The Relation between Dream and
Spirit
Dr. Mehmet Dalkiliç,
Istanbul, Turkey is the lecturer of the Department of the Islamic
Sects of the Theology Faculty at Istanbul University. His PhD
thesis Human Spirit according to Islamic Sects was
published in İstanbul in 2004. He has authored many articles in
scientific journals. His book Islamic Sects According to Ibn
Hazm was recently published in Istanbul, Turkey.
Abstract
Muslim scholars used dreams in
their books for many purposes. They used them for proving the
existence of the human spirit without body. The concept of Spirit
(ruh) was researched during the whole history of philosophy.
Though the question of definition or destination of soul was
always central, they always used dreams to prove the existence of
it. Much of the discussions about the existence of spirit or soul
in Islamic thought and works of theology have centered on the
relation between the spirit and dream. According to those scholars
dreams are evidence of existence of the human spirit. This paper
examines the Muslim scholars’ opinion about the relation between
dream and the human spirit.
In
this context, from the historical viewpoint the question at first
glance presents a paradoxical statement. There are some verses of
the Qur’an and some Hadith considering all debates and inquiries
on dream and spirit as meaningless and impossible for humans, on
the one hand, and there are also lots of discussions on the issue
in the fields of theology, Sufism and Philosophy on the other
hand. Muslim scholars ignored the verses of the Qur’an which
declare that spirit is a problem of the invisible world or
interpreted them with other hearsay, and this resulted in
different explanations according to each scholar’s perception of
spirit. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah described many dreams to prove the
existence of spirit without body, the status of spirit after death
etc. in his works.
We can summarize the viewpoints
of the Islamic theologians on the relation between dream and
spirit as follows: They thought that the human spirit could
continue to live without body after death. Dreams are the proof of
that. Therefore dreams are used as evidence of the existence of
the human spirit.
Bibliography
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