did not constrain kings to this by evil devices and acts of rebellion\u2026The commands given by the King of kings for occupying with their own tasks and restraining them from those of others are for the stability of the world and the order of the affairs of men\u2026 He has set a chief over each estate and after him a trusty inspector to investigate their revenues. The King of kings has issued a decree to exalt and ennoble their noble families rank \u2026By it he has established a visible and general distinction between men of noble birth and common people with regard to horses and clothes, houses and gardens, women and servants\u2026(Inalcik: 22-23).<\/p>

In this work, this pyramid, which is sharply peaked, has been considered as a highly polarized constellation of just two simple estates: the king and his subjects (ro\u02bf\u0101y\u0101\u02be). All other castes, such as the clergy, sheikhs, and poets, are mostly like some starry points that fill the big empty space that exists between the king’s subjects in an extremely vast but leveled substrate of the pyramid and the king as its unreachable peak. The subjects are ‘leveled’ for similar reasons that Engels wrote in ‘Anti-D\u00fchring.’:<\/p>

The chiefs necessarily become the oppressors of the peoples, and intensify their oppression up to the point at which inequality, carried to the utmost extreme, again changes into its opposite, becomes the cause of equality: before the despot all are equal \u2014 equally ciphers. (Engels: 153)<\/p>

This discussion examines Sultanism<\/em> as an extreme form of patrimonialism and its enduring yet concealed connections to traditional systems of governance in the region, such as gerontocracy and patriarchy. These hidden continuities are revealed in historical narratives about the dreams of Sultans, where rulers frequently seek the guidance of wise mentors to interpret their visions accurately.<\/p>

The analysis also highlights a fascinating parallel: the dual sovereignty of the Sultan as a despotic ruler and the poet as a revolutionary figure<\/strong>: One owns the language of power and the other one the power of language. This connection is vividly illustrated in the story of N\u0101li, the most renowned Kurdish poet of the Sor\u0101ni dialect, spoken widely in Sanandaj. The dynamic between the king and the poet underscores the interplay between political and poetical authority\u2014between the domain of deeds and the realm of words (cf. Koschorke & Kaminskij, p. 12). This duality fosters a unique form of hermeneutics, where the condensed power of language bridges the worlds of politics and poetry, allowing them to coexist in a symbiotic relationship.<\/p>

This article seeks to redefine the categorization of Oriental dreams by incorporating the social hierarchy and class of the dreamer. While the conclusions are based on \u201cinductive inference\u201d and remain subject to further proof, the emerging framework broadly identifies two categories of dreams:<\/p>

  1. The subjective dreams of the king\/Sultan, and<\/li>
  2. The dreams of the king\u2019s subjects.<\/li><\/ol>

    N\u0101li<\/em>: A subject in love with Queen<\/p>

    \u0639\u0648\u0645\u0640\u0631\u06ce\u06a9\u0640\u06cc \u062f\u0631\u06ce\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0698\u06d5 \u0628\u06d5\u062e\u06d5\u06cc\u0627\u06b5\u06cc \u0633\u06d5\u0631\u06cc \u0633\u0648\u06b5\u0641\u0640\u0640\u0640\u062a<\/p>

    \u0633\u06d5\u0648\u062f\u0627 \u0648 \u067e\u06d5\u0631\u06ce\u0634\u0627\u0646\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0645 \u0648\u060c \u0633\u0640\u0640\u0640\u06d5\u0648\u062f\u0627\u06cc\u0640\u06d5\u06a9\u06cc \u062e\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0627\u0648\u06d5<\/p>

    \u02bfomrbeki darbeyja bi Khiy\u0101li sar-i zolfat<\/em><\/p>

    Soud\u0101 wa parishanam wa soudayi ki Kh\u0101wa<\/em><\/p>

    L et my life drift away, lost in the dream of your flowing tress,<\/p>

    I am enthralled, disheveled\u2014a dreamer, consumed by this tender madness.<\/p>

    \u2014N\u0101li<\/p>

    Here, N\u0101li has created a beautiful play on words, linking his unstable and melancholic state of mind with the disheveled state of his beloved’s hair. He also connects the black color of her hair with the word \u201csoud\u0101<\/em>,\u201d which means enamored, insane, melancholic, and also reminds one of the word \u201csaw\u0101d\u201d<\/em>, or darkness. All of these wordplays are linked to a \u201cnight dream\u201d and \u201csleep,\u201d which are referred to by a single word in Kurdish: Khaw<\/em>.<\/p>

    Kurdish folk tales exhibit many parallels with the folk traditions of other Iranian cultures, including those of Luristan, Azerbaijan, Gilan, and Mazanderan. Although most Kurds live in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and are not directly associated with Iran, their language is Iranian, and their cultural affinities align more closely with Persian traditions than with Arab or Turkish influences, particularly in the realm of folklore (Tofiq, p. 5). Kurdish scholar Iraj Bahrami underscores this connection, asserting that an understanding of Persian poetry is indispensable for appreciating Kurdish poetry (Bahrami, p. 178). It is important to note, however, that the narrative forms found in Persian folk tales are not unique to Kurdish culture. Instead, the bureaucratic literature of the central Persianate state has historically interconnected various folkloric traditions across Persianate societies, known collectively as adabiyat-i ‘amiane<\/em> (Chipak, p. 77).<\/p>

    Conversely, the influence of Kurdish oral literature on Persian literary traditions is noteworthy. For example, in the first chapter of the dissertation, the Kurdish story of Shirin and Farhad<\/em> was shown to have left an indelible mark on one of the most esteemed works of Persian classical literature. This illustrates the rich exchange of narratives between these interconnected cultures.<\/p>

    Dreams play a pivotal role in Kurdish storytelling. It is exceptionally rare to encounter a Kurdish narrative in which dreams do not serve as a decisive element. The functional use of dreams as a narrative device has been explored in the dissertation through an anthological review of classical stories, including the prophet’s nightly ascension (mi\u02bfr\u0101j). However, this narrational strategy is not limited to classical tales; as we will observe, it also reemerges in modern reinterpretations of the story of Shirin and Farhad, showcasing the enduring significance of dreams in Kurdish cultural expression.<\/p>

    N\u0101li (1797\u20131855), a renowned Kurdish poet, is credited with adapting the traditional Persian poetic meters to the southern Sorani dialect of Kurdish, which is widely spoken in Sanandaj. He is celebrated as the founder of cultivated poetry in Sorani and has \u201ccontributed immensely to making Sorani the literary language of southern Kurdistan, encompassing much of present-day Iraq and the adjacent districts of Iran\u201d (Encyclopedia Iranica, N\u0101li). N\u0101li lived during the reign of Khosro Khan Ardalan, ruler of Kurdistan, and his poetry reflects the vibrant cultural and political milieu of the time.<\/p>

    N\u0101li is also noted for composing what is believed to be the first radical erotic poem in Kurdish literature. The central figure of desire in this poem is Mastoure Ardal\u0101n (1805\u20131848), a princess, the wife of Khosro Khan, and the most famous Kurdish poetess of her time. In this work, N\u0101li vividly describes a dream in which he experiences an intimate encounter with Mastoure, employing a richly symbolic and poetic language to narrate the affair. Again the same triangle of key personalities that was in the story of Shirin and Farhad is repeated here. khosro kh\u0101n-i Ardal\u0101n is comparable to the Khosro and the role of Nal\u012b is comparable to Farhad as an ordinary person who comes from a lower class but is so brave and bold to express his love for the wife of the Khosro the king: Shirin\/Mastoureh.<\/p>

    Despite N\u0101li’s close relationships with the princes of Kurdish principalities, such as those of Ardalan in Persia and Baban (see Encyclopedia Iranica), he himself was not of royal blood, and little is definitively known about his familial origins. His bold artistic endeavor, addressing such a sensitive subject, was a risky social and literary act that could have invited severe repercussions, particularly revenge or punishment from the ruling elite. However, N\u0101li avoided such consequences by framing the episode as a dream, leveraging the cultural and religious understanding that dreams are beyond one\u2019s control.<\/p>

    In Muslim societies, dreams hold a special place, often considered a realm where sinful scenes or actions can be “seen” or “committed” without moral culpability. This societal tolerance for the contents of dreams provided N\u0101li with a protective pretext, allowing him to push artistic and cultural boundaries in ways that might otherwise have been unacceptable (refer to appendix of my dissertation[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/em>).<\/p>

    In Kurdish literature, the pivotal role of dreams persists well into the modern era, encompassing a wide range of functions, including the strategic use employed by N\u0101li to bypass the societal norms upheld by “the big Other” and avoid the punishment of a despotic ruler. This “big Other,” an external authority that enforces societal norms, is effectively realized in the figure of a despot. Similarly, in Freudian terms, the dream\u2019s essential function is to navigate the super-ego by allowing repressed desires to surface in a disguised form within a dream narrative or poem. What is particularly striking in N\u0101li\u2019s poem is how its structure aligns with Freud\u2019s Oedipal triangle. The narrative revolves around three fundamental agents: the father (the king or “name of the Father”), the mother (the queen or the alluring object of desire, often symbolized by figures like Shirin), and the desiring subject (N\u0101li or Farhad). This configuration underscores the deep psychological and narrative underpinnings of the story.<\/p>

    N\u0101li\u2019s conscious use of the dream-work as a narrative strategy reveals a sophisticated transplantation of the dream’s unconscious mechanisms into the realms of poetic and political discourse. By framing his poem as a dream, N\u0101li mirrored the unconscious processes of a night dream in his art, allowing him to express desires that would otherwise be socially or politically unacceptable. This deliberate act of creative subversion exemplifies how a poet can navigate and challenge repressive norms.<\/p>

    The strategy N\u0101li employed finds parallels in the broader Iranian literary tradition, which is rich in techniques for circumventing censorship and repression. A notable example is Kellile wa Demene, an ancient Iranian-Indian collection of tales, akin to 1001 Nights, where political commentary is cleverly “mouthed” by mute animals (\u1e25eyw\u0101n\u0101t-i zab\u0101nbaste). By presenting political discourse as innocuous, fabulous anecdotes, these works effectively deflect scrutiny while preserving their subversive messages. N\u0101li\u2019s usage of the dream as a vehicle for artistic and political expression stands as a uniquely Kurdish adaptation of this timeless strategy.<\/p>

    N\u0101li\u2019s poetry is notably influenced by the style, semiotics, and hermeneutics of the Persian poet Hafiz. Despite Hafiz\u2019s reputation as a counter-culture poet (H\u0101fizi mal\u0101mati), N\u0101li diverges from Hafiz\u2019s methods in a significant way. While Hafiz employed bilateral opposite meanings\u2014\u2018primal words\u2019\u2014or voiced his dissent through the perspectives of marginalized religious minorities, he never utilized the strategy N\u0101li adopted. Instead, Hafiz\u2019s subtle insubordination toward orthodox religion and authority was woven into complex layers of symbolism.<\/p>

    In contrast, N\u0101li\u2019s use of a dream as a narrative pretext to construct a subversive discourse highlights the elevated role dreams occupy in Kurdish culture. This strategy, which allowed N\u0101li to express repressed desires or rebellion without overtly confronting societal norms, underscores the authoritative position of dreams among the Kurds. While the societal function of dream narratives is particularly prominent among Kurds in Iran, the broader Iranian linguistic tradition is marked by the use of primal words. This linguistic feature reflects the philosophical roots of the Iranian and Islamic “philosophy of meaning,” where words are seen as Decalogue, divine decrees, or commands from an absolute source, such as a ruler in communion with the occult (gheyb) and the absolute (mo\u1e6dlagh).<\/p>

    This sense of absoluteness inherently generates its opposite\u2014resistance\u2014within the subjective consciousness of those bound by the language. This resistance often pushes language into a state of Ausstand\u2014a strike-state of meaning\u2014where the speaker\u2019s true intent remains obscured, shrouded in ambiguity. N\u0101li exemplifies this linguistic duality in his famed Qasidah of the Wet Dream (ghasideyi \u02bei\u1e25tel\u0101miyah), where he boldly and transparently transfers the function of dream-work onto the narrative of a dream\u2014one that he likely never experienced. By framing the poem around a wet dream, a culturally strategic choice, he circumvented societal blame or punishment under Islamic shari\u02bfah, as wet dreams are involuntary and thus not considered sinful.<\/p>

    This calculated use of the wet dream to depict carnal desire and a symbolic relationship with the \u201cmother\u201d figure (the queen) illustrates the poet\u2019s rebellious intentions camouflaged within the safety of dream narration. Moreover, as noted earlier, the capacity for dual interpretations\u2014where one narrative simultaneously suggests compliance and dissent\u2014is a hallmark of Iranian languages. This linguistic trait allows speakers to craft subversive statements while avoiding retribution, leveraging the creative and oppositional potential inherent in the language itself.<\/p>

    The concept of \u201cprimal words\u201d inherently carries an element of rebellion, pointing to a \u201cdeferred signification\u201d (in a Derridean sense). This deferral suggests a secondary intention within the word\u2014one that stands in stark opposition to its conventional meaning. This phenomenon reflects the dual identity of intention and expression, or the distinction between the writer\u2019s subjective intent (the internal, mental intention behind their words) and the act of writing itself (cf. Bornedal, p. 21). The latter, like any communicative act, requires a reflective \u201cOther,\u201d whose tolerance and interpretative capacity inherently constrain what is written.<\/p>

    In the realm of \u201cprimal words,\u201d this secondary intention emerges as a silent interplay between the writer’s subjective mental life and the \u201cbig Other,\u201d the external authority or societal norms that govern discourse. This interplay aligns with Lacan\u2019s notion of the unconscious\u2014not as an inaccessible realm but as an integral part of our everyday language, manifesting in the automated forms and clich\u00e9s of daily speech. Lacan\u2019s concept frames unconsciousness as a transparent camouflage for the second intention, embedded within the discourse of the Other.<\/p>

    To illustrate this further, it is useful to revisit Levi-Strauss\u2019s definition of the unconscious. His framework situates unconsciousness as a dynamic system of symbols and structures that operate within, rather than beyond, the reach of their agents. By drawing on these insights, we can better understand how \u201cprimal words\u201d function as a site of subversion, allowing suppressed or secondary meanings to surface within the confines of conventional language and societal norms.<\/p>

    What is called unconsciousness is merely an empty space in which the \u2018symbolic function\u2019[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> achieves autonomy\u201d that is to say a space where \u201csymbols are more real than what they symbolize\u201d( Roudinesco, 1999: 211)<\/p>

    These built-in automated facilities are the effects of the way that the symbolic order[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> ( or \u2018order of culture\u2019 to speak more anthropologically) has been organized, that is, the language has inherited these features from the symbolic order because the \u2018symbolic\u2019 itself is nothing more than a language-mediated \u2018order of culture\u2019. Then it is through this features that the law can be interpreted differently. The effect of this interpretability (gh\u0101beliyat-i ta\u02bewil<\/em>) , is to be seen in many stories of 1001 nights and other Oriental fables (including Iranian and Kurdish) and also in the historical hagiographies written for the early caliphs of Islam (see: Ahmadvand, 2008), in which the appliance of shariah<\/em> or the law of orthodox Islam -which is supposed to be directive and unchangeable- is itself a function of a utilitarian reading of the law by a despotic king or ruler (\u1e25\u0101kim, <\/em>a word that stands both for a ruler and a judge: A non-accidental coincidence). Conversely, there always remains the possibility for a person who<\/em> has his head on the headman\u2019s table open to bring the ruler into laugh with a joke or an anecdote and become forgiven of his trespasses[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. The story of Shahrzad<\/em> is itself a story of a woman who escaped her bad fortune by postponing this fortune for a night by narrating fabulous entertaining stories for 1001 nights. In our case, there was possibility for N\u0101li<\/em> to portray obscene erotic scenes with the wife of the ruler and meanwhile stay free of punishment because all that he has written was what he had seen innocently in a dream on which he had no control.<\/p>

    As stated, this creative use of dream narrative for a conscious use of \u2018dream-word\u2019 in the day-time by a Kurdish author, implicitly reflects the authoritative importance of the dreams among the Kurds. No wonder that both the first Kurdish short story la khaw maw<\/em> (in my dream) (See Safariyan & Sajadi: 87) and the first modern poem in Kurdish literature khow-i <\/em>bard\u012bnah[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> (stone dream) are related with dreams.<\/p>

    According to these accounts, it is sensible to have a short review on those oral narratives in Kurdistan which have a lot in common and coincidence with the Kurdish dream narratives. This coincidence comes from this fact that narrating a dream, as an act of speech, is rooted in the oral culture but meanwhile and reversely, it could also serve as a root by providing the oral culture new food especially when a dream becomes \u2018true\u2019[6]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>(r\u0101st dar ke<\/em>). Every time that a dream bring itself into fruition a big amount of spectacular sayings would arouse around it and everyone tries to add some anecdotic details to it. In every renarration of the dream-story it becomes a little bit spiced up but meanwhile refined and constructed. This construction outlines the way that the dream is discharged from the world of dreams (\u0101lam ol-a\u1e25l\u0101m<\/em>) to the world of reality. That is there is a common and collective intention to tie a dream successfully to the events of the daylight. Thus, more generally, a dream is a kind of prophecy or sign (ayat<\/em>) both \u2018from\u2019 and \u2018of\u2019 the other side thrown to the real world. The normative access to this dream or sign is conditioned via a tradition and signification system in which a dream should be narrated and interpreted. Every sign is restricted to its possible meaning arranged in the Islamic dream manuals (above all the book of Ibn-i Sirin) as a table of signification. But notwithstanding this directive straight system of signification, the dream\u2019s potential for authenticity does not lie absolutely in the dream itself (In its elements and their inner potential for being fit in a correct narrative form and so on..) but the dreamer (his\/her social status, age and so on..) is the most determining criterion for the truth-value of a dream. For example and as we will see through several examples, a dream of a despot ruler is always \u2018authentic\u2019 in this sense that it is always \u2018interpretable\u2019 because it comes out from the lips of the \u2018absolute\u2019 that is from the domain of all possibilities and hence they do not need to follow the suit of a former forms of narrativity. On the other hand, narrating an out-of-genre dream narrative by a normal subject entails a lot of information that is in a reciprocal relation with its authenticity or probability[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. Then in a Persianate context, it is of highest importance to ask who has seen the dream?<\/p>

    The success of a dream for consigning itself to history and being re-narrated and circulated among the people is strictly dependant on the status of its dreamer. In a reverse way, whenever a dream becomes \u2018true\u2019 that is becomes realized in the same way that was seen or interpreted through a dream, it abruptly brings a large status for the one who has dreamt it. The case of children is exceptional because their spirit is still not contaminated with the worldly matters as the social status. These two, the truth value of a dream and the social status of its dreamer, are strictly related to each other. The lesser the probability of a dream to become true, the higher is -or would be- the status of its dreamer and in some extreme cases it would be taken as a miracle (kh\u0101regh-i \u02bf\u0101dat<\/em>) or an extraordinary occurrence (v\u0101gghe\u02bfi<\/em>) and would find its place in the body of oral stories as a seed that would grow and spice up in many different details and through the process of its circulation (See the miracle of Karjou<\/em> in the film #1[8]<\/a><\/sup>) .<\/p>

    Conversely, when someone claimed of being in contact with divinity such as what happens in a revelation or ascension he\/she might be asked for a miracle as prove:<\/p>

    But they say, “[The revelation is but] a mixture of false dreams \u0627\u0636\u063a\u0627\u062b \u0627\u0644\u0627\u062d\u0644\u0627\u0645 ; rather, he has invented it; rather, he is a poet. So let him bring us a sign just as the previous [messengers] were sent [with miracles](Quran, 21:5).<\/p>

    As we will see in the coming passages hearing revelation and saying poetry as well as seeing false dreams \u0627\u0636\u063a\u0627\u062b \u0627\u0644\u0627\u062d\u0644\u0627\u0645 and doing miracles are issues that usually appear together in hagiographies and stories told in the oral culture.<\/p>

    Narrating a dream and narrating a story in an oral culture are both based on a transaction of meanings between people who are engaged in the production of those meanings. Then alike to what Geertz has argued, \u201cculture is not something imposed on people, but it is created and re-created through their involvement in social relationships and through social interaction[9]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>\u201d.<\/p>

    In the process of circulation and re-narration of the new dream-story, old and new will fuse together into an indissoluble unity in a way characteristic of 1001 nights or every oral literature with an ambiguous origin. It is rather a process of evolution that covers bands of centuries and sometimes reappears again in its very arrangement in the modern era as like the reappearance of the so called Oedipal triangle between the king (Khosro<\/em>), Shirin<\/em> and Farh\u0101d<\/em> in the story of N\u0101li<\/em>. Through this general amalgamation of every new dream story and the old similar stories in an oral culture like Kurdish, \u2018dream\u2019 and \u2018story\u2019 both find the same ontological basis for their existence. This common ontological basis leads us to a study of the Kurdish oral literature and folk stories as the main resources and models for structural layout of the Kurdish dream-stories[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    What is common between the folk stories and dreams, in fact, is the (story)teller who is not usually a literary person and belongs in the most cases to the lower social strata: to the common people. (cf. Bakhtin, 1984: 191-2) just like those who usually commit a miraculous deed or khaw\u0101righ<\/em> (self- torturing ritual)in the convents (see also van Bruinessen: 309 ff.). Further studies of stories in the religious books and religious dreams will reveal that how these two (khaw\u0101righ<\/em> and dream) are congener.<\/p>

    This kind of text analysis of the religious books would be not so far from ethnography because to do ethnography is a form of literary criticism \u201clike reading a manuscript\u201d[11]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> (Geertz 1973, 10). Here we make an \u2018interpretation of cultures\u2019 out from the \u2018interpretation of dreams\u2019, taking distance from the functionalists and instead come closer to the arguments of Clifford Geertz for what the he thought that a study of culture should be about. There are some theoretical outlines taking a dream as a text showing that the analysis of dream-elements is basically nothing more than a text analysis. That is a dream is a symbolic text that should be decoded. The keys of this coded language is given in the dream manuals and dream look-up tables in Islamic oneirocritic books (above all in Ibn-i Sirin\u2019s book of dreams) where themselves are extracted from the religious books above all the Quran as the spoken words of God (Kal\u0101m ol-llah<\/em>). Then a deep description of dreams in a Muslim, Sufi milieu calls for a deeper understanding of Quranic language and this itself raises some unavoidable philosophical discussions and preliminaries i.e. the strange relation between the \u2018word\u2019 and \u2018flesh\u2019 in an Islamic system of knowledge.<\/p>

    From the genuine world of \u2018imperative\u2019 (\u0101lam-i \u02beamr<\/em>) to the illusive world of \u2018creation\u2019 (\u0101lam-i khalgh)<\/em><\/p>

    Morgh bar b\u0101l\u0101wa zir-i \u0101n s\u0101ye-ash<\/em><\/p>

    Midavad bar kh\u0101k par\u0101n saye-vash<\/em><\/p>

    Ablahi \u1e63ay\u0101d-i \u0101n s\u0101ye shaved<\/em><\/p>

    Midavad chand\u0101nke bi m\u0101ye shaved<\/em><\/p>

    Bikhabar k\u0101n \u02bfaks-i morgh-i hav\u0101st<\/em><\/p>

    Bikhabar ke a\u1e63l-i \u0101n s\u0101ye koj\u0101st<\/em><\/p>

    The bird is above, and its shadow<\/p>

    is running bird-like below on the earth.<\/p>

    A fool becomes the hunter of that shadow<\/p>

    Running so much that he runs out of breath.<\/p>

    unaware that this is the reflection of the bird above<\/p>

    unaware of the origin of this shadow.<\/p>

    \u2014Rumi<\/p>

    There is a general consensus on the stereotypical nature of dream narratives and it seems that every dream should be cast into the prescript forms of a narrative to be accepted by the society as an authentic true dream, but, what is astonishing is the fact that if someone faked up a dream story or a vision that its form matches with the form of meta-narratives of the dreams of a Muslim it would have the same phenomenological effects of a genuine dream[12]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    The classical and Quranic example of this magical power of suggestion that lies in the dream narrative (and not necessarily in the dream) is the faked dream of one of the two co-prisoners of Joseph the prophet who narrate their dreams for him in the prison. Joseph interpreted this cooked-up dream as a foretelling of the dreamer\u2019s execution. An accident that has been fulfilled although it was not ever seen by that person and even when he become repentant of narrating that false dream Joseph answered that there is no way back and \u201cthe matter was already been decreed\u201d(Heravi: 511-2):<\/p>

    O two companions of prison, as for one of you, he will give drink to his master of wine; but as for the other, he will be crucified, and the birds will eat from his head. The matter has been decreed about which you both inquire. (12:41)<\/p>

    Joseph has used the same words gha\u1e0d\u0101 al-\u02beamr<\/em> (to decree an imperative) used by the God in the following verse:<\/p>

    Originator of the heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, “Be,” and it is. (2:117)<\/p>

    This important verse relates the \u2018flesh[13]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>\u2019 as what is seen in the real world or world of creation \u0101lam-i khalgh<\/em> (also known in Islamic philosophy as \u0101lam-i koun o<\/em> fis\u0101d<\/em> which means the ever-changing world of creations) to what had been decreed in the world of \u2018words\u2019 or the world of\u2019 imperative\u2019 or \u02bf\u0101lam-i \u02beamr<\/em> (also known as \u0101lam-i kon <\/em>or roughly \u0101lam-i \u02beasm\u0101\u02be<\/em>)[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> . Rumi writes:<\/p>

    \u0627\u0633\u0645 \u0647\u0631 \u0686\u06cc\u0632\u06cc \u0628\u0631 \u0645\u0627 \u0638\u0627\u0647\u0631\u0634<\/p>

    \u0627\u0633\u0645 \u0647\u0631 \u0686\u06cc\u0632\u06cc \u0628\u0631 \u062e\u0627\u0644\u0642 \u0633\u0631\u0634<\/p>

    \u0646\u0632\u062f \u0645\u0648\u0633\u06cc \u0646\u0627\u0645 \u0686\u0648\u0628\u0634 \u0628\u062f \u0639\u0635\u0627<\/p>

    \u0646\u0632\u062f \u062e\u0627\u0644\u0642 \u0628\u0648\u062f \u0646\u0627\u0645\u0634 \u0627\u0698\u062f\u0647\u0627<\/p>

    Our names of things convey the way they are seen<\/p>

    Their inner natures are what God\u2019s names mean<\/p>

    For Moses simply called his stick \u2018 a rod\u2019[15]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>

    While \u2018snake\u2019 was what had been assigned by God. (Rumi (Mathnavi, Book one, Story of Lion and Rabbit (translated by Mojaddadi: 79))<\/p>

    Then in this philosophical system, every \u2018thing\u2019 in under-heaven is a logical analogy of a name (\u02beism<\/em>), word or logos (<\/em>\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2) once called or said in the form of an imperative in \u0101lami kon<\/em> and inversely every \u2018thing\u2019 is a allegory (tam\u1e6f\u012bl<\/em>) of its name from which it was once called or named[16]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. This Islamic-philosophy has tied itself firmly with the eidos<\/em> of Plato after the translation movement of the Muslims in the Middle Ages (see Jamalpour: 343 ff.) with a large influence on Islamic Sufism and lranian Literature as like Rumi\u2019s poem brought above as an epigraph.<\/p>

    Then the unchangeable world of words in Islam finds its analogy with the Plato\u2019s theory of ideas known in Islamic philosophy as alam-i mi\u1e6f\u0101l. <\/em>Moreover, it is utterly \u2018logical\u2019 that in Arabic Islamic literature there is just one word for both allegory and analogy: tam\u1e6f\u012bl<\/em>.<\/p>

    It is according to this philosophical groundwork that in the Islamic culture of dreams one may recognize a direct relation between what one sees as a vision (notwithstanding made-up or actual) and what should happen. Schimmel has also noticed that these made-up visions may reveal the suppressed wishes and hopes of their creators (cf. Schimmel: 325). An aspect that has no essential difference with western psychoanalytical theories of dream. Allegorically one can conclude that a dream is both a mirror of the decreed facts in the future and also a mirror of soul. This latter aspect of dreams which serves as the soul\u2019s mirror has a therapeutic and diagnostic usefulness similar to the treats used in psychoanalysis but it is not a matter of direct emphasize and discussion in an Islamic culture in which individuality[17]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> is not celebrated.<\/p>

    Iain R. Edgar has also described this:<\/p>

    \u2026while in Freudian theory the latent meaning of the dream is usually perceived as a repressed sexual desire and deciphering this latent meaning is part of the purpose of psychoanalysis, such encoded sexual dreams in Islamic dream theory are not considered important, as desire is seen as appropriately regulated through the Shari\u02bfa law, based on the teaching of the Quran and the hadithes. (Edgar: 113)<\/p>

    In a Muslim society and specially among the Sufis, the individualistic needs and traits are read as different attributes of nafs<\/em> or ego, an elusive and illusive entity that should be controlled if not eliminated. Ego for a mystic has not an existential essence and hence, it is of no importance (though it has immense virtual effects on psychological state and social status) and because of its illusive nature, it is considered as an obstacle or veil (\u1e25ij\u0101b<\/em>) in the way of God (\u1e25aq<\/em>= truth). The removal of this veil is the only and life-long duty of every Sufi. The full elimination of nafs<\/em> is the ultimate \u2013 and almost unreachable[18]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>– goal of a Sufi. It is usually named as Jih\u0101d-i Akbar<\/em> or the biggest Jihad to allude to its hardness. In the allegorical language of Sufis, the soul itself is considered as a mirror (expressed in many poetical combinations and forms such as \u0101\u02be\u012bne-yi rou\u1e25, \u0101\u02be\u012bne-yi j\u0101n, \u0101\u02be\u012bne-yi ghalb, \u0101\u02be\u012bne-yi dil, \u0101\u02be\u012bne-yi j\u0101m, j\u0101m-I jah\u0101n bin<\/em> etc. ) will and nafs<\/em> is what that makes this mirror contaminated and dusty so the images in this mirror (God\u2019s will (gha\u1e0d\u0101yi \u02beil\u0101h\u012b<\/em>)) look distorted and vague. All that one sees in the mirror of the soul (i.e. in a dream) is a direct reflection of the God\u2019s will or message. The clarity of this message is dependent to the degree of which the soul has retained itself clean -through devoutness, piety, recoursing to a sheikh, doing some techniques and disciplines as like commemoration, ritual dances and so on… Rumi writes:<\/p>

    Love wants its tale[19]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> (sokhan<\/em>)revealed to everyone<\/p>

    But your heart\u2019s mirror won\u2019t reflect this sun<\/p>

    Don\u2019t you know why we can\u2019t perceive it here?<\/p>

    Your mirror\u2019s face is rusty, scrap it clear! (Rumi, masnavi, translated by Mojaddadi: 6)<\/p>

    In short, when a Sufi is advanced in his\/her way (\u1e6darighat<\/em>) he\/she will see clearly the truth and his\/her soul reflects nothing than the will of God. Otherwise the uncanny images in this mirror (i.e. the objects seen in a dream) are rather the reflections of the obstacles that the Sufi has in his\/her way. His \/her unfulfilled missions for elimination of nafs<\/em> as the source of desires (haw\u0101h\u0101yi nafs\u0101ni<\/em>). In such a case, instead of clear images, the dreamer for instance sees his\/her own ego<\/em> or better to say a composite structure with different degrees of truth and falsity, just like the images that one sees in a dusty mirror. For a new apprentice (murid<\/em>), the Sufis\u2019 culture of dreams has a lot to share with a Freudian theory of dreams. By hearing to the dreams of his pupils, a Sheikh understands of the obstacles through which they should battle their way for reaching God\/truth (\u1e25aq<\/em>) and gives each of them the necessary instructions of how to evade the involved desires of nafs<\/em>.<\/p>

    As stated before, inside this culture of dream, for a clear mirror of soul, a dream entails a prophesying capacity that could clearly reflect the will of God. This (in contrast to the last case in which a dream was considered as a set of imaginative reflections seen from the dusty mirror of the dreamer\u2019s soul) may lead us to a crucial difference and diffraction from a \u2018western psychological theory of the night dream\u2019 and an Islamic theory. The difference lies in the big shift of focus from the \u2018dreamer\u2019 into the \u2018dream\u2019. The language of the dreamer (as a negligible servant of God (bandeyi khod\u0101<\/em>)) functions like an empty container for the full language of God spoken in a dream. What is said in this full language is \u2018decreed\u2019 and would be happen. The real world follows the true word of the dream like a shadow. What is important here is this fact that this absolute fullness and emptiness (and similarly the decreed and deliberate (jabr o ekhtiy\u0101r<\/em>)) are coined with each other as two facets of the same fact whose understanding is subjected to a \u201cthick description\u201d.<\/p>

    Schimmel has also related the foreboding aspect of dreams with alam-i mi\u1e6f\u0101l<\/em> or the (Platonian)world of ideas and the fate of the human that is prescribed in Loh-i ma\u1e25fou\u1e93 (ibid)<\/em>. Loh-i ma\u1e25fou\u1e93<\/em> or the \u201cprotected board\u201d (Wohlverwahrte Tafel) (Quran 85:22) is a board on which God has \u201cwritten\u201d all that is happened and should be happened with the holy feather (ghalam<\/em>) (Quran 68:1). Many Muslims even think of a special sort of matter for it embodied in a white pearl (dorratol-bey\u1e0d\u0101<\/em>\u02be) that has covered everywhere from west to east and from earth up to the heaven (cf. Wolf: 3) some others think of it of this very world in which all of our deeds remain perpetually in the form of its effects (to read more about Loh-i ma\u1e25fou\u1e93 <\/em>and its relating highly controversial discussions see: Kalantari: 117ff.).<\/p>

    In the 5th chapter of my dissertation, the relation between \u2018the word\u2019 (kalame<\/em>) and \u02bf\u0101lam-i mi\u1e6f\u0101l<\/em> in an Islamic context is discussed and it is tried to show that in this context, a \u2018word\u2019 not only works as a model or idea for the materialistic matters or \u2018flesh\u2019, but also they have a kind of indexical relation with each other like the relation between a body (accordingly word) and its shadow (flesh). Schimmel has outlined a parallel relation between the world of dream (\u02bf\u0101lam-i Roy\u0101) and \u02bf\u0101lam-i mi\u1e6f\u0101l<\/em> :<\/p>

    \u2026was hier im Traum geschah, war nichts anderes als was schon in der h\u00f6heren Welt bestimmt war, auf welche Weise auch immer man diese h\u00f6here Welt definiere \u2013 ob es die Wohlverwahrte Tafel war, auf der seit Anbeginn der Welt alles, was je geschehen sollte, in dem menschlichen Verstand unzug\u00e4nglichen Lettern geschrieben ist, oder ob es die Zwischenwelt, \u02bf\u0101lam-i mi\u1e6f\u0101l war, <\/em>wo die Urbilder aller Dinge lokalisiert sind. (Schimmel: 325)(should be translated in English)<\/p>

    The signification system between the \u2018word\u2019 seen in the world of dreams or \u02bf\u0101lam-i Roy\u0101 and its \u2018flesh\u2019 or shadow as its decreed effect in the world of reality is direct and straightforward. For example seeing teeth in a dream meant the members of the family and it is more or less clear which tooth stands for which member and hence seeing that a tooth is fallen foretells the death of that member etc.<\/p>

    Although a dream is a mirror of future as a decreed command of God, but in a similar manner in which a person can bypass the decreed order of an despot[20]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> ruler and change his\/her bad fortune into a good one, there is also some degree of freedom for an opposite metonymical interpretation of what is seen in a dream. This free space for metonymical interpretation lets the dream expert to interpret (ta\u02bfb\u012br<\/em>) the dream for this opposite meaning which is the art of a good skilled interpreter to enjoy all the facilities given in the elaborate set of interpretive devices in the large Islamic culture of dream for bringing a happy dream into life. Then, interpretation or ta\u02bfb\u012br <\/em>is essentially an effort for giving birth a bad-fated dream into the real world in the form of a good-featured happy tiding. It is an art for bypassing or avoiding the bad-fated meaning \u2018written\u2019 in the decreed \u2018word\u2019 of god as the ruler (\u1e25\u0101kim<\/em>) on our life. In this art the instant direct meaning of the dream may be bypassed by using the potential of the words for being read differently and this is perhaps one of the reasons or interpretations that the word used for interpretation in this culture is ta\u02bfbir<\/em> which means \u2018to pass\u2019 as like somebody passes a bridge. Ta<\/em>\u02bfbir<\/em> or the declaration of \u2018word\u2019, marks the transition from destiny to \u2018chance\u2019 through the capacity of the word for metonymy. Here a mo\u02bfaber<\/em> or interpreter helps or better to say \u2018cares\u2019 a dream to be correctly materialized in our world, that is, to come correctly and healthy from its origin that is the world of imperative \u0101lam-i \u02beamr<\/em> into our side that is in the world of creation \u0101lam-i khalgh <\/em>in the form of happy happening or even to abort it by giving some advices to the dreamer like giving an alms (\u1e63adaghe<\/em>) and charity. But still the main instrument in the hand of a dream expert is \u1e25osn-I ta\u02bfbir <\/em> that is to take the dream content as a good tiding and this mostly happens by means of his expertise on the symbols and their alternative meanings in Quran and books of hadiths. The meaning of these words are mostly primal and based on its special science of hermeneutics thereof the meaning of a word is changeable. The interpreter modifies the meaning of a word -and accordingly a decreed event in future- by revolting and deferring its original referential point as in the case of Ma\u02bemoun\u2019s<\/em> dream[21]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> [22]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> .<\/em> All these are also not far from the concept of protected board (lou\u1e25-i ma\u1e25fouz<\/em>) and its embedded paradoxical options for changeability known in Islamic philosophy as lou\u1e25-i ma\u1e25v wa I\u1e6fb\u0101t<\/em> or the board of elimination and confirmation which again is based on some verses of Quran: \u201cAllah eliminates what He wills or confirms, and with Him is the Mother of the Book.\u201d (13:39) (see for the relation between these boards: Jafari, 2001)<\/p>

    The language of dreams in a Persianate society<\/p>

    Alle Orakel reden die Sprache in der du fragst.<\/p>

    \u2014Ernst Bertram<\/p>

    The dependence of dreams to something imperatively fore-written in \u0101lam-i \u02beamr<\/em> also justifies their stereotypical nature and unchanging structure in Islamic tradition of dreams because they are just some shadowy manifestation of the unchangeable Godly tradition (sonat-i \u02beIl\u0101hi<\/em>). But dreams in a Persianate context have particularly one more feature than Islamic dreams as a whole that helps them to follow the same grammar of the fore-written dreams in their folklore and accordingly fore-written literature.<\/p>

    A special feature of Persianate societies that the anthropologist Jean Lecref has again related it to a less explicative term of \u2018Islamic civilization\u2019 as a whole:<\/p>

    Consultation of sources in folklore seems to do little beyond confirming, in more or less original forms, the important role dreams played in general popular representation and in Islamic civilization in particular (Lecref: 365).<\/p>

    This extra feature is but due to the general forbiddance that exists as a normative against the popular representation of individuality in Persianate societies (and not necessarily in the Islamic civilizations). This camouflage of ego is related to the economic and technical determinism of ghan\u0101t<\/em> and the culture aroused from the watering system reviewed in the first chapter of my dissertation. This determinism has constructed the society in the form of a highly bipolar but unilateral relation between the king and his subjects in a long course of the history.<\/p>

    We might look at these \u2018 folkloric original forms\u2019 in pre-Islamic narratives and to tie this culture of dreams which Lecref has considered them as \u2018 Islamic\u2019 to its original non-Islamic and pre-Islamic origin.<\/p>

    In the dissertation \u2018The Book of Ascension \u2018 (mi\u02bfr\u0101j n\u0101me<\/em>) will be reviewed as an example of these \u2018original forms\u2019 and its relation with the \u2018popular dreams\u2019 would be examined. In this review it would be revealed that in all different Islamic and pre-Islamic forms of mi\u02bfr\u0101j n\u0101me<\/em> we are dealing with texts that were copying one another. After a full review of the pre-Islamic religious books, their influence on what is called today as the Islamic dream culture would become clear. \u2018The book of Ascension\u2019 is a written text on the most important night journey in Islam. Then, the study of this book would serve as example to show that in every early written work on the Muslim tradition of interpretation there are aspects that are also copied from each other. This conclusion is supported by \u201cthe nature of the parallels between the different texts, which are in most cases so specific that it is impossible to imagine them not to result from textual interdependence.\u201d (Lambreaux: 104). All the dreams that are gathered here from the Kurdish popular culture in the form of interviews in the appendixes are just a kind of affirmative reply to those narrative forms that one may discover in Kurdish hagiographies and religious books that this book has confined its scope on just one of them that is \u2018The Book of Ascension\u2019. The writers of these books were first and foremost conservators of an inherited pre-Islamic tradition which were survived both in Zoroastrian religious books and believes rooted in the region and oral culture. These writers liked to fill the Islamic books with things that they already knew.<\/p>

    All these regional details do not contradict the claim of I. R. Edgar who writes: \u201cIslam is the largest night dream culture in the world today\u201d (Edgar: 1).Then, what is special with this work other than its historical hagiographical survey in pursuance of the non-Islamic origins of this culture? Where is its anthropological accent?<\/p>

    Before answering these questions it would be helpful to make a short review on the way that many Orient scholars have tried to classify the huge amount of dream material in Muslim societies and narratives to increase its manageability. A full review of their works would take a dozen of pages then, it suffices to remind one of the most fundamental classifications done by Gustave Edmund von Grunebaum, the Austrian<\/a> historian<\/a> and Arabist<\/a>. Other forms of classification are more or less the same[23]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. Grunebaum classifies the dreams in classical Islam in the following five distinct categories:<\/p>

    The dreamers receives personal messages.<\/p>

    The dream constitutes a private prophecy.<\/p>

    Dreams elucidate theological doctrine.<\/p>

    The dream bears on politics.<\/p>

    The dream is used as a tool of political prophecy. (Grunebaum: 11-21)<\/p>

    This kind of classification reveals for example that there might be utilitarian purpose behind a dream but it is not possible to decide if there is a utilitarian purpose behind a dream from its manifest content, this categorical approach also says nothing about the structural form of dream narratives. For example in the famous dream of Mohammad Rez\u0101 Sh\u0101h Pahlavi<\/em> in which his illness was cured through a dream in which he drank a bowl of water from the hands of Ali, the first Imam of Shiites (See Pahlavi:50-51), it is impossible to decide just on the basis of its content, to which category above it belongs. It pretty fits in all five categories[24]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    Moreover and most importantly , this kind of classification do not tell so much about the social class of the dreamer. It is categorized by the function of the dream. Although this function is not apart from the intention of the dreamer but this kind of categorization is unable to tell about the real intention of the dreamer as a social agent. Although to know and explain about the real intentions behind what the agents say or do is the main duty of an anthropologist but in a Persianate context and in concern with the dream narratives, the true intention is not recognizable neither from the manifest form of the dream nor through a psychoanalysis of the latent content of the dreams because they all, more and less, obey the same grammar and \u2018rule of tongue\u2019, to say, they are \u2018empty\u2019. This is perhaps the reason that the scholars who have worked on the dream culture in the Islamic world, do not sort them through their structural forms of narrative. These narratives are more or less the same, especially the religious dreams narrated by a normal \u2018subject\u2019 are mostly casted in the same synopsis of which an \u2018old wise man\u2019 appears and \u2018gives\u2019<\/em> the one who has dreamt him, something like a bowl of water or else that symbolizes the fulfillment of his\/her wish. We have terminologically named this \u2018old wise man\u2019 as b\u0101b\u0101<\/em> and this given \u2018thing \u2018 as \u2018Water\u2019 or \u2018\u0101b\u2019<\/em>. Then \u2018B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d<\/em>\u2019 or \u2018Papa Gives Water\u2019 appears to be the most popular formula of religious dreams. This formula is a theoretical tool to show that regardless of the superficial differences that dreams have, they are structurally the same. It is through this undifferentiated and hence recognizable structure of popular dreams that they are able to become circulated and found publicity (or at least try their chance for finding publicity). For those who are in the substratum of the society\u2019s pyramid, the only way to find an ear for hearing their collective repressed wishes is to see or make ready-made dreams with common empty narrativty. The more a dream deviates from the pre-known structures, the more they reveal the individuality of their dreamers and hence they would not be able to circulate. This is analogous to \u2018private money\u2019 that is failed to circulate because money, per definition, should be collective in the sense of its recognizablity for every one of its value. This homogeneity of popular religious dreams have pushed them aside from an anthropological structural analysis. But this should not gloss over the importance and necessity of such an analysis and quite on its contrary it is exactly what an anthropologist should risk to do. Such an analysis is on the level of \u201cthick description[25]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>\u201d.<\/p>

    It is like the interpretative effort of a \u201ctwitch\u201d. A twitch of the eyebrow for itself is a twitch but to know if it was a communicative intent behind a twitch or a mere physiological reaction we need to make a \u201cthick description\u201d (cf. Armittage: 98). The twitch by itself is then \u2018empty\u2019. In the same manner the interpretation of the intention behind the narration of a dream, in its popular form and in a Kurdish context, is similar to the interpretation of the \u201cempty language\u201d of a twitch (reconsidering all the notions already discussed in the first part according to the Lacanian term of \u201cempty language\u201d) because the intention of the dream\u2019s narrator is totally different from its interpretation and it is usually impossible to reach from one to the other. Its interpretation is already there, reserved in their manual of dreams i.e. in the dream book of Ibn-i Sirin <\/em>but this option that its narrator has fundamentally faked it is also possible because some social gains and benefits are thinkable for narrating a fake dream. For example seeing the prophet in a dream signals the virtue of its dreamer and hence brings his status up in the eyes of the other as it is believed through a reliable hadith from the Prophet who said \u201cwhoever sees me in a dream will see me in his wakefulness.\u201d [26]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>

    But this hadith has nothing to do with the made up dreams. It is also impossible to decide from the narrational structure of these dreams for their authenticity as all of them are alike, following the stereotype of a formal empty description. For example in most of them the prophet is seen in the form of light and after that the dreamers woke up of the excitement of knowing that this light is Mohammad.<\/p>

    By considering this empty language, one discovers that some stereotypical synopsis and structures of narrativity is that thread that sews and links vertically all the five different categories listed above recognized by Grunebaum and this is why that it is nearly impossible to guess from the content of a dream alone to which category it belongs.<\/p>

    The anthropological effort of this work lies in the structural analysis of this multifaceted valorized culture of dreams. This effort is a reductive one in which all of the dream narratives will be sublimate into its most elementary components to achieve some simple formulas such as \u2018B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d\u2019<\/em>. Without using this kind of structural and meanwhile reductive formulation to reach the main grammars working behind the dreams, the logic of the dreams would be lost in the ambiguity of abundant rich forms that dream stories could ever take through their different facial elements. For example in the mentioned formula of \u2018B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d<\/em>\u2019 the term \u0101b<\/em> is used as a register that potentially could be filled with potentially infinite elements as like as money, jewel, news, present, consult, helping\u2026or water. It is premised here that this reductive approach would finally lead to the ontological origin of these dreams which in turn, makes the description of their ontic behavior easier.<\/p>

    To differentiate between the structural forms of the dreams was that traumatic abyss that this work is endeavored to work on it, at least at its beginning, it had the pretension to differentiate and sort the dreams according to their structure, truth value, functionality and so on..<\/p>

    Here we should consider not only the terms but also the relationship between the terms of a dream story-line. Then this approach falls pretty well in the field of \u2018Structural Anthropology\u2019. The other reason that makes this approach structuralistic is that for a structural analysis of a culture it is needed to allocate its elements in a some kind of \u2018signification table\u2019, that is to sort out the \u201cstructures of signification\u201d in that culture to make it meaningful or decodable. Then working on the dreams is a readymade ethnographical work in this sense that every culture (of dream) as a symbolic construction, develops its own dream-books which are in fact and before everything else, some look up tables of significations which are usually constructed like a dictionary of literary symbols: \u2018this\u2019 stands for \u2018that\u2019 and \u2018that\u2019 stands for..and so on. This is somehow like what Lacan refers to as the chain of signifiers by proposing a dictionary as an example with this difference that the chain of signifiers in a dream-book has no \u2018slippage\u2019 as it has in a dictionary (each word stands for many meanings and every meaning of a word (as signifier) covers just some parts of its ultimate \u2018signified\u2019 and so on..) (cf. Seminar III, p.32). Instead, the relation between a symbol in an \u2018Islamic dream\u2019 and its meaning is rather indexical, fixed and localized. Although nothing is absolute and there is a big similarity between Islamic and Western theories of dream, and what is referred here -as the potential of the words and signs for metonymical interpretation in Iranian culture and languages- is perhaps something universal, but this feature is over-weighted in this cultural context. The capacity for metonymical interpretation rests on the inner feature of every language. What is represented here as a hint, is the higher capacity and capability of Persianate languages for metonymical occurrences as a long function of totalitarian autonomous states.<\/p>

    Every reader of this book has perhaps read about the \u2018Oriental despotism\u2019 or similar out-dated concepts of 19th<\/sup> imperialism, but it may interesting to take a look on the effect of this despotism on language as their objective collective form of unconsciousness[27]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> especially in those domains that it works metonymic. In fact without metonymy (as a capability for seeing \u2018this\u2019 as \u2018that\u2019) there would be no ambiguity and unconscious.<\/p>

    We already know by the study of \u201cReligious Totalism and Civil Liberties\u201d in western societies (Lifton, 1987) that the first characteristic process of ideological despotism is \u201cmilieu control\u201d which is essentially the control of communication and if the control is extremely intense, it becomes an internalized control: an attempt to manage an individual\u2019s inner communication. A dream is the best example for an inner communication.<\/p>

    Now by considering an Oriental community in which a despotic king as the symbolic father impediments and conditions the reach of his people to their desires -and also by considering the synergic effect of the blend of religion into politics in this person that bestows him a godly aura in an indexical relation with the almighty god (i.e. in an Islamic-Iranian context the king is considered as the shadow of Allah: zil-ollah<\/em>)- the people recognize him as their common objection and obstacle for their desires[28]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    This collective and meanwhile psychological stance of the people against their king as the one who shadows on their lives and -both physically and mentally- represses their desires is describable with \u2018Ressentiment\u2019<\/em> in the words of Max Scheler which for him, is itself a repressed form of revenge:<\/p>

    Revenge tends to be transformed into Ressentiment<\/em> the more it is directed against lasting situations which are felt to be \u2018injurious\u2019 but beyond one\u2019s control \u2013 in other words, the more the injury is experienced as a destiny\u2026 Through its very origin, Ressentiment<\/em> is therefore chiefly confined to those who serve and are dominated at the moment, who fruitlessly resent the sting of authority. (Scheler: 45 via Kospit: 120)<\/p>

    This common and grim sense of Ressintiment,<\/em> gives to the so-called \u2018inner communication\u2019 of the subjects \u2013 with whatever ironic meanings that it may have- a strong collective dimension so that they share their common desires -and meanwhile their inner-control for avoiding these desires- in the words and the language that they use in the daytime. Dream as field of inner communication becomes a lot of known forms of clich\u00e9\u2019s or emptiness because the \u2018subjects\u2019 are undifferentiated and even in respect to that common thing that they dream about.<\/p>

    The difference between a king\u2019s dream as an integrated free person and the dreams of unintegrated persons who dream in the automated way of routine doing of every other things is the difference between a True and False Selves (cf. Winnicott: 148). Notwithstanding of the true intention of the False Self[29]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>, this False Self \u201cis represented by the whole organization of the polite and mannered social attitude\u201d (ibid: 142-143) can become all too compliant to environmental demands and all too imitative of others and all too ready to be exploited by them (ibid: 146-147). The dream narrative of the subjects (in spite of the king\u2019s) eschews spontaneity, presenting an average compliant False Self, reifying it into a ready-made dummy as empty as everyday\u2019s social manners and routines.<\/p>

    This emptiness has a common and wide range for occurrence and appliance in language as the common medium for communication from a word till a full narrative. Then, this fact that makes the realization of the real intention of a dream narrator for narrating a dream impossible, has the common phenomenal ground with the emptiness of speeches used in social manners (t<\/em>\u02bf\u0101rof\u0101t)<\/em> and the formalities used in the official administrative bureaucratic correspondencies and accordingly in the ambiguity of bipolar meanings in the primal words[30]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> [31]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    Before going further and describing the social aspects of \u2018primal words\u2019 it is necessary to describe why this much emphasize on a linguistic subject such as \u2018primal words\u2019 is ever necessary in a book that is supposed to be mainly focused on the dream culture among the Sufis.<\/p>

    Firstly and particularly, the abundance of primal words In the Sufis\u2019 literature is one of the main features of Sufis\u2019 language and Iranian languages in general because it has developed mainly under the shadow of Sufis\u2019 culture or better to say counter-culture. On the other hand, the language has the primal primacy for the intelligibility from a dream. Notwithstanding this famous quote of Lacan which says \u201cunconsciousness is structured like a language\u201d there is even a more basic tread that ties the dream to the language and it is the language in which a dream is narrated: \u201cThe symbolic language of a dream should be translated into that of waking thought. Thus symbolism is a second and independent factor in the distortion of dreams, alongside of the dream-censorship\u201d (Freud, 1916: 168)<\/p>

    Then the dream symbolism is a allocation table of signs and signifiers that works in subordination to language as a the major system of signification and also the main source of distortion.<\/p>

    Secondly, the study of primal words \u2013condensation of two contraries in one word- is a general study of dreams when we recall of \u2018condensation\u2019 as one of the main treats of the dream-work for taming two insurmountable opposites (i.e. id and superego) in one composite. Freud likewise argues that \u201camong the most surprising findings is the way in which the dream-work treats contraries that occur in the latent dream\u2026Conformities in the latent material are replaced by condensations in the manifest dream. Well, contraries are treated in the same way as conformities, and there is a special preference for expressing them by the same manifest element.\u201d (Freud, 1916: 178). A primal word is a collective dream-work. (See also the after-thoughts of this section.)<\/p>

    This correlative relation between the primal words and dream-work is more conspicuous among the Sufis because all the Sufis symbolism, argot language and literature is essentially based on their invention -as well as innovative use- of a set of primal words. Every word or symbol used in Sufism has an opposite value in the normal and practical life of a Muslim if he\/she ever minds to remain religious (moteshare\u02bf<\/em>)while a Sufi utilizes this linguistic privilege to talk deliberately about wine, woman, sexuality etc.. A deep understanding of this feature of Sufis\u2019 language is the key-point for understanding the Iranian languages, poetry and dreams because the Iranian literature is scarcely considerable without the immense influence of Sufis through their inventions of \u2018primal words\u2019.<\/p>

    Primal words and the pyramid of the society<\/p>

    Dishab \u1e63ed\u0101yi tishe nay\u0101mad ze Bistoun<\/p>

    Gouy\u0101 be kh\u0101bi Shir\u012bn Farh\u0101d rafte b\u0101shad<\/p>

    The clack of chip-axe was not heard from (the mountain of ) Bistoun last night<\/p>

    Perhaps Farh\u0101d has went to a deep sweet sleep[32]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    Freud has used a line from Aeneid as an epigraph for The Interpretation of Dreams (1900): \u201cFlectere si nequeo superos, Acheronto movebo\u201d: \u201c If I cannot bend the higher powers, I shall stir up Hell.\u201c This epigraph is used by Freud to allude to the relation between a dream and wish-fulfillment. This wish -at least in the extent of this epigraph- is a political wish that is a wish for coming up in the social pyramid as a superior. It is helpful to keep in mind that even the inferno and heaven, in the divine comedy of Dante, are in the form of pyramids. Freud\u2019s unconscious, which he equates with the Acheron, shares certain crucial features with underworld but underworld could meanwhile be interpreted politically to share features with the people from a lower social strata and emarginated people. This is the social aspect of underworld and the transparent (and meanwile subliminal camouflaged) objective aspect of unconsciousness in contribution with a more general and universal theory of dream.<\/p>


    Boticelli\u2019s depiction of Dante\u2019s Inferno <\/strong><\/p>

    Most of the things that we learn from the \u2018return to Freud[33]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>\u2019 project of Lacan is to understand that the \u2018symbolic order\u2019 is that social world of linguistic communication through which the society dictates its rules in us that is in our unconsciousness or to put it in his own famous formulation: \u201cthe unconsciousness is structured like a language\u201d. Unconsciousness speaks (ce parle<\/em>) in us and mirrors the same structure of symbolic order- or Levi Strauss\u2019s \u2018order of culture\u2019- by mediation of language. It articulates our desires in the interstices of what is permitted by the big Other. In other words, the structure off society (its pyramid) and unconsciousness are in conformity with each other.<\/p>

    Although Freud was not familiar with the new structuralists approach into language but in \u2018return to Freud\u2019 we understand that Freud’s ideas of “slips of the tongue,” jokes, and the interpretation of dreams, all emphasize the agency of language in the constitution of \u2018subject\u2019 and the topology of mind. Especially and in his use of the Aeneid\u2019s expression as the epigraph of his work, he reveals his attention toward the structural body of unconsciousness and moreover the mirror-like conformity between the pyramid of the society and this structure as the subjective reflection of this pyramid on mind. This reflection is nothing more than the \u2018symbolic order\u2019 which mediates the relation between the subject and the big Other by means of language. In other words, the failure for access to conscious mental life has found its expression -according to a Freudian western theory of dreams- in unconsciousness that is in the compromise formation of dreams, slip of tongues , jokes and symptoms. In the collective reflection of this theory, the stress is again on those recognizable moments that the unconscious breaks through the conscious thought but not of a individual subject but in the conscious thought of all subjects and people, that is in the \u2018 words\u2019. In other words -and in the domain of appliance of these theories for a hydraulic state- this expressive function of language remains no more subjective, just in the same way that the pyramid of the society is no more an abstract schema and is overtly visible in the water pipes of watering system. In the first chapter 1-1: B\u0100B\u0100 (pp.93-130) of my dissertation and in our review of the watering system of Sanandaj, it was generally discussed that how in a Karizian<\/em> civilization or hydraulic states in these Persianate societies the aqueducts sketch the fixed reified lines of the societies pyramid. In this real body of pyramid, the water flows from the pools of the water-lords through a network of conduits into the houses of people of a lower status and so forth\u2026 Then these water conduits are some physical traces who schematize the social pyramid in \u2018flesh\u2019 so that the social class of everyone is observable by a simple look into the way that he is watered in this watering system. Channels of Qhan\u0101t<\/em> are both a \u2018model for\u2019 and a \u2019model of\u2019 the society. The social class pyramid is hence not an abstract schema anymore but something real, concrete and visible in the pipes of water in which the domains of \u2018real\u2019 and \u2018symbolic\u2019 are perfectly coincided with each other.<\/p>

    As the symbolic order and along to it, the structure of unconscious and language are all due to the reciprocal reflection of the social pyramid in the \u2018subject\u2019, the overt realization of this symbolic order in the real body of water pipes, calls for a similar objective realization of unconsciousness in the language. This objective realization of suppressed desires of the subject is reflected in every aspect of Iranian languages including Kurdish: in the built-in facilities of these languages for talking ironic or even to say lies[34]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>, in the empty language of everyday routines, hidden intention of the narrator of a narrative, dream story-lines and most exemplary in the \u2018primal words\u2019.<\/p>

    As all of these different genres are of the same nature, explaining the \u2018primal words\u2019 may reveal many facts about the dream culture. The reason for this focus is self-evident because it is more simple to analyze a simple word than a full narrative.<\/p>

    To see the importance of this analysis, it is useful to realize that a dream story as a whole could behave like a primal word, that is it could be understood as its far opposite. As Iain R. Edgar has also noted in his book: \u201d In certain dreams, inversion takes place and a dream symbol must be assigned a meaning opposite of its apparent meaning\u201d (Edgar: 110. On the next few pages he has denoted -as a difference between a \u201cWestern Psychological Theories of the Night Dream\u201d and an Islamic theory- that: \u201c In Islamic theory the manifest dream content can be the same as the latent one\u201d (Edgar: 113). This \u2018primal\u2019 feature of narratives in the Persianate societies and their capability for \u2018double signification\u2019 finds its root in the hermeneutic nature of Oriental way of discourse mostly innovated by Sufis especially by innovating a new brand of \u2018primal words\u2019 in which for example a word like mey<\/em> or \u0101b<\/em> stands for heavenly knowledge and intoxication but simultaneously signals for its opposite that is the worldly wine and drinks or the word s\u0101ghi <\/em>(the one who serves wine)who stands for an \u2018old wise man\u2019 but is depicted in the Sufis\u2019 literature as a young beautiful woman[35]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. This trait is not restricted to the \u2018primal words\u2019 and in fact the same logic- that rules over the \u2018primal words\u2019 in Arabic, Kurdish, Persian and especially in Sufis literature- also rules on the dream books . As our focus is on the Kurdish people and the book of Ibn-i Sirin is the most favored and popular dream book in the Kurdish culture, here are some examples of this logic in which two opposite things share the same interpretation:<\/p>

    To see heaven (jannah<\/em>) mostly predestinates its dreamer as one who enters the heaven after death but seeing the hell (jah\u012bm<\/em>) could be interpreted either as hell or heaven that is as its far opposite (cf. Ibn-i Sirin: 125-126). Water and fire as an insurmountable pair have also the same interpretation, seeing water and fire both stands for a king (Ibn-i Sirin: 375). Seeing a desert without water and also a land without food (gha\u1e25\u1e6d\u012b<\/em>) both stands for a fertile time and richness (Ibn-i Sirin: 386-387). The examples of this kind are many. The complexity of understanding the logic working behind the dream books and dream manuals in an Islamic culture lies in what Freud has once named \u2018assonance\u2019 and \u2018similarity of the words\u2019 (Freud, 1900: 72). The meaning of a symbol seen in a dream is more complex to be deducted from its superficial meaning and a dream is a fantastic \u2018nominal\u2019 riddle which is supposed to have actual consequences in appropriation to the way that is interpreted. This fact that a dream is a riddle is seemed to be universal Every dream is a riddle that should be solved. This makes at least one element in the Oedipus complex universal: the sphinx, as the one who asks riddles. In contrast to sphinx, Oedipus is the prototype of a dream interpreter who is tragically confronted the consequences of his knowledge. One main difference that one can delineate as an early conclusion is that the answer of this riddle in Occidental modern psychology as the established form of dream interpretation is an striving wiliness for confronting a terrifying truth about the dreamer (a terrifying event in the past or childhood, a primordial crime of patricide and so on..) and not a striving willness for confronting the events in future. Hence a dream in modern psychology is rather a mirror that tells us about the dreamer\u2019s psychological situation, where in Oriental the science of dreams (\u02bfIlm ol-roy\u0101<\/em>), a dream is a riddle that should be solved through the primordial pact with the \u2018name of Father\u2019, through this pact, the interpreter of a the dream is also a fore-seer and dream functions as a mirror for seeing the future.<\/p>

    This pact is the language or the science of names or \u02bfilm ol-asm\u0101\u02be<\/em>, a science that is the point of privilege of human being (\u0101dam<\/em>) in compare to the other creatures of the god in an Islamic system of philosophy. A good interpreter is the one who masters this science and through this science helps the dreamer to avoid the consequences of a primordial crime or sin through a different read of the dream that potentially entails opposite interpretations and meanings[36]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. Hence a dream in the Oriental science of dreams (\u02bfIlm ol-roy\u0101<\/em>) is a changeable fate and a mirror through which one can see both the spiritual stand and the destiny of the dreamer. Regardless of how complex and professional this science of dreams (\u02bfIlm ol-roy\u0101<\/em>) could be, which is out of the scope of this book and knowledge of this writer, one thing is sure and that is the crucial role that language as a rule plays in the interpretation of what has been seen in a dream. This language for a Muslim who is familiar with the Quran (as the words of Allah or kal\u0101m ollah<\/em>) is Arabic but this does not dismiss the influence and associations that the native language may put on the dream\u2019s modality of interpretation. The close relation with verbality (kal\u0101m)<\/em> and the \u2018written\u2019 (maktoub)<\/em> is reflected in its best in the name attributes of Quran which is not kit\u0101b ollah<\/em> (that is the book of allah) but Kal\u0101m ol-llah<\/em> or the words or sayings of Allah.<\/p>

    Besides, the word \u2018word\u2019 (kalame<\/em>) in Arabic has preserved its oral, verbal nature: Kal\u0101m<\/em> comes from takalom<\/em> or speaking and accordingly Qur\u0101n should be understood as the sayings of Allah. This is also the general name that for example Ahli<\/em>–\u1e25aqq<\/em> in Kurdistan have given to their religious books: Kal\u0101m-I Ahl-i \u1e25aqq <\/em>(In a similar way Qewl<\/em> among the Yazidis<\/em>??) . Studying the connectivity between maktoub<\/em>, -which literally means both mandatory and written- as the law of God and the verbal and even vernacular origin of the languages in which the religious book are written is not a side track of studying the dreams. \u2018Speech\u2019 (kal\u0101m<\/em>) and \u2018word\u2019 (kalame<\/em>) in an Islamic context are ontologically and etymologically related to each other. One (the oral literature) is the origin of the other (written) and nonetheless today they are blended to each other:<\/p>

    The transition from a predominantly oral to (partially) written tradition led some Yezidis<\/em> and Ahl-I Haq<\/em> to think of their sacred literature in terms of concepts which derive from literate cultures, and may be misleading when applied to a tradition such as theirs. On the other hand, it cannot be assumed that the mainly oral character of the tradition implies that writing plays no role there at all. Yezidis in the West, it seems, increasingly tend to think of the Qewls <\/em>as parts of a Canon, a well-defined authoritative codex of sacred texts similar in status to the scriptures of other religions. As the nature and functions of the original tradition were in reality quite different, this can lead to misunderstandings\u2026.The underlying assumption seems to be that such texts, whether they are known from oral tradition or from late manuscripts, are all parts or versions of a single, original sacred book.( Yarshater: 86-87)<\/p>

    A society in which the dissimilarities and even discrepancies between different oral narratives are described as different versions of a single original book could be thought as an oral society. Such a feature is more conspicuous in an oral culture like Kurdish (cf. Yarshater: 87 ff.) and especially among the Sufis who put their highest stress on their mother tongue of their regional language that comes from the heart instead from the rational conventions usually used in a religious orthodox discourse and this is why that Rumi and the most other masters of Sufism in the Persianate societies wrote their verses in Farsi or their own regional tongue although most of them had a good command on Arabic. There is a rare use of Arabic in the verses of Sufis and in fact in the moments that they want to tie their discourse to Quran that is to a godly discourse. Freud writes in his explanations on the role of \u2018verbal expression\u2019 in the \u2018Oriental dream manuals \u2019 that:<\/p>

    The dream, indeed, is so intimately connected with verbal expression \u2026that every tongue has its own dream-language. A dream is, as a rule, not to be translated into other languages. (Freud, 1900: 72)<\/p>

    The context in which he comes to this (the Orient) is also interesting and plausible and supports the stress put here on the importance of understanding the fore-consciouss function of \u2018primal words\u2019 in Kurdish (and accordingly Persian and Arabic) as a prerequisite for understanding the nature of Kurdish, (Persian and Arabic) dreams. Just a few sentences before this quote, he claims on the extraordinary significance of puns and the play upon words in the old archaic Oriental cultures:<\/p>

    \u2026Oriental dream-books, of which ours are pitiful plagiarisms, commonly undertake the interpretation of dream- elements in accordance with the assonance and similarity of words. Since these relationships must be lost by translation into our language, the incomprehensibility of the equivalents in our popular \u201cdream-books\u201d is hereby explained. (Freud, 1900: 72)<\/p>

    Then a dream narrative is more like a poem, that is an \u2018event\u2019 that happens in the language and not through the language. In the same manner, the \u2018truth value\u2019 of a dream is a function of the \u2018truth value\u2019 of the everyday speech of its dreamer. The linguistic and verbal facets of the dreams are not something unknown in the Islamic culture of dreams. Ibn-i Sirin heard it from Abu Hurayrah that the prophet said: \u201c\u2026He whose dreams are most true is he whose speech is most true.\u201d (Lamoreaux: 132)<\/p>

    The direct, reflexive and perfunctory relation between a dream and the way that its dreamer handles with the language in the act of giving sound and expression to his\/her dream (as well as his\/her ideas, experiences and so on\u2026) is a factor that a good interpreter or a skilled Sufi keeps in mind for interpretation.<\/p>

    In my own experience, when I asked a sheikh: \u201cwhy some people forget their dreams?\u201d He answered because they lie too much. I asked again \u201cI do not lie too much but it is very scarcely to me to remember of my dreams\u201d and he replied:\u201d You talk too much! You are always trying to find a proper word to express your ideas. In the run of this process opens a chance for the false words to slip on your tongue. Talking with falsified words is essentially not different from lying. Then you commit lying unawares\u201d.<\/p>

    Dreams of subjects and the subjective dream of the King: Two different class of dreams recognizable in a Persianate society<\/p>

    Shah cho \u02beIskandar jav\u0101n ast o Kh\u0101je hamchon Khizr pir<\/em><\/p>

    Ey \u02beIskandar lazemast in Khizr rahbar d\u0101shtan<\/em><\/p>

    The king is young like Alexander and Vizier is Old like the Khidr<\/p>

    Oh Alexander, you have to take this Khidr as your mentor<\/p>

    \u2014Gh\u0101-\u0101ni, elegy no. 284<\/p>

    Although the stereotypical nature of Islamic dreams is repeatedly mentioned we still may have to single out the dreams of kings and conquerors. The reason of this exception is somehow clear: A king for a sheepish society is a kind of Moses who lives in a beacon out of the perception of the banal others or the herd men (cf. Nietzsche: 423 via Kuspit: 114) . He is the one who has once overcome fate. His subjects collectively submit to him in order to realize in him vicariously their own confrontation with fate(cf. Popper: 458 f.).<\/p>

    There are many evidences and literature in which a king dreams of a very astonishing irregular form of dreams. Again, the most classical story on this is to be found in the story of Joseph in Quran when he is recalled out from the prison to interpret the bizarre dream of Pharaoh[37]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> (Quran, 12: 43-46).<\/p>

    and the same weird but meaningful dreams are also to be found among the Kurdish people and perhaps the most notable among them is the dream of the forefather of Sallahidin Ayoubi<\/em>, the Kurdish conqueror of the Jerusalem who saw a very long detailed dream which would be neglected as an disturbed dream if it were seen by an average \u2018subject\u2019. In his dream he saw himself urinating upward into the sky until it reaches a cloud and the cloud started to rain over Jerusalem until the city became totally washed and afterward appeared a moon and many stars behind that cloud and then grew all kind of plants and then appeared of about 100 cows and grazed the weeds then appeared a lot of pigs from the sea and they killed all the cows just one who escaped toward Damascus. Afterward came lions as big as camels from Egypt and they killed all the pigs but one of them escaped in the sea and so on\u2026\u201d (Ibn daw\u0101dari, VII, p. 15 cited in Schimmel:87-88 & Langner: 76). This dream has been fulfilled in the form of conquest of Jerusalem by one of his grandsons Sallahidin Ayoubi<\/em>.<\/p>

    In general seeing a dream of urinating -as well as shitting- in holy places in a dream are narratives about the rise of a new dynasty which signal a successful succession of the throne by the sons or grandsons of a male dreamer; it will be seen in the next passages that how the same pattern of dreams and story-lines with the same interpretation had come true for the dreams of two caliphs.<\/p>

    The dream of Sheikh Safi al-Din the forefather of Safavid dynasty \u2013who like many other prominent personalities is believed to have a Kurdish origin (See Ayoubiyan, 1964(a): 295 ff.)-can also not to be pigeonholed in the popular conventional form of narratives. There are six different versions of these dreams used essentially as a tool for political prophecy ( Quinn: 127-147) but in none of these dreams (and also the dreams that would be come on the next paragraphs) an \u201cold wise man\u201d archetype paces in the dream to give the dreamer water or something to eat or drink as it is supposed to the thesis of this work as the most usual form of a prophesying dream. Then the narrative structure of a dream and the way that it is handled or proposed for interpretation through the society is not separable from the social class of dreamer. There are a big amount of dreams seen by the subjects that have a chance to be narrated or recognized as a legitimate dream in the public only when they obey the most ordinary patterns of narrativity. On the other side of this spectrum there are kings, rulers. with a very free subjective content in which the dreamer is free to commit the most immoral deeds or to see the most weird things in the dream. It is hard to put the dreams of the arch-Sheikhs in this spectrum, some of them like Sheikh Safi al-Din and the dream Abu Hanifa<\/em> the initiator of Hanafi<\/em> school of Sunnis (He saw himself grubbing out the bones of the Prophet from his grave) are dreams with a very subjective content and some of them like Im\u0101m Sh\u0101fe\u02be\u012b<\/em> the initiator of Sh\u0101fe\u02be\u012b<\/em> tradition (Sonnat<\/em>) of Islam –<\/em>which most of the Sonnis<\/em> in Kurdistan are the followers of these two traditions- are very ordinary dreams specially the latter one literally follows the pattern of \u2018Papa Gives Water\u2019 [38]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>

    The dreams of the kings as the one who is in an immediate communication with God through his aura or farrah<\/em> has the most subjective weight comparable to a modern artist in the new era who are attributed to special authenticity, integrity and power (cf. Kuspit: 2). In the stories the dream of a king is -regardless of his righteousness – authentic[39]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. A king is able to be himself in a way that is impossible for other people. He is able to experience seemingly without mediation, what is fundamental or original in experience. His position is like the position of Nietzsche\u2019s overman or superman (\u00dcbermensch<\/em>) which is the only model for self-transmutation and self-transfiguration and all nuances of the same trans-valuation (cf. Kuspit: 9). Meanwhile, a dream as an experience for a normal subject is thoroughly shaped and permeated by the conventions that mediate it. All of these conventions are tabled in the dream manuals but the interpretation of a kingly dream could not be found in the dream manuals while the king\u2019s subject is sharply differentiated and elevated above his subjects. Then the king as an extraordinary subject, needs his own special \u2018old wise man\u2019 to come and interpret his dream. He like Alexander needs his own khidr<\/em> and kh\u0101bgoz\u0101r,<\/em>the one who knows the occult corridors who connects the world of night-dreams to our day-time.<\/p>

    In short, there is a free domain for subjectivity in the dream narratives of the kings and arch-sheikhs: those who are in an immediate communication with truth and almighty God through farrah<\/em> (Royal Aura) or their noble blood. Even in this domain, the meta-narrative, in which the dream should be sited remains stereotypical. Again the \u2018True Self\u2019 of the king as a dreamer becomes standardized into a stereotype that is into a meta-narrative usually narrated for the kingly dreams. In this meta-narrative, there is always a king who saw a weird disturbed dream. A dream that would be neglected from its very morning if it were seen by a normal subject as a un-interpretable meaningless dream but the flow chart of this kind of dream for a king or ruler is as follows:<\/p>

    1-The king sees a disturbing warning dream.<\/p>

    2-He narrates it for his Vizier, wife or someone who is close to him in his court.<\/p>

    3-They start to give him some calming advices but the King insists for a deeper meaning for his dream.<\/p>

    4-He orders to search for a \u2018wise man\u2019 who knows the discipline of the dreams and can decode the symbolic language of his dream.<\/p>

    5-True interpreter would be examined and checked by his knowledge. (For example he should be able to narrate the king\u2019s dream without having heard it before as a sign for its true connection to the other side and the world of occult (gheyb<\/em>).)<\/p>

    6-Unskilled interpreters would be executed or receive punishment.<\/p>

    7-After a while appears a true interpreter (for example one who not only knows what he has seen but also can remind him those parts that he has forgotten. )<\/p>

    8- He proves himself as an \u2018old wise man\u2019.<\/p>

    9-After all these preliminaries comes the interpretation that would come true because it is written on the protected tablet of fate (loh-I mahfou\u1e93).<\/p>

    10- The old wise man outlines the danger and the way (if any) to come out of the danger.<\/p>

    The dream of Pharaoh obeys this pattern[40]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> and many other dreams seen by a despotic king follow also the same algorithm.<\/p>

    But stories like this have even an older model in the book of Genesis. The story told about the birth of Abraham the founder of Abrahamian religions has exactly the same story-line:<\/p>

    The story is about the biblical king Nimrod, the man of power on earth and the erector of the Babel tower into sky. In the night of Abraham\u2019s birth, Nimrod saw a very frightening dream. The true interpretation of this dream was a foretell of his dethronement by this new-born baby but the interpreters dare not to share this to him and tried to gloss it over by relating it to non-interpretable dreams that are caused by bodily conductions (what is called \u0627\u0636\u063a\u0627\u062b \u0627\u0644\u0627\u062d\u0644\u0627\u0645<\/strong> in Islamic tradition of dreams) but Nimrod did not be fooled by such tricks and insisted for a true interpretation. Rumi has written on this in his Mathnavi:<\/p>

    \u0648\u0622\u0646 \u0637\u0628\u06cc\u0628 \u0648 \u0622\u0646 \u0645\u0646\u062c\u0645 \u062f\u0631 \u0644\u0645\u0639<\/p>

    \u062f\u06cc\u062f \u062a\u0639\u0628\u06cc\u0631\u0634 \u0628\u067e\u0648\u0634\u06cc\u062f \u0627\u0632 \u0637\u0645\u0639<\/p>

    \u06af\u0641\u062a \u062f\u0648\u0631 \u0627\u0632 \u062f\u0648\u0644\u062a \u0648 \u0627\u0632 \u0634\u0627\u0647\u06cc\u062a<\/p>

    \u06a9\u0647 \u062f\u0631\u0622\u06cc\u062f \u063a\u0635\u0647 \u062f\u0631 \u0622\u06af\u0627\u0647\u06cc\u062a<\/p>

    \u0627\u0632 \u063a\u0630\u0627\u06cc \u0645\u062e\u062a\u0644\u0641 \u06cc\u0627 \u0627\u0632 \u0637\u0639\u0627\u0645<\/p>

    \u0637\u0628\u0639 \u0634\u0648\u0631\u06cc\u062f\u0647 \u0647\u0645\u06cc\u200c\u0628\u06cc\u0646\u062f \u0645\u0646\u0627\u0645<\/p>

    That physician and that astronomer saw by intuition the interpretation but concealed it of greed said: \u201cMight sorrow be away from the throne and crown of your royalty, It is because of eating scattered opposing foods that one sees scattered disturbed dreams.\u201d<\/em> (Mathnavi, vol. IV, part 91)<\/p>

    The story of Nimrod could be very referential and illustrative to our points because not only it is a story about Abraham and Nimrod, that is two archetypical figures of faith and tyranny but also it is about the essential rivalry that exists between the king\u2019s palace or div\u0101n<\/em> made of stone and div\u0101n<\/em> as a palace made of words:<\/p>

    The collapse of Nimrod\u2019s tower is coincident with the arbitrariness of language. On the opposite side of Nimrod as the big loser stands Abraham as the one who has preserved the archaic original language that was gave by god to human beings. To be a prophet means to be in a discursive relation with god. Talking with god by itself is a spiritual ascension and belongs to the domain of dream and poetry. Making a palace (div\u0101n<\/em>) on hand of political authority lies is in an ontological opposition with the palace of a poet built in his div\u0101n<\/em> or book of poems. The poet here is the one who knows every trick of language. He is in the position of the one who ccan make confuse instead of being confused and to him the words have preserved their archaic sound in ear and in this respect a poet is comparable to a prophet[41]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>:<\/p>

    \u0647\u0631 \u0644\u062d\u0638\u0647 \u0648\u062d\u06cc \u0622\u0633\u0645\u0627\u0646 \u0622\u06cc\u062f \u0628\u0647 \u0633\u0631 \u062c\u0627\u0646 \u0647\u0627<\/p>

    \u0622\u062e\u0631 \u0686\u0648 \u062f\u0631\u062f\u06cc \u0628\u0631 \u0632\u0645\u06cc\u0646 \u062a\u0627 \u0686\u0646\u062f \u0645\u06cc \u0628\u0627\u0634\u06cc\u061f \u0628\u0631\u0622!<\/p>

    Every moment comes a revelation from the sky:<\/p>

    \u201cDon\u2019t you realize that you are suffering on the earth? Ascend!\u201d<\/p>

    Again, it is in this story that Nimrod ordered to throw Abraham into fire and the fire changed into a nice garden for Abraham:<\/p>

    \u062f\u0631 \u0622\u062a\u0634 \u0631\u0648 \u062f\u0631 \u0622\u062a\u0634 \u0631\u0648 \u062f\u0631 \u0622\u062a\u0634\u062f\u0627\u0646 \u0645\u0627 \u062e\u0648\u0634 \u0631\u0648<\/p>

    \u06a9\u0647 \u0622\u062a\u0634 \u0628\u0627 \u062e\u0644\u06cc\u0644 \u0645\u0627 \u06a9\u0646\u062f \u0631\u0633\u0645 \u06af\u0644\u0633\u062a\u0627\u0646\u06cc<\/p>

    \u0646\u0645\u06cc\u200c\u062f\u0627\u0646\u06cc \u06a9\u0647 \u062e\u0627\u0631 \u0645\u0627 \u0628\u0648\u062f \u0634\u0627\u0647\u0646\u0634\u0647 \u06af\u0644\u200c\u0647\u0627<\/p>

    \u0646\u0645\u06cc\u200c\u062f\u0627\u0646\u06cc \u06a9\u0647 \u06a9\u0641\u0631 \u0645\u0627 \u0628\u0648\u062f \u062c\u0627\u0646 \u0645\u0633\u0644\u0645\u0627\u0646\u06cc<\/p>

    Go inside the fire, go inside the fire, go easily into our fire-brazier<\/p>

    As fire behaves like a garden to our friend (Abraham= khal\u012bl ollah or friend of god is the epithet of Abraham)<\/p>

    Didn\u2019t you know that our bramble is the king of flowers?<\/p>

    Didn\u2019t you know that our paganism is the soul of Islam? (Rumi, div\u0101n-I kabir, Nr. 2508).<\/p>

    <\/p>

    Abraham cast into fire by Nimrod;<\/strong><\/p>

    Zubdat-al Tawarikh in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul, dedicated to Sultan Murad III in 1583. Upper image: Abraham preparing to sacrifice Ishmael (Muslims believe that Ishmael not Isaac was almost sacrificed). The angel appears with the ram at right. Lower image: Abraham miraculously unharmed after being cast into fire, watched by Nimrod at the right.<\/strong><\/p>

    It is also in this story that the Babel tower as the physical embodiment of the social pyramid becomes ruined and at the same time the languages of the people became scattered. A highly regarded Jewish historian from the 1st<\/sup> century A.D. named Titus Flavius Josephus had interesting things to say about King Nimrod:<\/p>

    \u2026He (god) caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion\u2026(Josephus: 96).<\/p>

    Here is the point in which the archaic language changes into many different kind of arbitrary languages (that is different system of significations that arbitrarily relates each \u2018word\u2019 to each \u2018thing\u2019.)<\/p>

    Nimrod is also one of the outstanding figures in the Divine Comedy of Dante. In Dante\u2019s visit of the Hell, Nimrod forms a ring surrounding the central pit of Hell guarding the ninth circle of Hell, a ring that Dante from a distance mistakes as a series of towers. Nimrod was shouting “<\/strong>Raph\u00e8l ma\u00ed am\u00e8che zab\u00ed almi<\/em>“<\/strong> (Dante’s<\/a> Inferno<\/em><\/a>, XXXI.67.) : A verse whose literal meaning is uncertain and usually left untranslated: It has a meaningful meaningless: A sign of the confusion of the languages caused by the fall of the Tower of Babel<\/a>.<\/p>

    \"FullConstruction of the Tower of Babel, painting, 1563, painted by Pieter Br\u00fcghel the Elder (1526 – 1569) (The Kunshistorisches Museum in Vienna, Inv.-Nr. GG_1026)<\/strong><\/p>

    There is a long list of the king\u2019s dream both in Iranian Zoroastrian mythology and also in the bible and accordingly in Iranian oral and written literature which follows this synopsis. We will confront even more dreams of this type in the following pages and a reader who is accustomed with Kurdish and Persian stories can remind many similar parallel examples from the old historical books who are usually mixed with oral narratives and mythology. To bring just few examples, one can think of the dream of Rabi\u02bfa ibn Nasr al-Lachmi al-Himyari<\/em> interpreted by Sa\u1e6di\u1e25<\/em> ( see Schimmel: 48-9), and also the dream of the despot Bokhtolna\u1e63r<\/em> whose confrontation with D\u0101niyel<\/em> the prophet as the interpreter of his dream which completely fits with the mentioned pattern of the king\u2019s dream and is renarrated in various Arabic and Persian books (i.e Damir\u012b, \u1e24ay\u0101t al-\u1e24eyv\u0101n[42]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>, vol. I, 313 and also in Ibn-i Sirin: 27-31). Interestingly the same story is believed to be happen between the Iranian translator of the D\u0101niyel\u2019s<\/em> book of dreams, Khalil-i I\u1e63fah\u0101ni<\/em> and the Abbasid caliph al<\/em>–Mahdi<\/em> (reigned between 775-785) whose dream has is very similar to the dream seen by Bokhtolna\u1e63r<\/em> [43]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>(Ibn-Sirin: 37-39). Ibn-Sirin that this story in narrated in his book is also believed who has experienced a similar life story of Joseph the prophet.<\/p>

    In fact the story of Joseph is very popular and favorite among the Kurds and versions of it appears in the folk stories for example the Kurdish folkloric story of basket-seller (zanbil-froroush<\/em>) has strongly influenced by the story of Joseph (Ayoubiyan, 1966: 42). In fact Joseph is an icon of saintliness whose piety was checked with many hard examinations along his lifetime and it is logical for the ordinary people to think of the same events and examinations that should happen for everyone who has paced in the way of devoutness and Godliness and is enlightened and privileged with the science of dreams and occult (\u02bfilm-I gheyb wa \u02bfilm-I roy\u0101<\/em>). This would be fully examined in another article but for the time being it suffices to know how self-similar are the dream stories of the kings although the content of these dream-stories look superficially different.<\/p>

    An approximate pattern is also repeated in the dreams of every king in Shahn\u0101meh, the book of the kings regardless a fair or a despot king. Even Ibn-Sirin believes that \u1e0ca\u1e25\u0101k<\/em>, the despotic king of Medes who we know him from the first part of my dissertation was the first who drop a serious look into the science of the dreams (nokhostin kasi ke dar \u02bfilm kh\u0101b negaresh kard<\/em>) (Ibn-Sirin: 7).<\/p>

    And the dream of many despotic kings who became informed of the birth of Mohammad as a new prophet among the Arabs for example the dream of Rabi\u02bfa ibn Na\u1e63r al-Lackmi al-Himyari<\/em> who asked both Sa\u1e6di\u1e25<\/em> and Shigh,<\/em> two prominent oracles (k\u0101hin) of their time. These two oracles not only narrate the dream of the king as a proof of their mastership on the science of dreams but also interpret it as the birth of the most important prophet that has ever come (Damir\u012b, \u1e24ay\u0101t al-\u1e24eyv\u0101n, vol. II, 73-74 ) The Iranian example of this kind of dream comes right after this dreams in the book of Damir\u012b<\/em> and this time it goes with a crack on the arch of the palace of Kasr\u0101<\/em> which frightened Anoushirav\u0101n,<\/em>[44]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> the king of Iran and forefather of Khosro Parviz and again the same pattern of narrativity comes hereafter but this time the reason is not a dream but an accident that was taken as a bad omen but the one who interpreted this accident correctly is again Sa\u1e6d\u1e25 (ibid: 74-75) that foretells the rise of a new prophet from the Arabs. A similar story is reported for Khosro Parviz the king of Iran of the time in which Mohammad has already revealed his prophethood.<\/p>

    As a rule, the interpretation of a kingly dream is not to be found in the usual ordinary dream manuals and they need an extraordinary oracle and \u2018old wise man\u2019 who understands the language of \u2018sublime\u2019 but even when the normal people are regarded as too ordinary to comprehend the symbolism (if any) behind these dreams ( that is to understand how extraordinary could be to be a king) they are obligated to be his audience in the homage of his extra-ordinariality. That is they are obligated to circulate their dream narratives in the form of that very clich\u00e9 used for the kingly dreams even if they can make no sense of its strange language.<\/p>

    By considering the frames and story-lines of the kings\u2019 dreams, one can conclude that these narratives are again doomed to be narrated in that very clich\u00e9\u2019 of b\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d<\/em> with this difference that the appearance of b\u0101b\u0101<\/em>, the \u201cold wise man\u201d (and \u0101b<\/em>, (water) as a metaphor for knowledge[45]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> or advise) is juxtaposed to the reality i.e. the old wise man appears in the form of a dream expert in the daytime and gives the king some advices for overcoming the problem that should be happened in warned in the dream. The first story of Rumi\u2019s Mathnavi<\/em> , \u201cThe Story of the King and his Maiden\u201d (d\u0101st\u0101n-i Sh\u0101h wa Kanizak<\/em>) depicts this relation between the king and the \u2018old wise man\u2019 and its importance in the symbolic literature of Sufis[46]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> (It is notable that the Rumi\u2019s book of Mathnavi starts with this story). In this story the king saw an \u2018old wise man\u2019 in his dream and this old wise man redirects him again to an \u2018old wise man\u2019 that would be appear in reality and in the day-time, helping him to overcome his problem[47]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>:<\/p>

    ..When from his inmost depths he raised a scream<\/p>

    The sea of bounty surged and sent a dream:<\/p>

    An old man then appeared whose voice was deep:<\/p>

    \u2018Greetings. Your wish is granted, humble king,<\/p>

    Tomorrow to your aid our man we\u2019ll bring,<\/p>

    Trust him, as one who\u2019s mastered how to cure,<\/p>

    Accept his word for he\u2019s sincere and pure,<\/p>

    Witness amazing magic and applaud,<\/p>

    See in his temperament the might of God.\u2019<\/p>

    The next day came, the promised meeting neared,<\/p>

    The sun shone bright, the stars has disappeared,<\/p>

    The king gazed from the watchtower eagerly<\/p>

    To see what had been promised secretly,<\/p>

    Beyond the crowd he saw a virtuous one,<\/p>

    Among the shadows he was like a sun!<\/p>

    Just like a crescent moon he came to view-<\/p>

    A non-existent image seen by you,<\/p>

    In form existing only in one\u2019s mind-<\/p>

    The world is turned by forces of this kind:<\/p>

    (Rumi , Oxford translation of Mathnavi (translated by Mojaddedi): 8)<\/p>

    The borders between this world and the world of prophesying dreams is eroded and according to the status of the person and its spiritual level the amount of this erosion is different. For kings and Sheikhs this level of erosion is high and hence it is normal that part of a dream happens in the reality and in the daytime. Rumi in the next verse concludes:<\/p>

    Nistvash b\u0101shad kh\u012by\u0101l andar jah\u0101n<\/em><\/p>

    To jah\u0101n\u012b bar kh\u012by\u0101l\u012b bin raw\u0101n<\/em><\/p>

    Dream in this world is based on nothingness<\/p>

    See the world fleeting like a dream<\/p>

    The true dreamer of this dreamy outer world is the king or Sultan who rules on it and hence it is logical to see his mentor in flesh and in the day-time just self-similar to the night dreams of his subjects.<\/p>

    In all these narratives the world or the country(molk, mamlekat, \u2026)<\/em> is a dark traumatic abyss (\u1e93olam\u0101t<\/em>) that the king as its ruler is obligated to confront with it by committing correct royal decisions. It hides somewhere in itself a water resource like a treasure and to reach this water or eternal light of knowledge in the darkness of the world he need to recourse a pir<\/em> or an old wise man. According to the Sufis way of life, this is the meta-narrative of every human being notwithstanding a king or a subject . At the beginning of the so called story of the king and his maiden, that is nearly at the beginning of the Mathnawi, Rumi writes:<\/p>

    Beshnavid ey doust\u0101n in d\u0101st\u0101n<\/em><\/p>

    Khod \u1e25aqiqat naghd-i \u1e25\u0101l-i m\u0101st \u0101n<\/em><\/p>

    Now here\u2019s a tale for you to contemplate<\/p>

    It tells the truth about your present state (ibid, v. 35)<\/p>

    This meta-narrative \u2014in which a pupil is metaphorically considered as a king and his spiritual master as his vizier in the gesture of an \u2018old wise man\u2019\u2014is abstracted in its best in the story of Alexandra and his survey for the water of life in which Khizr is his wise companion. In the allegoric language of Sufis every human being is the Alexander of the country of his body (molk-i tan<\/em>) which is full of darkness and satanic temptations. Then to have control on this country, he\/she needs a mentor to guide him\/her to the resource of life which is deep inside in the heart (and in fact in a very tiny point on this heart known as ser-i soweid\u0101<\/em> (literally: the darkest secret)).<\/p>

    Then, the words \u2018father\u2019, \u2018water\u2019 and \u2018giving\u2019 and their solid relation phrased in B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d<\/em> is perhaps the most essential bonded structure for a transcendental Persianate dream or at least for the Kurdish dreams in a Sufi milieu in which all the main elements of this meta-narrative of human life on the earth -which is itself a dream- is compacted. Proof of this is but based just on an \u201cinductive inference\u201d tried here to be verified through a short review on the major oral and literal narratives among the Kurds. Any other scholar can either validate or violate this thesis by adding supporting parallel examples or contradicting ones from the heard stories or dream narratives from the region. As stated, there is no other logical implement other than induction and also no way to an absolute proof of this statement and there is even no need for it. The main aim of this study is just to show that how dreams which are related to \u2018sainthood\u2019 are structured and ordered through a hidden sanity so that there are just few models and forms -above all B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d- in which the dreams are forecasted dream notwithstanding the intentionality of their dreamers. If a dream structure does not match with this forecasted forms of narrativity it would be recognized as a false dream by a native ear. This does not means that these narrative forms pigeonhole every dream but every dream with a highly subjective content would be automatically wiped out from the public discourse as a false impression named with a\u1e0d\u0121\u0101f o a\u1e25l\u0101m<\/em>. One can simply conclude that every dream which is highly doped with subjectivity is politically dangerous and should be rejected as it secretly addresses a kingly dream and as the probability for a normal subject for becoming a king is not null it should be harshly disregarded and degraded. Then as we see, the social pyramid and the position of the dreamer in this pyramid has the most determining role in the society\u2019s attitude toward a dream regardless of its content.<\/p>

    The homogeneity of the dream narratives is possibly a result of the tacit censorship of the later hearer of a \u2018different\u2019 dream seen by someone of the \u2018same\u2019 social class. The high subjectivity embedded in such a dream would be not born by other \u2018subjects\u2019. In the same manner every out-of-form narrative who claims to be a revelation would be rejected because they do not fulfill the pre-known structure of a true dream[48]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> where the homogeneiety or sterotypicallity of these pre-known structures are themselves a result of the tacit censorship of the later bearers of the early traditions whose process of selection among different kinds of narrativities was not in a random fashion (cf. Lambreaux: 104). But still the matter is not that easy.<\/p>

    Now it is time to construct a structural analysis from\/of the dream narratives in contrast to the categorical approach of Grunebaum adopted by many other scholars. In this approach we may sort the dreams from the amount of subjectivity that it explicitly contains or claims to have. The more a dream obeys the synopsis and narrative structure of the known dreams in the hagiographies, the less is the amount of its subjectivity. In such dreams, although the narrative is still working as an ego-document but the ego is camouflaged and invisible. On the other hand a full subjective dream could be considered as a very pretentious, ambitious and challenging specially when being narrated from a person of a lower class. Such a dreams, to speak general, have no chance for publicity in a Persianate society in which the personal individuality (and accordingly its subjective thoughts and imaginations) are not celebrated and hence will be wiped out from the social scene and are unable to reproduce themselves in a token ring of narratives circulating in public. They may be responded with discriminating answers like \u201cWhat has you eaten last night?\u201d to lessen or gloss over its (unallowable) subjectivity to a biological cause like gluttony instead of something spiritual (See film#1, min\u2026). Then most of these dreams will be marked as an a\u1e0d\u0121\u0101f o a\u1e25l\u0101m<\/em> with this exception that it have been seen by a King or a powerful ruler and sometimes by a high status personality like a Sheikh. As stated above, there are many examples for clich\u00e9d stories webbed around the original dream-stories seen by a king in the verbal and written literature of the region. In spite of these privatized dreams, there remains a big bulk of dreams that have a very small space for maneuver in their line of story. According to the argumentations of this book, the social class of the dreamer is the first imperative that determinates the mode of interpretation of a dream. To see an original unique dream, reflects the uniqueness of its dreamer and his matchless personality.<\/p>

    An out-of-genre dream is rarely acceptable from a normal \u2018subject\u2019 by the society. The high amount of individuality and subjective content belongs to the realm of the kings and rulers and the subjects rarely have a chance to find an ear for their subjective dreams, they would be marked as non-interpretable and would be failed to be circulated in the society. Just like a note of money, a dream narrative should be recognized and evaluated as authentic by the community to be able to be narrated. Then and somehow subconsciously and subliminally, a dream narrative drops in the most ordinary known structure of narrativity: B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d. In this formula the ego is camouflaged because the narrative format is the most ordinary but the dream itself is recognized as something seen by its dreamer, then the dream as a whole is an ego-document. This does not mean that a king does not see a dream of this structure and through this formula in which the ego is normatively camouflaged and is mostly used by his own subjects. In a \u2018short term society\u2019 like Iran (See Katouzian, 2003 to know more about this term) the rhythm of succession and the length of dynasties are too short and hence, it might be quite normal for a king to see an ordinary dream like his subjects[49]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> but it is probably not a good political decision to narrate it for the public because it would harm his royal aura or farrah <\/em>(an Iranian mythological term used to denote the Royal Charisma or heavenly mandate). The dream of a real charismatic king (farahmand<\/em>) should be beyond the reach of ordinary dream theories and symbolification written in usual dream manuals. It is also a matter of prestige to find an unordinary old mentor whereof the dream should be correctly interpreted. As farrah<\/em> or aura (politically charisma) of a king symbolizes his immediate communication with God. A king (like a poet or an artist )is more uncannily objective than his people, for in pushing his dream-content to the fore he is insisting that there is something more fundamental in experience than any symbolization available before: something that every symbolization assumes. The three dreams of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last king of Iran, are conflated with supernatural events which obey the most ordinary form of narrativity of b\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d<\/em>:<\/p>

    In 1961, or some thirty-five years after the typhoid incident, Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, published a book called \u201cMission For My Country\u201d [Ma\u02bemouriyat bar\u0101yi Watanam<\/em>]. In this book, he reminisced about his childhood and youth. He recalled that while hovering between life and death during his bout of typhoid, he had \u201centered into a special spiritual or holy realm\u201d. The sacred realm that Mohammad-Reza entered into was itself n the mysterious world of dreams, in which individuals have claimed encounters with holy figures. After more than three decades, Mohammad-Reza remembered the fine details of his exceptional childhood experience\u2026 he wrote, he had seen Imam \u02beAli sitting next to him \u2026Imam \u02beAli, the Shah recalled, held a bowl in his hand as he sat at Mohammad-Reza\u2019s bedside and ordered him to drink the liquid in it\u2026The next day Mohammad-Reza is on the road to recovery\u2026(Rahnema: 116-117 cf. Pahlavi:50-51)<\/p>

    During the same year, 1926\u2026Mohammad-Reza had a second supernatural \u201cpersonal experience\u201d\u2026 He recounted that as he toppled from the saddle, Hazzrat-e Abolfazl (\u02beAbbas), the valiant and glorious son of Imam \u02beAli, appeared to him and gave him a bowl of water that cured him from his hazardous head injury. (Pahlavi: 51)<\/p>

    By narrating these stereotypical dreams that belongs to the people of a lower class he perhaps loses part of his Royal aura or farrah<\/em> (charisma in Iranian mythology) for those very Shie\u2019 believers who he was intended to show his sympathy to them by narrating such dreams.<\/p>

    All of his dreams obey the most ordinary form of narrative which implicitly signals his lack of farrah, <\/em>and portrayed him as a king who gives blackmail to his subject instead of following his royal subjectivity , then there is no wonder that he lost his throne and crown for a more charismatic character like Imam Khomeini.<\/p>

    Imam Khomeini was the true return of the Shah\u2019s dream. The true materialization of gerontocracy in the flesh of an old man (with the epithet of pir-i Jam\u0101r\u0101n<\/em>) because of the guilty feeling that he had for the patricide of this traditional system of authority. A primordial sin that he should commit it to be able to fulfill his \u2018mission\u2019(reaching his country to the level of a modern society or in his own words: to the great gates of civilization (darw\u0101zeh\u0101yi bozorgi tamadon<\/em>)). What has happened in the revolution of 1979 was not a simple replacement of kingdom with clergism but a replacement of Sultanism for one of the former systems of traditional authority (see Weber: 175 ff.) . This system (along with patriarchal) was never far from Sultanism. A sultan sometimes needs the help of an old mentor to show him the way out of the crisis. In such cases, the administrative relicts of patriarchal and gerontocrat systems (i.e. anjoman-I rish-sefid\u0101n<\/em>) always provide him an \u2018old wise man\u2019 . This archetypical character set the ruler (as well as the dreamer) in harmony with his past and future by giving him some proper advice for a better administration:<\/p>

    Weber\u2019s Classification of Authority Systems<\/p>

    <\/p>




    <\/p>

    Charismatic Traditional Legal<\/p>

    <\/p>




    <\/p>

    Patriarchal Patrimonial Gerontocracy<\/p>

    <\/p>

    Sultanism<\/p>

    Then, a sultan can never set himself free from those bonds that bind him to the older systems of governance and hence, every conscious call for an \u2018old wise man\u2019 or real manifestation of him, could be considered as a symptom for the so-called primordial sin or patricide, that is diminution of the contribution of patrimonialsm and gerontocratic institutions in power and politics. Seeing him in dream is even more symptomic and reveals the limiting behavior of this symptom. Never before in the history of Iran this feeling of guilt was so high. This overwhelming departure from the older traditional systems for authority finally returns in the form of a revolutionary triumph over a system that had ruled for more than two and half millennium.<\/p>

    Then, the main reason for the persistency of the B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d<\/em> formula may rest in the persistency of the this social pyramid as stationary model of authority which itself rests on some older models. In other words, Sultanism has preserved its all-days connectivity with its older forms of authority such as gerontocrasy and patriarchy and then, It is possible that the persistence of the \u2018old wise man\u2019 figure is just a reflection of a primordial sin or a relict or nostalgia for an older primordial system of governance \u2018patricided\u2019 through this new model.<\/p>

    Before the modern time there was rarely a romantic look into the tribal morality. This romantic look is a modern product of democratic pressures from inside and outside that pushed the Shah to think of a romantic balance between egoism and collectivism. Finding this romantic solution was a very dangerous endeavor that he paid its cost with his crown. He has unconsciously revealed, due his dreams and parallel discourses like that, that he has a very low run for the self-expressive and unique emotional life that a king should follow and with this, he unwillingly added fuel to the primordial tension that exists between a shah and his subjects, to say, the inconsistency that exists between the egoism and collectivism or between the domination and submission. This will for relegation or degrading the huge distance that exists between a king and his subjects is reflected in the title of his book: \u201cMission For My Country\u201d. He positioned himself as a hero as well as a missioner at the very beginning of his book who has drunk water from the bowl of Islamic sainthoods in his dreams and visions. In his faith, he is selected to fight with the fate to serve a better life for his country and people but the way that he has started his book -that is by narrating such ordinary dreams- he has diminished his royal aura in a very unrecoverable way by playing as if he belongs to the masses and has submitted himself to the welfare of his own country through a religious mission that is to sacrifice himself for a higher collective cause in a similar causality that once ruled on the fate of Hazzrat-e Abolfazl[50]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> <\/em>(bringing water for his thirsty people and children and being sacrificed in the way back and so on…). Hence, he has taken a very exaggerated romantic attitude toward his subjects and also through what he meant by the word \u2018mission\u2019. The dreams portrayed him as an ordinary servant simply because he has dreamt like a very ordinary subject. This mission that dressed him in a servant \u2018uniform\u2019 of his own servants and country was a very bad strategic position that finally gave a counter upheaval to his symbolic position as a king.<\/p>

    To sum, in contrast to all these evidences we can still talk about the stereotypical nature of dreams in a Persianate milieu -but not because that a just king should behave according to the rules of Shariah or issues like that, but mostly- because of the way that even the kingly dreams are doomed to be framed in the body of a bigger clich\u00e9d story because a king or sultan is himself entangled in a system of authority that firmly and administratively relates him to an \u2018old wise man\u2019 (gerontocracy for our case in point).<\/p>

    The classification of dreams is a matter of social class<\/p>

    Har kasi la khaw bevina morgh o m\u0101si<\/p>

    Saey agey pawsh\u0101hi<\/p>

    The one who sees a bird or a fish in a dream<\/p>

    His head will reach to the royal [crown]

    \u2014A Kurdish proverb[51]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>

    Now it is time to return back to our first critic on Edgar\u2019s notion on the scriptive nature of the Islamic dreams. he wrote that \u201ca dream should not advocate immoral action as defined by the Quran and the hadiths\u201d (Edgar: 33).Although this notion correctly reflects the stereotypical nature of Islamic dreams through a Reductio ad absurdum <\/em><\/strong>way of logic (borh\u0101n-i kholf<\/em>) but what he wrote as a key criterion to establish the interpretability of a dream is somehow misleading: From one side, it is true that committing an immoral act because of a dream is not a fine excuse for example one cannot say that \u201dI saw Mohammad in my dream and he allowed me to drink alcohol.\u201d But, on the other side, this prohibition should not put a shadow on the importance and meaningfulness of the dreams in which an immoral act is committed. There are many dreams that are quite interpretable in Islam although their content are far immoral (in general to see having forbidden sex i.e. with mother, sister-in-law, animal[52]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> etc. which most of them are interpreted as glad tidings (cf. Ibn-Sirin: 129-130) see also interview #…) the dream of the forefather of Sallahidin Ayoubi<\/em> who saw himself urinating on a holy place was also subjected to interpretation with this positive meaning that one of his grand-sons would become a great conqueror of Islam.<\/p>

    Then Edgar\u2019s criterion for interpretability of a dream could be misleading. As an instant conclusion and in contrast to Edgar\u2019s criterion, the key directive in interpretation of a dream is in the first place the question of \u201cwho has dreamed?\u201d regardless of \u201cWhat has been dreamt?\u201d or if it is compatible with Quran and hadiths and so on\u2026 in fact this is not a first consideration of the dreamer\u2019s modality and state of mind but rather of his\/her status and social class.<\/p>

    The examples of this \u2018rank\u2019 of dreams are many in which the most imaginable tabooed deed in Islam such as shitting in Masjid ol \u1e24ar\u0101m<\/em> is interpretable if just seen by a person from a royal blood. In the hagiographies there are many examples in which the skill of the interpreter is tested by sending a dummy person to the interpreter partly because the true dreamer , mostly a prominent, was likely to remain anonymous as he\/she was ashamed to narrate his\/her dream because of its discreditable content (Schimmel: 50). This is also like the way that the kings used to testify the true oracles by asking them to recite his dream as a testifying precondition of their skillfulness. Just like the stories narrated about the dreams of the kings in the folk stories, there is a long list of these records in Islamic narratology that again, the oldest forms of them are to be found in the dream book of Ibn-i Sirin (ibid). Most of these narratives are added after the time of Ibn-i Sirin into his book as Ibn-i Sirin was a personality from the era of the early Islam but some of these narratives are of some centuries after his time[53]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. This is a very usual task that mostly happened in the written literature of a land in which the oral literature is dominant and in many ways takes its privilege and override on the written literature. This fact that these dreams are mostly collected in Ibn-i Sirin\u2019s dream-book is for the discussions of this book of the highest importance because his book is almost the only book of dreams used in Kurdistan with a very big popularity and as we will see in these records, the issue of blood is addressed as the key point of interpretation and this at least proves that our insistence on blood concerns in the last was not pointless and we were not disoriented from our main topic. Anyway, most of this kind of dreams contain an immoral part that could not be seen by a servant or a person of a lesser blood.<\/p>

    In the dreams No. 20, 46, 144, 176 in the Roman version of Ibn-i Sirin\u2019s book (Brackertz: 33, 45, 106, 139 f.) the dreams are recognized as the dream of a \u2018master\u2019 and not of the \u2018servant\u2019 who came originally to the interpreter simply because his\/her master were ashamed of the dream-content. All of the dreams of this kind have a shameful, formidable or snobbish part regarding the public morality and this is exactly the code that guides a skilful interpreter from a fake down-scale dreamer to the true visitor of the dream of a noble royal blood or from someone with a \u201cblood of a caliph\u201d.<\/p>

    In dream no. 46 the fake person said that I saw in my dream that I drank all the water of Tigris out. Ibn-i Sirin told him that you will see your master, the true dreamer of this dream, dead when go back to him. A dream that again links water with death and power.<\/p>

    In dream no. 20, the Khalife saw all of his hair fallen except his pubic hairs.<\/p>

    In dream No. 46 Ma\u02bemun the caliph saw himself urinating in two and shitting in the two other corners of the holy place of magh\u0101m-i Ibr\u0101him<\/em> in Mecca. Again and because of this sinful dream he shamed to ask ibn-i Sirin by himself for its interpretation and hence he sent a dummy person to him and Ibn-i Sirin answered that this dream has no interpretation because the blood of this person was not of a caliph. First when Ma\u02bemun came to him, he revealed the true meaning of the dream that was a dream of succession: Two from his sons would become his succession of throne. The same structure of narrative is believed to be happened for the forefather of \u1e63al\u0101\u1e25 ol-Din Ayoubi<\/em> the Kurd warrior of Islamic army in the middle centuries. This time, as described before, the sinful deed was urinating on a holy place that again was interpreted as a dream of successful succession of his sons (Langner: 76 f.). Right after recounting the story-line of this dream Barbara Langner has affiliated it with its interpretation according to Ibn-i Sirin\u2019s book of dream. An explanation that accords with historical facts and records. She also explains the way that we are confronting a master pattern of allegorical dreams that is ever reappeared in Muslim\u2019s tradition of dream interpretation from the 3rd<\/sup> to the 10th<\/sup> century AD which at least in the form that they are represented or perfomed (Darbietung) has rarely changed in the course of time. She also refers all of the interpretations back to Ibn-i Sirin as the father of the art of dream interpretation in Arabic literature (Langner: 77 see also Fahd: 312)<\/p>

    The same pattern of narrativity with a very sinful deeds (grubbing out the bones of the Prophet from his grave) is also detectable among the old hagiographies of the arch sheikh and Imam, abu Hanifa<\/em> the initiator of \u1e25anafi<\/em> school of Suniis ( see Ta\u1e0fkirat ol-Oliy\u0101 of Attar under Abou Hanifa, cf. new version of this story narrated by the Turk author Cemel Anadol via Schimmel: 51). Interestingly the interpreter of this dream is again Ibn-i Sirin.<\/p>

    Then as we see in a more or less similar formulation of \u00c9mile Durkheim<\/a> (Religion is society worshiping itself) \u201ca sinful dream is society\u2019s pyramid reconfirming itself\u201d. Through a sinful dream the social classes of a society will found an extra chance to reconfirm itself and to hold its ground. Just like the daytime, the world of dream is stratified in which just the class of privileged are allowed to do something privileged and subversive. To intrude the issues of class in the Oriental dreams is perhaps something overlooked in the former categorizations done for the Oriental dreams. In Oriental societies at least in those that categorized as \u2018water monopoly empire\u2019 or \u2018hydraulic states[54]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>\u2019 the pyramid of the society is the most visible thing around. So visible and concrete that one may forget it in its abundance. In CHAPTER 1-2 of my dissertation under the title of \u0100B (=water), it was shown how the canals of water (Ghan\u0101t<\/em>) sketch the irreversible lines of power that flows from those who have control on water to their subjects. This visible reified form of pyramid has even reproduced its visibility among the dervishes in many way and aspects. For example on the Shajare<\/em> hanged on the wall or even in the arrangement of the tea glasses on the tray and in the tea time between two parts of majlisi<\/em> sam\u0101\u02bf <\/em>or zikr<\/em> . This tray of teas for example is an objective form of the hierarchical relation between a sheikh and his murids<\/em> so that the tea of the sheikh is on the top of other glasses with a saucer and the other tea glasses which symbolize the murids are set equally underneath without saucer.<\/p>

    Then and parallel to the omnipresent appearance of the society\u2019s pyramid, the categorization of dreams constructs itself in two major classes:<\/p>

    1. The subjective dreams of the rulers, kings, sheikhs and the poets who as a result of their occupation are more free to see and express what they see perhaps because of mutual bribery that the language (and literature as its fruit) and the political power usually give to each other. (This is the known issue of how the \u2018words of power\u2019 uses the \u2018power of words\u2019 and all the discussions of the Frankfort school that every kind of discourse is power-oriented in essential and so on\u2026)It might be helping to denote that the word for literature in Persian is adabiy\u0101t<\/em> which literally means morality which reflects the author\u2019s authority on morality.<\/li>
    2. Ordinary dreams of the ordinary people and of the king\u2019s subjects in which every subjective content would be automatically and tacitly censored because they found rarely an ear[55]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/li><\/ol>

      For both of these classes of \u2018castellated\u2019 and \u2018castrated\u2019 dreams, seeing an authentic \u2018true\u2019 dream is a space for \u201csubject formation\u201d: A king enjoys this space to revitalize his \u2018temper\u2019 and ego by probing the content of his subjective mind and subjecting his crazy dreams -with immoral contents- to interpretation and on the other hand an ordinary \u2018subject\u2019 is allowed to use this space for the formation of that very \u201cmoral subject\u201d that he\/she was before (See Butler, 2005).<\/p>

      In the same manner, there are stereotypical stories about the poets who saw their next work or masterpiece first in a dream. In fact the poets like N\u0101li<\/em> are somehow allowed to see subjective dreams like a despot king and there is no wonder to see these two interrelated as the (will of) power will always to hide itself under the cloak of beautiful words ( See the book of Koschorke & Kaminskig (2011), \u2018Despoten dichten\u2019 on the ontological relation between despotism and poetry and accordingly the relation between the autocrats and authors \u2026).<\/p>

      Then the key directive that decides the mode of interpretation is the social class of the dreamer which automatically determines the narrative structure that he should take for the dream. It should pass to the suite of legitimated forms established for the subjects. In short: Seeing a fully subjective crazy dream is allowed for everyone but they are interpretable just when seen by a ruler that is one who is able to make his \u2018temporality\u2019 into \u2018historicity\u2019.<\/p>

      The differences between the subjective dreams of a king (and poets with some level of caution) and his subjects could be summarized in a table like this[56]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>:<\/p>
      King<\/strong><\/td>Subjects<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
      True Selfhood<\/td>False Selves<\/td><\/tr>
      Free<\/td>Automatic<\/td><\/tr>
      Full<\/td>Empty<\/td><\/tr>
      Authentic<\/td>Fake\/Authentic<\/td><\/tr>
      Inward communication<\/td>Inward\/outward communication<\/td><\/tr>
      Suspends to something more fundamental than usual system of symbolizations<\/td>Suspends on the ordinary symbolizations of experience<\/td><\/tr>
      Casual<\/td>Formal<\/td><\/tr>
      Spontaneous<\/td>Structured<\/td><\/tr>
      Original<\/td>Imitative<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

      The books of interpretation: the handbook for maintenance of the automated mind of a subject<\/p>

      Kh\u0101b-I Khargoush-I bad.andish to khosh chand\u0101nast<\/em><\/p>

      Ke Ibn-I Sirin-I gha\u1e0d\u0101 dam nazanad az ta\u02bewil<\/em><\/p>

      The Rabitt-like sleep\/dream of your enemy (allegory of its unawareness) is so deep<\/p>

      That there is no need for Ibn-i Sirin (allegory of the interpreter) of the decreed (gha\u1e0d\u0101) to give an interpretation for it.<\/p>

      \u2014Anvari (from Anjoman-\u0101r\u0101yi N\u0101\u1e63eri)<\/p>

      The main discussion of this long essay was about the reflection of the social classes in the interpretative tradition of dreams in an Islamic context and also on the direct, firm and \u2018tit for tat\u2019 relation that exists between the appearance of a \u201cthing\u201d in a dream and what it symbolizes according to Quran and hadiths. This makes the methods taken for the interpretation of dreams very literal, scriptural and straightforward so that the interpreter directly defines the meaning of the dream according to the text of Quran and hadiths, irrespective of the way that the dreamer him\/herself may think about it. It is mostly supposed that the dreamer is also a religious \u2018believer\u2019 otherwise it does not make sense to come to a dream expert in Islamic tradition. To be a believer and Muslim means to be obedient to the Law of Islam. This is the key point that makes the interpretation of a dream possible and authentic mostly irrespective of its dreamer as an individual. The dreamer as a Muslim- and in appropriation to his\/her faith and devotion to Quran and Islam- has already the key pattern of his\/her dream as a \u2018rebus\u2019 in his\/her mind or unconsciousness and the duty of the interpreter is to relocate every \u2018flesh\u2019 of this riddle with its proper \u2018word\u2019 and every \u2018thing\u2019 with its \u2018name\u2019. This allocation takes place in accordance to the sacred script and the dream look up tables which itself is organized in accordance to the Islamic scripts. Then all the dreams which are offshoot of humanistic individuality and subjective individualistic wishes (haw\u0101hay-i nafs\u0101n\u012b<\/em>) would be automatically \u2018foreclosed\u2019 or glossed over. This kind of filtering bestowed this tradition of interpretation a stereotypical feature. Lambreaux has named and formulated this feature under the term \u2018Homogeneity and Imitation\u2019 both in the contours and contents of the early Muslim oneirocritic tradition as the characterization of the Muslim manuscript collection and system of Islamic system of dream interpretation. (see Lambreaux: 79 ff.). Then, one has every reason to talk of a single tradition of dream interpretation and to say that all of dream manuals are interpreted in largely the same fashion.<\/p>

      This stereotypicallity has found another name in the work of I. R. Edgar :\u201dstraightforwardness\u201d. This is what that wonders him when he make a comparison between Oriental and Occidental approach (which to his argumentations is based on a more democratized methods without established interpretations) for understanding the message of a dream in many parts of his book i.e. :<\/p>

      A core difference I have found between Islamic and Western dream theories is in the tension between authoritative and facilitative interpretations. Islamic dream interpreters tend to tell the believer what the dream means based on their understanding of the Quran and the hadiths, which are perceived to contain all that humans need to know to live well, while certain Western dream interpretative traditions focus on facilitating the dreamer as an expert on his\/her dreams. (Edgar: 117-118)<\/p>

      All the discussions above on the stereotypicallity , homogeneity and straightforwardness are in parallel to the scriptural nature dream manuals in a Persianate context and justifies the importance of a preliminary survey in the Persianate religious books. Now it is time to investigate that how the content of these dream manuals -which are supposed to be based on their understanding of the Quran and the hadiths- are organized in respect to the older religious scriptures[57]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. Are all of them extracted from Quranic texts? Or pre-Islamic culture of dreams have also a great contribution in this system of interpretation? The answer that is found here could be very astonishing which proves that how deeply these traditions are defined through their local roots. The main focus here is taken on the most famous dream in the world of Islam: Mi\u02bfr\u0101j<\/em> or the night dream of Mohmmad in which he has travelled from Mecca to Juraselem and from there on to heaven and again from there on back to Mecca through the same way and in fact all of this trans-cosmical voyage in a snap of a lid. This night journey of the Prophet is the most important night among the Kurds and just like the birthday of the prophet is celebrated every year (see films #…and \u2026, interviews#…,#…).<\/p>

      By our survey in the structure of this meta-narrative, it will be shown that it obeys the grammatical rule of b\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d and every dream of the followers of Mohammad is more or less an uneven copy of this narrative. B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d is the most common (but not the only) formula that could be traced both in the most conventional dreams and meanwhile in the major parts of Iranian and accordingly Kurdish mythology and literature and historical accounts. This formula relates the terms of water and an \u201cold wise man\u201d archetype with a demand(niy\u0101z<\/em>) or a wish which is symbolized with water. Through the discussions of the first part of my dissertation there is a plausible geographic and technical determination that is responsible for the formation of this formula. The role of this deterministic agents will be supported by the following survey in which it will be shown that the bonded structure between these three issues is constructed far before Islam and beyond the Islamic issues: The narratology of the Kurdish dreams is rooted and derived mainly from pre-islamic Zoroastrian scripts.<\/p>

      In contrast to the functional methodology that shadows on the classifications done before on the dreams in a Persianate context, the method of this work -as explained in the first part- is more structural in this sense that it recognizes the common syntactical structures in these dreams that are shared in all five categories done by Grunebaum. In other words the syntax of a dream is independent from the intentions of its dreamer and the dreamer, -notwithstanding of her\/his intentions- is obligated (mostly unconsciously) to forecast her\/his dream in such a narrative form that is parallel to an authorized meta-narrative. This self-consistency of the dreams makes it impossible to evaluate their truth value from their overt content and hence the real intentions of the dreamer remains always hidden. Although this book retains its focus on just one of these syntactical forms namely \u2018B\u0101b\u0101 \u0101b d\u0101d\u2019. This formula of course is not the only formula of a huge amount of dream material but it is perhaps the most used and useful formula for revealing the hidden interconnectivity between those common elements in different narratives that may look very distinct from each other at the first look.<\/p>

      Hence, the approach of this work is towards the syntax or \u201cgenerative grammar\u201d of the dreams to classify the superabundant dream material while most of the other approaches are more or less have focused their functional look on the content of the dreams. This radical turn of focus from \u201cwhat it says\u201d toward \u201cHow it says\u201d is very fundamental and determines a minimum methodology of their interpretation and more importantly a new system for their classification.<\/p>

      According to this argumentation an \u2018 Islamic Kurdish dream\u2019 is not free from its context and -although it \u2018speaks\u2019 with Islamic words but- obeys the same syntax of dreams and narratives of the pre-Islamic religious books that itself has a foot in geographical determinism and the water culture of the region, discussed in the first part of the dissertation. It is very rare if not impossible to find a historical record or religious book in a Persianate society without a dream narrative. A full historical review of these narratives is surely out of the scope of this thesis.<\/p>

      This research could be continied by revisiting the revitalization and rebirth of the pre-Islamic narrative forms in the Islamic dream narratives would be examined and to do this it will start its survey from a short review of the dreams accounted in the pre-Islamic religious books such as Avest\u0101, Ardavir\u0101f-n\u0101me, K\u0101rn\u0101me Ardeshir-i B\u0101bak\u0101n, Zand va Houman Yashan. <\/em><\/p>

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      1. Esmaeilpour Ghoochani, Iraj\u00a0(2017): B\u0101b\u0101 \u0100b D\u0101d: The phenomenology of sainthood in the culture of dreams in kurdistan with an emphasis on sufis of q\u0101derie brotherhood. Dissertation, LMU M\u00fcnchen: Fakult\u00e4t f\u00fcr Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft. URL: https:\/\/edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de\/21528\/ \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      2. \u201cSymbolic function<\/em>\u201d is a term suggested by Levi- Strauss in his thesis on The Elementrary Structures of Kinship <\/em>in 1947 and can be lightly taken as \u201cthe name of the Father\u201d in the terminology of Lacan. Lacan inspired from Levi-Strauss argues that what organizes the imaginary register [accordingly the structure of unconsciousness]are the rules of symbolic function<\/em>, rather than the actual father( Zafiropoulos & Holland: 18). \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      3. \u201cSymbolic order<\/em>\u201d is another Lacanian concept which is equivalent to Levi-Strauss\u2019s \u201corder of culture<\/em>\u201d mediated through\/in language. The unconscious<\/a> is the discourse of the \u201cOther<\/em>\u201d and thus belongs to the symbolic order (\u201cother\u201d with capital O is Lacan\u2019s short writing for \u201cthe outer world<\/em>\u201d). A dream-narrative is doubly connected to this realm as it belongs both to unconsciousness and language. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      4. In the 20th anecdote of the 5th chapter of Golist\u0101n of the famous poet Saad\u012b there is the story of the judge of Hamed\u0101n who was arrested in his bed when he was drunk and committing sodomy with a young boy. Each of these crimes suffice an execution. The Sultan decided to throw him down from a high building but the judge asked for a last defense which was kindly accepted. He asked the Sultan why should I ever be thrown down? The Sultan answered to draw the others a lesson. The Judge replied but I am not the only who has committed this kind of crimes, then, why you do not throw some other people to draw me a lesson. Afterward the Sultan came into laugh and forgave him. Moreover, this irrational character of judgment is exemplified in its best in the story of Sult\u0101n Mahmoud and the thieves in the Mathnav\u012b of Rum\u012b (vol. VI, part 89) in which the Sult\u0101n was strolling alone and came across a band of thieves and said \u201c I am one of you.\u201d.They started telling in what talent each of them is possessed. \u201c What is your talent?\u201d asked him one of the thieves and the Sult\u0101n replied:\u201d My talent lies in my beard. Thanks to my beard, criminals are freed from punishment.\u201d At the last scene of the story in which all of the thieves are arrested the one who recognized their companion as the King sat on the throne said that \u201cThe life of us all is now hanged on a slight wigwag of your beard\u201d an allegory for the Sult\u0101n\u2019s absolute power and meanwhile the irrational nature of his judgment. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      5. This poem is written by Saw\u0101reh \u02beIli-kh\u0101niz\u0101deh<\/em> , a poem that its manifest-like form is mostly compared with the poem of Fes\u0101ne<\/em> of Nim\u0101 Youshij<\/em> the father of Persian modern poetry. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      6. \u2018A dream to come true\u2019 is an expression that usually used for the fulfillment of a wish but it is used here as an expression for those visions that seen in a dream and afterward they become realized that is, seen to be happen in day-time. In the theoretical explanations and also in the film #2, it is explained and also seen that how a \u2018good dream\u2019 is assigned to those dreams that are able to realize themselves in the day-time notwithstanding of its content and its \u2018pleasure-value\u2019. This \u2018happening\u2019 itself is the fulfillment of an implicit wish for being connected to the realm of occult (gheyb<\/em>) in which every happening in this world is decreed. Then when a dream \u2018happens\u2019 it simply signifies that its dreamer is in a direct connection with the realm of truth (\u02bf\u0101lam-I \u1e25aghighat<\/em>). This justifies the usage of the word r\u0101st<\/em> which literally means \u2018true\u2019. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      7. It is known from Claude E. Schannon the initiator of information theory in mathematics and telecommunication engineering that information is the negative reciprocal value of probability. This simple quote needs a lot of mathematical derivations (for example see Schannon : 390 f.) but for instance when someone says in a sunny day that there would be a storm in just half an hour, perhaps nobody believes it because it contains too much information. This amount of information should be heard or believed just from a well-informed personality.

        \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      8. The \u2018daughter of Karjou\u2019: Moloud Kh\u0101n #2; part2; Scene3; Min: 03:45\u201d- 06:00\u201d); in: Film: Moloud Kh\u0101n (The Panegyrist) Filmed and Directed by Iradj Esmailpour Ghucahnai; Filmed in spring of 2007 (1386 SH)

        URLs:<\/p>

        Moloud Kh\u0101n #1; part1; URL: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dQNqmjxL05s<\/p>

        Moloud Kh\u0101n #1; part2; URL: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SFuYQ4nRAj8<\/p>

        Moloud Kh\u0101n #2; part1; URL: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5XS-0KJoDc4<\/p>

        Moloud Kh\u0101n #2; part2; URL: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=S4PZE9u0on8<\/p>

        Moloud Kh\u0101n #2; part3; URL: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BPBmoi15b-E \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      9. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research, Band 1, Albert J. et al, Sage publication, 2010, p. 969, under \u2018Webs of Significance\u2019. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      10. These narrative forms go in parallel with the written literature of religious books that the origin of just one of them that is mi\u02bfr\u0101j-n\u0101me<\/em> could be genealogically traced. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      11. Just like a oral narrative that after a long usage changes its original meaning, this famous quote from Geertz has also ironically lost its \u2018tendentious commentaries\u2019 in the term of a long use through other anthropologists to be able to be read in its final abstract and perhaps more meaningful form. The Original text was this: \u201cDoing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of \u201cconstruct a reading of\u201d) a manuscript- foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries, but written not in conventionalized graphs of sound but in transient examples of shaped behavior.\u201d<\/em> (Geertz, 1973: 10) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      12. In other words it is interpretable just like a genuine dream. What is said in the form of a faked dream has the same phenomenological effects of the authentic one and similarly reflects a decreed fact that would be \u2018eventized\u2019 as fate in the future: \u201cDer Traum folgt dem Mund\u201d. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      13. \u2018 Flesh\u2019 and \u2018word\u2019 and their interrelation are two terms usedin this book as theoretical tools for a better description of the complex relation between signified and signifier in a Muslim Persianate context and language fully described in the theoretical part. For instance, with \u2018flesh\u2019 is hinted here mostly to materialistic aspect of the unconsciousness like what the literary critic Barbara Johnston has addressed it as a transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity and discussed all over in his book (see Johnson 2008). Johnson emphasised on the Lacan\u2019s interest in materiality (rather than meaning) by quoting from Lacan: \u201cIf you open a book of Freud, and particularly those books which are properly about the unconscious, you can be absolutely sure- it is not a probability but a certitude- to fall on a page where it is not only a question of words- naturally in a book there are many words, many printed words- but words which are the object through which one seeks for a way to handle the unconscious. Not even the meaning of the words, but words in their flesh, in their material aspect.<\/em>\u201d(Lacan 1970, 187 via Johnson) Hence Unconscious and language are both some structures built of signifiers which in turn are \u201cindeed a special sort of matter, an incarnate form of material being\u201d (SXIV<\/em> 5\/10\/67). As a matter of simplicity I have used the word \u2018flesh\u2019 to designate this \u2018special sort of matter\u2019. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      14. To read more about \u02bf\u0101lam-i \u02beamr<\/em> and \u02bf\u0101lam-i khalgh<\/em> see:

        Joudi, Seyid Zabih-ollah: \u201c\u02bf\u0101lam-i \u02beamr wa \u02bf\u0101lam-i khalgh dar ghor\u0101n-i Karim<\/em>\u201d; in the Journal of Golist\u0101n-i Ghor\u0101n, No. 113, 2002 (1381), pp:40-41.<\/p>

        Jafari, Jaghoub: \u201c Ma\u02bf\u0101ref-i Ghor\u0101ni: \u02bf\u0101lam-I khalgh wa \u02beamr<\/em>\u201d; in: Darsh\u0101y-i az maktab-i Islam, No. 595, Autumn 2010 (1389), pp:17-22.<\/p>

        Beheshti, Mohammad: \u201c Ta\u02bfamoli bar \u02bf\u0100lam-i Khalgh wa \u02bf\u0100lam-i \u02beAmr<\/em>\u201d; in the Journal of Golist\u0101n-i Ghor\u0101n, No. 88, Autumn 2001 (1380), pp: 17-21.<\/p>

        Also in:<\/p>

        Hoseyni Beheshti, Seyid Mohammad: \u201c\u0100lam-i Khalgh wa \u02bf\u0100lam-i \u02beAmr<\/em>\u201d; In the Journal of Maktab-i Tashayo\u02bf, No. 9, Spring 1962 (1341), pp: 242-261. \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      15. Here Rumi alludes to one of the miracle of Moses whose staff turned into a snake when he throw it down on the floor. It is hinted to this miracle in many verses in Quran including this one: \u201cAnd [he was told], “Throw down your staff.” But when he saw it writhing as if it was a snake, he turned in flight and did not return. [ Allah said], “O Moses, approach and fear not. Indeed, you are of the secure<\/em>.\u201d (28:31) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      16. Perhaps this philosophical background and knowledge is the reason behind the great sympathy that the Iranian intellectuals found with the famous quote of Heidegger that states \u201cLanguage is the house of being\u201d [Die Sprache ist das Haus des Seins<\/em>] in his \u201cletter to humanism \u201c (1949). \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      17. As it is the main discussion of this article, this is valid not valid for the kings and the sheikhs as it is believed that they are free from personal needs and temptations. The king is the shadow of the God (\u1e93il ol-l\u0101h<\/em>) and a sheikh is also supposed to be annihilated in God (fan\u0101 fi-l\u0101h<\/em>). A poet is also celebrated because of its power on the words. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      18. Almost all the Sufis are in a consensus that killing of the nafs<\/em> (koshtan-i nafs<\/em>) is impossible. Instead they try to degrade and enervate or as it is used to say to break it (shekastan-i nafs<\/em>) or to tame it (r\u0101m kardan-i nafs<\/em>). A visual representation of this taming is findable in the painted picture of Sheikh \u02bfAbdol-Gh\u0101der-i Gil\u0101ni<\/em> the founder of Gh\u0101derie<\/em> brotherhood in the last chapter and before the Epilouge, in which a lion is kneeled in front of his feet (Esmaeilpour, 223). The lion symbolizes his nafs<\/em> that -regardless of its enormous power- is fully under his control.

        Rumi, instead, used the metaphor of a snake or a dragon for the ego or nafs. <\/em>In the third book of Mathnavi he narrates the story of a \u201csnake catcher\u201d (metaphor for an unripe Sufi) who brought a dormant dragon (nafs<\/em>)out from a cold mountain to the warm Baghdad. The sun of Baghdad activates the dragon and devours the snake-catcher. Rumi concludes: Nafs \/ Az ghame bi \u0101lati afsorde ast\u2026which reads: Nafs is a dragon asleep, but not dead,\/ With the right weapon will leave the bed\/\u2026\/The dragon remain dormant in the cold;\/Keep him off the sun and the warm wind.\/If he is sleeping or down, he is tame;\/As he wakes up, you are his game.\/\u2026\/As the hot sun brings out the lust,\/The inner bat will venture out.\/Venture a holy war (Jihad) and kill him fast\/ You will see your freedom at last. (Rumi , Mathnavi, book III, verses 1053 ff. via Aghevli: 78)<\/p>

        \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      19. It is not accidental that Rumi uses the word sokhan<\/em> (speech) here in this verse as the \u2018voice\u2019 of love (= God in Sufis utterance) that is to be reflected in a mirror which is, above all, an optical device. This and many other materials that are partly discussed in this essay, support the general primacy of \u2018voice\u2019 on \u2018image\u2019 -and accordingly the \u2018word\u2019 on \u2018flesh\u2019- in the Islamic philosophy and particularly in the Sufis system of thought. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      20. Despot or Jab\u0101r is one of the names of Allah (\u02beasm\u0101<\/em>\u02be ol-lah<\/em>) in Islamic philosophy and mindset for example Allah is attributed as despot or jab\u0101r<\/em> in the verse 59:23 of Quran. The word Sult\u0101n<\/em> is also used in many places in Quran as authority which mostly reflected back to God. Then this compare is not extraneous from the issue. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      21. There is a very good example of the citational scriptural nature of dreams from the time of Abbasids which is taken by Anna Marie Schimmel also as an example of the art of positive interpretation of the Muslim interpreters (Schimmel: 59). The Caliph al-Mahdi saw his face turned black in his dream and this made him so upset as it is commonly believed that the black color alludes the face of the sinners and accursed peoples in the day of final judgment (youm<\/em> ol<\/em>–ghiy\u0101mah<\/em>) But Kerm\u0101ni<\/em> turned this bad omen into a good one by relating it to the verse 16:58 of Quran:

        \u201cAnd when one of them is informed of [the birth of] a female<\/a>, his face becomes dark, and he suppresses grief.\u201d<\/p>

        Then, the true interpretation was that the caliph will happily find a new daughter. \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      22. Then one can allegorically say that a mo\u02bfabir<\/em> is analogous to a midwife who prevents the developmental problems of a breech birth (in which the baby enters the pelvis with the buttocks<\/a> or feet<\/a> first, as opposed to the normal head-first presentation<\/a>) by turning the position of the fetus baby before its birth. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      23. For example Barbara Langner in her book has used the same kind of categorization for the dreams of agyptians in Mamlukian resources (that is: pers\u00f6nlische Botschaften, pers\u00f6nlische Weissagungen, eine politische Botschaft, politische Weissagungen, Geheimnisvolle Stimmen) (Langner: 66-89) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      24. The language of this kind of dreams that lack a high amount of subjective dimension and follow the synopsis of popular religious dream narratives is \u2018empty\u2019. (See also the notions on Ta<\/em>\u02bf\u0101rof<\/em> and the influence of Iranian bureaucratic literature and the impress of the state power on language in the first part). In a society in which personal identity and individuality is not celebrated narrating an overstated dream is not normative and would be considered as a sign of ambitious intensions. Although every dream-story itself is an ego-document but this uncelebrated ego should be camouflaged in the empty language of ever-known forms of narrativity. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      25. This is a name that Clifford Geertz has given to his method in his book \u201cThe Interpretation of Cultures\u201d (1973) for ethnography by which, the understanding of a human behavior is not apart from its context and this calls for many kinds of descriptions including \u2018literary criticism\u2019 or \u2018new historicism\u2019 that is also tried to be done here. In the first part of this book it was explained that how this attempt confronts despair as most of the dreams narrated by the interviewees, irrespective of the social or personal function, obey the same syntax and grammar of utterance. The good news was that this homogeneous material, makes statistical efforts and analysis effortless but on the other hand it makes the ethnographical effort on them of an effort at \u201cthick description\u201d. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      26. Narrated Abu Huraira: I heard the Prophet saying, “Whoever sees me in a dream will see me in his wakefulness, and Satan cannot imitate me in shape.” Abu ‘Abdullah said, “Ibn-i Sirin said, ‘Only if he sees the Prophet in his (real) shape.'” (Bukhari<\/a> \/Volume 9, Book 87\/Hadith no. <\/strong>122)<\/strong> \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      27. The only difference between this \u2018objective collective unconsciousness\u2019 discussed here with the Jungian mere \u2018collective unconsciousness\u2019 is that the archaic aspect of this unconsciousness is not remained restricted to the archetypes (universal storehouse of psychic contents) but also traceable in the archaic words of the language. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      28. Here initiates an interesting conflict between what everyone wants to experience and what the doctrine of a despotic king \u2013colored with religious dogmas- says one should experience. The language as the common medium of communication starts to be loaded under the steady pressure of this conflict. This \u2018loading of language\u2019 refers to a literalization of language, a process that according to Lifton makes a God out of the words and images but this loading is a two-sided process. From the other side, the poetry comes to fixate a Prometheus rebel inside the words .Analogous to what a poet like Hafiz has done with the Iranian structure of mind and unconsciousness through popularization of the words used among the Sufis as a fellowship of utterance and meanwhile through an ultimate fixation of the meaning of these words in their most opposite meanings that they had among the popular that is generating new primal words. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      29. For example its defensive function to hide and protect the True Self or at its healthiest to search for conditions which will make it possible for the True Self to come into its own and so on… (See Winnicott: 142-143) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      30. This common phenomenal ground for the ambiguity of these different genres of speeches is comparable to what Heidegger discussed in \u00a735 under \u201cthe Idle talk\u201d \u201cDas Gerede\u201d. The effect of idle chatter is to close us off within the conventional (cf. Kaelin: 111). \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      31. The long-term effect of a despotic state have bred a language with high potential for hiding the true intention of its speaker through wrapping it in the hermeneutics and the potential of words for metonymical interpretation. For instance, it is still a open question that if Hafiz ever drinks alcohol or he meant something spiritual by using the words like wine. Rumi also writes:\u062e\u0627\u0645\u0648\u0634 \u0648 \u0646\u0627\u0645 \u0628\u0627\u062f\u0647 \u0645\u06af\u0648 \u067e\u06cc\u0634 \u0645\u0631\u062f \u062e\u0627\u0645\/\/\u0686\u0648\u0646 \u062e\u0627\u0637\u0631\u0634 \u0628\u0647 \u0628\u0627\u062f\u0647 \u06cc \u0628\u062f \u0646\u0627\u0645 \u0645\u06cc \u0631\u0648\u062f. Behold and do not mention the name of Wine in front of an unaccustomed man\/Because his mind will associate it with the ignominious wine. <\/em>This potential for metonymy is absolute that is, it stands not to this ability of seeing \u201cthis as that\u201d but rather the ability of interpreting this as its opposite. All these is discussed once in the first part by the use of Wittgenstein\u2019s duck-rabbit<\/em> and the related theories on language and plays. In the so-called part it was explained that this feature of Persianate languages is because of the particular and absolute relation between signified and signifier (lack of slippage or paradigmatic degree of freedom) so that the chain of signifier is fixed and localized above the level of signified. This direct indexical relation between a symbol and its meaning is perhaps what R. Edgar has found \u2018authoritative\u2019 in Islamic dream theories (Edgar: 117-118). This authority is rooted in Shariah<\/em> (Law and Religion) as the \u2018words of the power \u2018. Then, the only possible degree of freedom to talk subversive lies in the in-built capacity of the words themselves that is in the metonymical \u2018power of the words\u2019 for being taken as their opposite. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      32. This epigraph is a verse that is usually used in Iranian high schools to teach the students about san\u02bfat-i \u02beih\u0101m<\/em> or the technique of writing with suggestiveness in Persian poetry. Its again about the Kurdish legend of Shirin<\/em> and Farh\u0101d<\/em>, two beloved that a synopsis of their story was told in the dissertation. The word Shirin<\/em> and kh\u0101b<\/em> have both two parallel meanings. The word kh\u0101b<\/em> could stand for both \u2018dream\u2019 and \u2018sleep\u2019. Shirin<\/em> is also the name of Farh\u0101d\u2019s<\/em> beloved but meanwhile means sweet. Then it is quite unclear if Farh\u0101d has been dropped in a deep sweet sleep because he was tired of digging the mountain (that could be interpreted as his tiredness of love because in the story, to dig a channel in the mountain was the only way toreach his beloved, Shirin<\/em>) or he is paced in the dream of his beloved (Shirin). Then again two opposite meanings is considerable for this verse, one meaning states for a lover who is finally get tired of doing such a hard duty for his beloved and meanwhile it marks Farhad<\/em> as a faithful lover who finally meets his beloved in a dream. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      33. In 50s Lacan began to re-read Freud’s works in relation to linguistics, ethnology<\/a>, and topology<\/a>. “The return to Freud” is the name given to this studies reflected first in his report “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis,” \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      34. The effect of the obscene appearance of unconsciousness in the language on the conscience of its speakers is fascinating. The abundance of primal words in Iranian languages contradicts the conscious sense for the use of the words – and contradictive meanings that they may imply- which is to be a kind of conscience. The society is automatically blinded from the inner life of a speaking subject then, the subject can say numerous lies without any blame of conscience because the conscience is already out, objectively dwelling in the language. Whenever we choose the words correctly and carefully, the language will automatically say big lies for us without any danger for guilt or surplus. Having this kind of command on language is known as rendi<\/em> and in fact it is a very positive attribute and in Iranian literature is exemplified in its best in the character of Hafiz (Hafizi-rind<\/em>). What that could be interpreted for the people of the other cultures as a lie is considered by the native speakers of Iranian languages as rendi<\/em>. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      35. The aesthetic function of primal words should not be overlooked here. It is under this sense of beauty that the two opposites could ever tame in a word. We have come to this in a full chapter and in our review from Roger Caillois\u2019s stances on camouflage in his seminal article \u201cMimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia\u201d (part4, chapter 4). He argues that \u201cassimilation to space\u201d is necessarily accompanied by a decline in the feeling of personality and life but meanwhile is accompanied with a strange sense of beauty and aesthetics. Through this \u2018instinct\u2019, life takes a step backwards as the insect turns into leafs(planet) or crabs into stones to gain something more than revival because \u2013regardless how skillfully is their camouflaging tricks- they are still likely to be eaten by their foes. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      36. The philosophical frame in which the name or \u02beism is related with a thing and the way that it should be interpreted to become in an authentic relation with the realm of occult (gheyb) or the \u2018other side\u2019 is described by Rumi in the first volume of Mathnavi : (here is an AI generated translation in English. Another translation could be brought here (to be find in Mojaddadi: 78-80)): The progenitor of mankind, who broadened the knowledge of names \\ His knowledge fills countless veins, each one \\ The name of each thing is just as that thing is \\ Until the end of its essence, he extends his hand \\ Whatever title was given does not change \\ The one who gives it as such is never lazy \\ Whoever is a believer first sees as such \\ And whoever is a disbeliever appears last \\ As for the name of each thing, you hear it from the one who knows \\ Listen to the secret of the knowledge of names \\ The name of each thing reveals itself to us \\ The name of each thing holds its secret with the Creator \\ To Moses, the name of the stick was a rod \\ But with the Creator, its name was a serpent \\ The name of the idolater was given \\ Yet in the realm of existence, he was a believer \\ That which near us is called \u201cI\u201d \\ Before the Truth, this name is a mask for \u201cme\u201d \\ A form existed in me within non-existence \\ Before the Truth, it was neither more nor less \\ The essence of this became our true name \\ In the presence of the One who is our end \\ For the man, a name is given at the end \\ Not for that which is borrowed and named \\ When Adam’s eye saw with pure light \\ His soul and the essence of names became apparent \\ When the angels of the divine light fell upon him \\ He prostrated and rushed towards service \\ This praise of Adam that I mention \\ Is insufficient even if counted until Resurrection \\ He knew all, and when his fate arrived \\ Knowledge became a prohibition, leading him to error \\ How strange, that prohibition was for the sake of non-permission \\ Or perhaps it was a misinterpretation and delusion \\ When interpretation gained preference in his heart \\ His nature ran bewildered toward wheat \\ When the gardener stepped on a thorn \\ The thief found the opportunity and took the goods \\ When he recovered from bewilderment and returned to the path \\ He saw that the thief had taken his goods from the workshop \\ He said, \u201cOur Lord, indeed we have wronged,\u201d and sighed \\ Which means darkness approached, and the path was lost \\ Then fate was a cloud that covered the sun \\ A lion and serpent, reduced to a mouse through it \\ If at times I do not see the trap of fate \\ I am not the only one, ignorant of its command \\ Oh, how fortunate is the one who took up good deeds \\ He put aside strength and took the path of humility \\ Though fate may cover like darkness of night \\ Still, fate ultimately will grasp you \\ If fate attempts your life a hundred times \\ Fate will also grant you life, and heal you \\ Even if fate strikes you a hundred times \\ It may strike above the wheel of your station \\ From grace, know this, that it terrifies you \\ So that it may seat you in the realm of safety \\ These words have no end, and it turned late \\ Listen to the story of the rabbit and the lion. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      37. And [subsequently] the king said<\/em>, “Indeed, I have seen [in a dream] seven fat cows being eaten by seven [that were] lean, and seven green spikes [of grain] and others [that were] dry. O eminent ones, explain to me my vision, if you should interpret visions<\/em>.”They said,<\/em> “[It is but] a mixture of false dreams, and we are not learned in the interpretation of dreams.”But the one who was freed and remembered after a time said, “I will inform you of its interpretation, so send me forth.”<\/em> [He said], “Joseph, O man of truth, explain to us about seven fat cows eaten by seven [that were] lean, and seven green spikes [of grain] and others [that were] dry – that I may return to the people; perhaps they will know [about you<\/em>].”(12: 43-46) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      38. Most of the Sonnis in Kurdistan are followers of the traditions of Ash\u0101\u02bfere<\/em> and Sh\u0101fe\u02bf\u012b<\/em>. The inflictive point in the life of Sheikh Ash\u02bfar\u012b<\/em> the initiator of the Ash\u0101\u02bfere<\/em> in which he turned his face from \u02beI\u02bftez\u0101liyoun<\/em> toward his self-developed tradition of Sonnah<\/em> is attributed to a dream of Mohammad that is supposed to be seen by him . (See: Wafiy\u0101t ol-A\u02bfy\u0101n, vol. 93, p:282 & vol. 3, p: 285; Albed\u0101yah wa al-Nah\u0101yah, vol. 11, P: 187; Al-Fihrist, Ibn-i Nad;m, p: 271 via Sobhani Tabrizi: 18-19) And accordingly the life of Im\u0101m Sh\u0101fe\u02bf\u012b<\/em> (Abu \u02beAbdullah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi\u2018i)<\/em> is changed through a dream of the prophet and Ali or better to say by the saliva of Ali as the prophet said in his dream to Ali \u201clearn him!\u201d (Sh\u02bffe\u02bf\u012b r\u0101 ta\u02bfl\u012bm kon)<\/em> and then Ali spitted his saliva in the mouth of Sh\u02bffe\u02bf\u012b<\/em> bestowing him the \u02bfilm<\/em> and the power of poetry. (\u1e0fikr-i T\u0101rikh-i \u02beOliy\u0101, Jafar-ibn-i Mohammad: 122 f. in: Farhang-i Ir\u0101nzamin magazine, No.6, 1959 (1337), pp: 95-158.) In another version of this story the prophet himself threw the saliva and Ali instead gives him a ring as a symbol of \u02bfilm<\/em> or celestial knowledge (Attar, ta\u1e0fkeratol-Ouliy\u0101: 612 via Heydari: 15). Also the following text is to be checked:

        \u062a\u0630\u06a9\u0631\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0627\u0648\u0644\u06cc\u0627\u061b\u0641\u0631\u06cc\u062f \u0627\u0644\u062f\u06cc\u0646 \u0639\u0637\u0627\u0631 \u0646\u06cc\u0634\u0627\u0628\u0648\u0631\u06cc\u060c\u062a\u0635\u062d\u06cc\u062d \u0631.\u0646\u06cc\u06a9\u0644\u0633\u0646\u060c\u0686\u0627\u067e \u062f\u0648\u0645\u060c\u0635\u0641\u06cc \u0639\u0644\u06cc\u0634\u0627\u0647\u060c1374.<\/p>

        \u0627\u064a\u0631\u0627\u0646\u064a\u0627\u0646 \u0628\u0627\u0633\u062a\u0627\u0646 \u0647\u064a\u0686 \u06af\u0627\u0647 \u0622\u0628 \u062f\u0647\u0627\u0646 \u0628\u0631 \u0632\u0645\u064a\u0646 \u064a\u0627 \u062f\u0631 \u0622\u0628 \u0646\u0645\u064a\u200c\u0627\u0646\u062f\u0627\u062e\u062a\u0646\u062f<\/p>

        \u0627\u064a\u0631\u0627\u0646\u064a\u0627\u0646 \u0628\u0627\u0633\u062a\u0627\u0646 \u0622\u062e\u0634\u064a\u062c \u0631\u0627 \u0622\u0644\u0648\u062f\u0647 \u0646\u0645\u064a\u0643\u0631\u062f\u0646\u062f\u00a0 \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      39. We remember from the dream of Za\u1e25\u0101k<\/em> the demon-like king of Median who saw a true terrible dream. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      40. In this story, Jousef is a young man but the term \u201cold wise man\u201d or pir<\/em> is a term that refers to the archetypical character not the physical characteristic of this figure. This extraneous relation between the worldly age and celestial status is a known fact among the Kurds especially among the ahlli haq<\/em> sect in Kurdistan who address their arch-sheikh with pir-i b\u0101\u1e6de\u012b<\/em> or the one who is old in respect to the world of unseen. The life story of Jousef is totally symbolic and full of metaphors so that it is considered in Islamic culture as the best story (a\u1e25san ol-ghosas<\/em>). In this story, his envious brothers drop him into a water well, which is a metaphor for \u1e93olam\u0101t<\/em>, a dark horrible abyss that in contrast to its un-canniness entails the water of life. Then Jousef in his youth has the status of an \u2018old wise man\u2019 who had also authority (wel\u0101yat) upon his father Jacob which means that in the occult scales of truth, he was older than his father. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      41. There is seemingly a big rivalry between revelation and poetry but this rivalry has made these two issues close to each other. There is a Surrah in Quran which is named ash-Sho\u02bfar\u0101 or \u2018the poets\u2019. In this Surrah we read: \u201cShall I inform you upon whom the devils descend? They descend upon every sinful liar. They pass on what is heard, and most of them are liars. And the poets – [only] the deviators follow them; Do you not see that in every valley they roam. And that they say what they do not do?\u201d (26: 221-226) There are also many verses in which it is tried to differentiate revelation from poetry: \u201cAnd it is not the word of a poet; little do you believe.\u201d (69: 41)Or: \u201cAnd We did not give Prophet Muhammad, knowledge of poetry, nor is it befitting for him. It is not but a message and a clear Qur’an\u201d (36:69) According to Shari\u02bfa or orthodox way of Islam, Mohammad was the last prophet or kh\u0101tam ol-nabi-\u012bn and after his death the door of revelation is forever closed to human. but the Sufis have another interpretation on this: According to their read of Quran, God has make revelation even to the tiny bee to learn how to make honey: \u201cAnd your Lord inspired \u0627\u0648\u062d\u06cc to the bee, “Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and [in] that which they construct.\u201d (16:68) The word \u0627\u0648\u062d\u06cc used in this verse comes from \u0648\u062d\u06cc which means revelation. Then, in the eyes of a Sufi, when a bee is deserved to become conversant with god how could be the human be deprived from it?

        \u0686\u0648\u0646\u06a9 \u0627\u0648 \u062d\u06cc \u0627\u0644\u0631\u0628 \u0627\u0644\u06cc \u0627\u0644\u0646\u062d\u0644 \u0622\u0645\u062f\u0633\u062a<\/p>

        \u062e\u0627\u0646\u0647\u0654 \u0648\u062d\u06cc\u0634 \u067e\u0631 \u0627\u0632 \u062d\u0644\u0648\u0627 \u0634\u062f\u0633\u062a<\/p>

        \u0627\u0648 \u0628\u0647 \u0646\u0648\u0631 \u0648\u062d\u06cc \u062d\u0642 \u0639\u0632\u0648\u062c\u0644<\/p>

        \u06a9\u0631\u062f \u0639\u0627\u0644\u0645 \u0631\u0627 \u067e\u0631 \u0627\u0632 \u0634\u0645\u0639 \u0648 \u0639\u0633\u0644<\/p>

        \u0627\u06cc\u0646 \u06a9\u0647 \u06a9\u0631\u0645\u0646\u0627\u0633\u062a \u0648 \u0628\u0627\u0644\u0627 \u0645\u06cc\u200c\u0631\u0648\u062f<\/p>

        \u0648\u062d\u06cc\u0634 \u0627\u0632 \u0632\u0646\u0628\u0648\u0631 \u06a9\u0645\u062a\u0631 \u06a9\u06cc \u0628\u0648\u062f<\/p>

        As for the verse: \u201cAnd your Lord inspired \u0627\u0648\u062d\u06cc \u201cto the bee\/The house of the bee\u2019s revelation is full of honey\/Because of the almighty god\u2019s revelation \/It made the whole world full of wax and honey\/This (human being) which is \u2018honored\u2019 \u06a9\u0631\u0645\u0646\u0627 and ascends\/How could has less revelations than a bee<\/p>

        (Rumi, Mathnavi, vol. V, part 51) By the word \u2018honored\u2019 Rumi is referring to human being and in fact to this verse of Quran: \u201cAnd We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite] preference<\/em>.\u201d (17:70) \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      42. To understand the importance of dream in a Muslim milieu, it is helpful to note that in this book (\u1e24ay\u0101t al-\u1e24eyv\u0101n<\/em> ) which is supposed to be a book on biology, one finds many stories on dreams and also after every explanation on each animal comes a description on the meaning of the appearance of this animal in a dream. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      43. It is also comparable with the dream of Mar\u02bfad-ibn abdol Kal\u0101l<\/em> in \u1e24ay\u0101t al-\u1e24eyv\u0101n<\/em>, vol. I, 311-313. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      44. To see the role of Oracles in the court of Anoushiravan<\/em> see:

        Christian, S. Arthur: \u201cIran dar Zaman-i S\u0101s\u0101niy\u0101n\u201d; Translated by Rashid-i Y\u0101semi, Tehran, Amir KAbir Publishing, 1988 (1367). \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      45. As it is discussed all through this book, the water is conflated with \u02bfilm which is not only science but also the know-how of the secrets that rules on the materialistic world from the world of hidden (or the Godly science when attributed with ladoni). Different kind of water in mystical language stands for different kinds of knowledge or \u02bfilm (a river for the outer knowledge and an ocean of the inner knowledge and so on\u2026). Water in this sense signifies the symbolic capital in the same way that water in the normal life signifies either state power or economical capital (dowlat ). Descriptive examples of this relation between knowledge and water specially in the form of a saliva is to see in many hagiographies. Some of them are referred in this book but the reader can look into this article for more examples: Heydari, Hassan: \u201cShiweh\u0101yi N\u0101der az Tabarok wa Shaf\u0101bakhshi dar Motoun \u02bfIrf\u0101ni\u201d; in:Mo\u1e6d\u0101li\u02bf\u0101t-i \u02bfIrf\u0101ni magazine, spring and summer of 2009 (1388), No. 9, pp: 5-28. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      46. Although the main focus of this book -at least in its descriptional body of interviews and its gathered regional information and materials- is n the dream culture of the Kurds Sufis in Sanandaj but referring to the Rumi\u2019s stories as a poet who wrote in Persian and lived in Turkey is not pointless. Firstly he has a enormous influence on the sufi\u2019s literature regardless of their language, secondly, Persian remained to be the main symbolic language \u2013or even to say argot language- of the Sufis all around in the region and thirdly there are many \u2013 supposed to be regional- folk stories in Kurdistan who follow the same synopsis of the Rumi\u2019s stories for example the Kurdish story of L\u0101s wa Khaz\u0101l<\/em> that is supposed to be one of the most important regional stories (Ghazi: 513-514) has many similarities with the story of the \u2018Chinese maiden\u2019 in the fifth book of Rumi\u2019s mathnavi (Ayoubiyan, 1964(b): 200 via Ghazi: 514). \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      47. The original text is here:

        \u062f\u0631 \u0645\u06cc\u0627\u0646 \u06af\u0631\u06cc\u0647 \u062e\u0648\u0627\u0628\u0634 \u062f\u0631 \u0631\u064f\u0628\u0648\u062f<\/p>

        \u062f\u06cc\u062f \u062f\u0631 \u062e\u0648\u0627\u0628 \u0627\u0648 \u06a9\u0647 \u067e\u06cc\u0631\u06cc \u0631\u0648 \u0646\u0645\u0648\u062f<\/p>

        \u06af\u0641\u062a \u0627\u06cc \u0634\u0647 \u0645\u0698\u062f\u0647 \u062d\u0627\u062c\u0627\u062a\u062a \u0631\u0648\u0627\u0633\u062a<\/p>

        \u06af\u0631 \u063a\u0631\u06cc\u0628\u06cc \u0622\u06cc\u062f\u062a \u0641\u0631\u062f\u0627 \u0632 \u0645\u0627\u0633\u062a<\/p>

        \u0686\u0648\u0646\u06a9\u0647 \u0622\u06cc\u062f \u0627\u0648 \u062d\u06a9\u06cc\u0645\u06cc \u062d\u0627\u0630\u0642 \u0627\u0633\u062a<\/p>

        \u0635\u0627\u062f\u0642\u0634 \u062f\u0627\u0646<\/a> \u06a9\u0647 \u0627\u0645\u06cc\u0646 \u0648 \u0635\u0627\u062f\u0642 \u0627\u0633\u062a<\/p>

        \u062f\u0631 \u0639\u0644\u0627\u062c\u0634 \u0633\u062d\u0631\u0650 \u0645\u0637\u0644\u0642 \u0631\u0627 \u0628\u0628\u06cc\u0646<\/p>

        \u062f\u0631 \u0645\u0632\u0627\u062c\u0634 \u0642\u062f\u0631\u062a \u062d\u0642 \u0631\u0627 \u0628\u0628\u06cc\u0646<\/p>

        \u0686\u0648\u0646 \u0631\u0633\u06cc\u062f \u0622\u0646 \u0648\u0639\u062f\u0647 \u06af\u0627\u0647 \u0648 \u0631\u0648\u0632 \u0634\u062f<\/p>

        \u0622\u0641\u062a\u0627\u0628 \u0627\u0632 \u0634\u0631\u0642\u060c \u0627\u062e\u062a\u0631 \u0633\u0648\u0632 \u0634\u062f<\/p>

        \u0628\u0648\u062f \u0627\u0646\u062f\u0631 \u0645\u0646\u0638\u0631\u0647 \u0634\u0647 \u0645\u064f\u0646\u062a\u0638\u0631<\/p>

        \u062a\u0627 \u0628\u0628\u06cc\u0646\u062f \u0622\u0646\u0686\u0647 \u0628\u0646\u0645\u0648\u062f\u0646\u062f \u0633\u0650\u0631\u0651<\/p>

        \u062f\u06cc\u062f \u0634\u062e\u0635\u06cc \u0641\u0627\u0636\u0644\u06cc \u067e\u064f\u0631 \u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0647 \u0627\u06cc<\/p>

        \u0622\u0641\u062a\u0627\u0628\u06cc \u062f\u0631 \u0645\u06cc\u0627\u0646 \u0633\u0627\u06cc\u0647 \u0627\u06cc<\/p>

        \u0645\u06cc \u0631\u0633\u06cc\u062f \u0627\u0632 \u062f\u0648\u0631 \u0645\u0627\u0646\u0646\u062f \u0647\u0644\u0627\u0644<\/p>

        \u0646\u06cc\u0633\u062a \u0628\u0648\u062f \u0648 \u0647\u0633\u062a \u0628\u0631 \u0634\u06a9\u0644 \u062e\u06cc\u0627\u0644<\/p>

        \u0646\u06cc\u0633\u062a \u0648\u064e\u0634 \u0628\u0627\u0634\u062f \u062e\u06cc\u0627\u0644 \u0627\u0646\u062f\u0631 \u0631\u0648\u0627\u0646<\/p>

        \u062a\u0648 \u062c\u0647\u0627\u0646\u06cc \u0628\u0631 \u062e\u06cc\u0627\u0644\u06cc \u0628\u06cc\u0646 \u0631\u0648\u0627\u0646<\/p>

        (Rumi, Mathnavi, Vol. I, verses 61-70) \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      48. There are not many examples for this kind of false dreams because a dream should fit the \u2018syntax\u2019 to be able to find publicity. Moreover there are some examples in the history that are recognized as an invented dream with political ends. For example the dream that Mohammad H\u0101shim \u0101\u1e63if <\/em>has seen for Sh\u0101h Sult\u0101n \u1e24oseyn \u1e63afav\u012b<\/em>. (Rostam-ol-tav\u0101rikh: 122 via Nozhat: 76-77). Nozhat explains that the manner of speech in this dream story is in contradiction of what was usual in the Safavid era. (No\u02bf-i bay\u0101n b\u0101 \u0101n che ke ma\u02bfmoul zam\u0101n \u1e63afaviy\u0101n boude mo\u0121\u0101yerat d\u0101rad<\/em>) (Nozhat: 77) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      49. Mostly because he himself or his fore-fathers were also a normal subject in just few generations before. The reader may remember that although the longest genealogical tree in Iran belongs to the rulers of Kurdistan but still they need to fake up some narratives to wash out their former social class marked in their familial name Ardal\u0101n<\/em> which means a mill-worker. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      50. Then it seems that the religious thoughts and believes in Shi\u2019ism also plays a crucial role here but we have to keep in mind that Shi\u2019ism has dealt very selective with the history of early Islam and just those events are magnified that have a similar synopsis with the pre-Islamic mythology or events. In our case ,the legend of Abolfa\u1e0dl<\/em> and Im\u0101m<\/em> \u1e24oseyn<\/em> in K\u0101rbal\u0101<\/em> is probably an Islamic substitute for the myth of Siy\u0101vash<\/em> in pre-Islamic mythology (see for example Abadi: 158) \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      51. The same proverb is to be found in Persian with a little but plausible difference:

        Har kasi dar Kh\u0101b binad morgh o m\u0101hi \/ Y\u0101 be doulat miresad y\u0101 p\u0101desh\u0101hi<\/em><\/p>

        One who sees a bird or a fish in his dream\/ Will become wealthy or a king. \u2191<\/a><\/p><\/li>

      52. Ibn Sirin after describing the different forms and combinations of sex with four-legged animals (chah\u0101r p\u0101y\u0101n<\/em>) added this note that if the dreamer is used to have sex with the animals in the daytime then the dream has no interpretation. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      53. This is also perhaps because of the blending happened between two persons : Mohammad Ibn-i Sirin (liverd between 33-110 in Arabic calander) and another interpreter A\u1e25mad Ibn-i Sirin who lived in the time of Ma\u02bemoun the caliph. Karl Brackertz, the translator of the Roman version of Ibn-I Sirinn\u2019 book of dreams has written several passages to clear this ambiguity but as he declares the task remains anyway foggy (Brackertz: 10 ff.). \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      54. Terms used by Karl Wittfogel in his book: \u201cOriental despotism; a comparative study of total power<\/em>\u201d; New York, Random House, 1957. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      55. Although this does not diminishes the wiliness and potential of ordinary people for \u2018risking\u2019 to see an extra-ordinary go-getting dream. (An example of this kind of dream is accounted in To\u1e25feyi N\u0101\u1e63eri of Shokrollah-i Sanandaji in which a group of Kurds went to Tehran in the era of Qajars<\/em> (N\u0101\u1e63er ol-Din Sh\u0101h?) and took refuge in Dar-ol-\u1e25okoume of Tehran for the release of their leader from the prison. The government replies that they should return back to Kurditan but they insist because the head of this rebellion had seen his victory in a dream and so on..(the synopsis of this story should be brought here from the book). \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      56. We can summarize these differences in this that a real king is the one who has a world and a subject is the one who lives in the given world of the others with all its banalities and normal occurrences. All these can be described by the philosophical instances given in the third part of Martin Heideggers \u201cTime and Being\u201d (\u00a7 14-24) on the differences between \u201cin \u2013der-Welt-sein\u201d and \u201chaben von Welt\u201d and accordingly the difference between \u201cumweltlichkeit\u201d and \u201cWeltlichkeit\u201d. \u2191<\/a><\/li>
      57. There is a very good example of the citational scriptural nature of dreams from the time of Abbasids which is taken by Schimmel also as an example of the art of positive interpretation of the Muslim interpreters (Schimmel: 59). The Caliph al-Mahdi saw his face turned black in his dream and this made him so upset as it is commonly believed that the black color alludes the face of the sinners and accursed peoples on the day of final judgment (youm ol-ghiy\u0101mah). But Kerm\u0101ni turned this bad omen into a good one by relating it to the verse 16:58 of Quran: \u201cAnd when one of them is informed of [the birth of] a <\/em>female<\/em><\/a>, his face becomes dark, and he suppresses grief.<\/em>\u201d This verse is a very strange reference to a good omen. It means having a daughter is a reason for grief but the point of reference of this verse is an pre-Islamic belief. Then the dream would be a reason of grief just for a j\u0101hel (ignorant) -a general name for the pre-Islamic people- and of course not for Al- Mahdi who was the caliph of Muslims. the true interpretation was that the caliph will happily find a new daughter. \u2191<\/a><\/li><\/ol>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Iraj E. Ghoochani This essay serves as a supplementary reflection on my dissertation titled\u00a0B\u0101b\u0101 \u0100b D\u0101d: The Phenomenology of Sainthood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-ethnotopology-articles"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870-150x92.png",150,92,true],"medium":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false],"large":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false],"pk-small":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870-80x80.png",80,80,true],"pk-thumbnail":["https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/word-image-5467-1-e1768406479870.png",184,92,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"shima","author_link":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/author\/shima\/"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"Iraj E. Ghoochani This essay serves as a supplementary reflection on my dissertation titled\u00a0B\u0101b\u0101 \u0100b D\u0101d: The Phenomenology of Sainthood […]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5467"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6672,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5467\/revisions\/6672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echoespsy.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}