The Meaning of Muslim Dreams: Landscapes of the Imagination in Egypt

According to a famous saying of the Prophet Muhammad, “A true dream constitutes one forty-sixth part of prophethood.” Over the following centuries, countless Muslim thinkers discussed the hidden problem in that saying: how to distinguish a ‘true dream’ from other kinds of dreams, whether mundane ones caused by illness and indigestion or more worrying ones sent by Satan. Consequently, Muslims developed a rich tradition of dream theory, drawing on sources as varied as ancient Greek texts, Sufi theosophy, and in more recent times European psychology. In this episode, we’ll see how these theories and debates play out in the modern Middle East. Focusing on Egypt, we’ll examine how the dreams of ordinary Muslims are understood by Sufi masters, TV dream interpreters, religious reformists, and secular psychoanalysts. Nile Green talks to Amira Mittermaier, author of Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (University of California Press, 2010), which won the Clifford Geertz Prize from the American Academy of Religion.