Organized by Cairo University and Hira Magazine, the conference lasted three full days and featured many prominent social scientists, mainly from the Arab world: Dr. Ahmad El-Tayyeb, the rector of Al-Azhar University, Dr. Mohammad Emara (Egypt), Dr. Nadia Mostafa (Egypt), Dr. Ibrahim Elbayoumi Ghanem (Egypt), Dr. Abdel-Halim Oweis (Egypt), Tarek Albishri (Egypt), Dr. Ridwan Elsayed (Lebanon), Dr. Leonid Syukiyaynen (Russia), Dr. Samir Boudinar (Morocco), Dr. Fathi Malkawi (Jordan), Dr. Jill Carroll (USA), and Dr. Johann Hafner (Germany), to name a few. The grand hall of the Arab League headquarters was packed with an audience of 400 and more participants – seated or standing – from Egypt and neighboring countries. The huge roundtable in the middle of the hall hosted twenty scholars, either presenting a paper, observing or commenting on the topics. Aired live on the web, the conference explored islah, an Islamic concept that is often simply translated as “reform” in English but which in fact is loaded with a much deeper and wider frame of reference.

There was enormous media attention to the event: at least fifteen television networks and seventy-five reporters followed the conference and interviewed the participants. While dozens of requests to reserve seats had to be turned down, more than twenty-thousand viewers followed the event on the web. The conference drew an exceptional level of interest in the event, much higher than the average academic activity.

Throughout the conference there were occasional references to recent history, accompanied by expressions of regret or frustration. Yet, many scholars offered some insight with a vision of the future in line with the main theme, a focus on the nature of the Gulen Movement. They expressed their perception of the movement as a new and potentially wide field for research into islah. How have reform trends appeared in the Muslim world in the last half century? How do we interpret the spread of Gulen’s call and his movement on a global scale inside and outside Islamic countries? How has this movement succeeded in positively communicating with western elites with its scientific institutions, media and cultural entities in comparison to other reform movements? What are the prospects for future cooperation with this movement to take advantage of its successful experience in fighting problems and future challenges in the Muslim and the Arab world? How does this movement, which seems to act as a social movement organization rather than an NGO, develop successful relations with established systems in the countries where it works without conflict? These were the questions that were discussed on the floor.

Until recently, Turkish-Arab relations have been somewhat delicate. On both civil and official fronts over the last couple of years, firm steps have been taken by both sides to close the chasm that divided these nations; these are in fact nations that share many historical and cultural roots. This Turkish-Arab rapprochement is not an artificial one based on temporary mutual interests. The “problem-free” policy adopted by the Turkish government vis A vis neighboring countries should be appreciated in a number of ways. Without hands-on support from the grassroots level, however, such policies have little chance of success, if they are not doomed to complete failure, particularly in the context of the Middle East, where international interests are extremely complex.

The frustrations voiced by Arab scholars and politicians at this conference and elsewhere are to be expected in the context of the political and economic tensions that have lasted for decades in the region. There is no need to mention the international disputes which prevent the progress that has been long-awaited and desperately needed by millions. In this regard, this conference might serve as a new beginning, for participants strived to replace frustration and despair with hope and strong will and encouragement for islah. Despite some exposure to Gulen’s works and the literature produced about him, there is still much to be learned. First-hand experience and observation are certainly necessary, particularly to achieve an accurate analysis of a civil society movement that is as broad as the Gulen Movement and to understand what their contribution to the social reform and renewal of the Islamic world can be. Some of the testimonials expressed throughout the conference, specifically during the last panel, were of great use for many among the audience. The Salahaldin International School, which opened in Cairo only a few weeks ago, with its well-equipped campus and high standards of education, and which draws on worldwide experience, will become a visible testing-ground for those who are willing to explore this initiative. In the message Fethullah Gulen sent to the conference, he emphasized the importance of education and schools like Salahaldin in islah: “Education is pivotal in islah efforts, for it is directly linked to the human being in the person of the teacher and the student. A teacher who is dedicated to his or her mission in the spirit of worship can bring about a new human in his students, a new human who looks to the future filled with hope, whose heart beats with love and peace. Raising new generations is dependent on a precise revision of education. This revision requires educators to free themselves from sticking to working hours, which are limited and insufficient, and to work without pause in the consciousness that they are building new human beings with all their faculties.”

More than five hundred questions were handed in to the panels throughout the conference. Many inquirers asked how they could become a member of the movement. The speakers explained several times that this movement-which is frequently called the “Gulen” Movement for the lack of a more concise term-is not an organization in which you become a member by simply having your name listed. Nor is it a school in which you can enroll by paying a certain fee. “The Gulen movement is similar to a well-conducted symphony as its basic aim is to unite people and bring about solutions to their problems,” Pakinam El Sharkawy from Cairo University said. A professor of political science at Cairo University, El Sharkawy, the commentator on the sixth panel, said that the movement does not seek to defeat others but to bring people together and to remove prejudices between them: “The movement tries to respond to strong winds by creating a soft and soothing atmosphere.” Professor Jill Carroll from Houston, Texas, underscored a similar theme about the movement and praised its contributions to the main concern of our times, how we can coexist in peace and respect while preserving our differences.

Cairo is a place that everyone should visit at least once in a lifetime. This was my second time in eight years. And this time, I saw a great deal more than on my last visit. The conference offered a great deal to the hundreds who attended, and there was much that encouraged us to be more hopeful for the future. The new terminal at Cairo International Airport, which also opened recently like Salahaldin International School, now welcomes its guests with great confidence and arrival there promises a lot more than sightseeing.

Hakan Yesilova is a staff editor at The Fountain magazine.

Science in the Islamic world flourished between the eighth and the eleventh century CE. If there had been a Nobel Prize in that period, on most occasions it would have gone to a Muslim scientist, but the situation is quite different today. Why did scientific discovery decline in the Muslim world? What should Muslims do to regain the excellence in science that they once had? What are the current prospects in this respect in the Islamic world? To find answers to these questions, we talked to Ahmed Zewail about his own fascinating journey to the Nobel Prize and his views about science in the Islamic world.

About Professor Ahmed Zewail

Professor Zewail completed his undergraduate education the University of Alexandria, Egypt, and his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. His honors include more than a hundred prizes, awards, orders of merit, and orders of state from around the world. Professor Zewail was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering developments in the field of femtoscience, making it possible to observe the movement of the individual atoms in a femtosecond, that is, a millionth of a billionth of a second.

Professor Zewail is also renowned for his public lectures and writings on science and technology, education and world affairs, and for his tireless efforts to help the have-nots. In his recent biography Voyage through Time-Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize, he relates his life and work up to his receipt of the Nobel Prize, and he suggests a concrete course of action for the world of the have-nots and a new vision of world order.

In one of your recent commentaries in the Independent newspaper, you quote a beautiful verse from the Qur’an “Indeed! God will not change the good condition of the people as long as they do not change their state of goodness themselves” (Rad 13:11). Why did you quote this verse?

If you look at the height of Muslim achievement, Muslims were then acting individually as good Muslims, meaning that they read the Qur’an and they thought of the good things they were supposed to do, for example, to acquire knowledge. As you know, the first word that was revealed of the Qur’an was “read” and this respect for learning is repeated everywhere to the point that scientists of magnitude are almost put on the level of prophets in many ways in the Qur’an. So the Muslims of the early days recognized the importance of acquiring knowledge, but frankly, nowadays because of the deterioration that has taken place among the Muslims, we have become so possessed by the idea of conspiracy theories that we like to blame other people for our decline.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are many external forces that have contributed to our decline, but the truth of the matter is that it falls to us to do better. I am proud to see any Muslim, young or old, achieving at the highest level. In every case I see, I realize that these people did not let external things stop them and they have gone on to achieve. So I can summarize the reasons for our general decline, and I’m taking it verbatim from the Qur’an, as being our own problem.

In your book, you say, “The Sidi Ibrahim al-Desuqi mosque was very important in my life because it defined my early childhood. I used to go to the mosque to study… In Islam, the mosque is not just for prayer, but it is also for scholarship” (p. 15). Do you think this remains true?

Unfortunately, in recent years the mosque has been used by people who are not enlightened about Islam to propagate their point of view, not Islam’s point of view, so a political component has grown in it. It’s a lack of enlightenment on these people’s part. Growing up in Egypt, I remember Al-Azhar as being one of the centers of enlightenment of the world. Now, I didn’t reach Al-Azhar but on the other hand, even in my own town there was a mosque where we used to go and see the Imam, and the main thing he would try to tell us as young boys was that “you’ve got to achieve in knowledge; you’ve got to be the best doctor or the best engineer.” We used to study in the mosque. It was marvelous. I mean, we would meet as young people in the mosque-of course, we would pray-but then after we had prayed, we would all sit down and look at our school books and our study notes, and so it was a center of gravity. In fact, in my book I say that the mosque was the center of gravity for the whole town.

In a number of places in the book you talk about the importance of “having a passion” to achieve something. Have we, as Muslims, lost our passion for science and scholarship? If so, how can we reignite this in the younger generations?

I don’t think we have lost our passion, no. Especially since the Nobel Prize, I have spoken all over the Muslim world from Cairo to Malaysia, from Istanbul to Lebanon, and thousands of people come to my lectures. What I have found is that young people are hungry to achieve-they have that passion for achievement. The problem, unfortunately, is that they are not in the right system to make them realize their potential. So, I always say that the biggest asset right now in the Muslim world is actually its human capital. If this is used in the right way and we rebuild the old centers of excellence to attract the best minds, I believe that the Muslim world can undergo a huge transition. There are political issues, and a lot of political problems, but I don’t think that the problem with the Muslim world is lack of economic resources or lack of human capital. We have both types of resources.

Some people argue that religion and science cannot coexist. What is your take on this issue?

Some of the best minds in the world are religious people. So the claim that in order to be a rational scientist, by definition, you must not believe in a religion is a bit naïve. It seems to me also that it is quite strongly dogmatic. Religion is very important for people for a variety of reasons and I don’t see a conflict between the two.

What do you think about The Fountain, especially from the perspective of promoting the coexistence of science and religion?

Let me tell you why I like The Fountain and, as you know, I subscribe to it. I thank you for introducing me to it. The reason I like The Fountain is that it tends to explain things with reason and in a rational way, but it doesn’t stop the writers utilizing excerpts from the Qur’an that support their argument. But I need the rationality. It seems to me that the fact that the magazine uses this approach and respects the values of reason and knowledge and science will make it more effective.

Do you see the success of people like yourself and Abdus Salam as exceptional individual cases, or as early signs of a revival in the Islamic world?

Not early signs of revival, I always say that I’ve been fortunate to gain two things from my early childhood and my adulthood. First, I’m very proud of the value system that I was given by my family and the way I grew up as a Muslim in Egypt. I did not grow up in a system where I got into drugs and violence; I had never seen a gun before I left Egypt. The values that I acquired from my family were extremely important and gave me confidence for what I have achieved in my life. But besides that and importantly, I did get a good education in Egypt up to the level of university. What America has given me is a system of appreciation and opportunity, and that is what we are lacking in the Muslim world. If I had stayed in Egypt, I would not have been able to do what I have done because of this lack of opportunity and appreciation for achievement.

Let me give you another example; part of the Muslim world is very poor, but there is a big part of it that is very rich. The very rich part has not invested in the human capital. On the other hand, on a recent trip to Malaysia, I met Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, the former prime minister. Now, Malaysia is a country 60% of whose population is Muslim. It is possible to see the results of the experiment that has been carried out in Malaysia. Malaysia has made a transition-its GDP is much higher than most Muslim countries, and they are moving into the developed world-and this has been done in a country with a 60% Muslim population. What they did was to invest in education. Dr. Mohammed told me that, in order to make the transition from an almost underdeveloped economy depending on tin and rubber into one producing micro-electronics and the like, they invested as much as 20% of the GDP in education. So I think the formula is very, very clear in terms of what you can get out of this.

In one of your recent newspaper articles, you mention that one of the primary goals of education in the Muslim world should be “to promote critical thinking.” What do you mean by critical thinking?

Young people are very confused right now; they don’t know what is wrong and what is right. What I mean by critical thinking is that we all have been given the gift of the mind to think, so we should educate the people to think about what’s morally right and what’s morally wrong, but let them also think about, for example, science. There is nothing wrong with studying different points of view about what’s going on in the universe. If you are a good Muslim, it’s up to you-you have the garden of knowledge and you choose what you think. But to intimidate people and say things like “You cannot do this, don’t do that, don’t read about this…” that’s not critical thinking! That’s not what we need.

The Prophet would not allow that forbidding attitude today in my opinion because he was progressive in his thinking; his is a message of peace and critical thinking. In the twenty-first century now, people are thinking about having colonies on the moon, people are thinking about dissecting genes and opening up a whole new world of treatment for molecular diseases, people are thinking about watching atoms on the femtosecond timescale. And we as Muslims need to keep up with this.

You say in the book, “We should not divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and must not allow for the creation of barriers through slogans such as the ‘clash of civilizations’ or the ‘conflict of religions’-we need dialogue not conflict or clashes!” What do you think is the best way of achieving this dialogue?

Let me say, and perhaps I am putting this too strongly, that I think there is ignorance on both sides. There is a large proportion of the population in the Muslim world that I feel is not informed; they are not sophisticated enough to speak to the mind of the west. On the other hand, in the west they have neglected to learn about the Muslim world for a long time and treat it as if there must necessarily be a conflict with Muslims. With this kind of attitude on both sides, we can never get into dialogue.

You know, when I first came to the United States, they used to call the Japanese “the Japs” and the Chinese “the Red Chinese” and so on. Nowadays, because there has been a dialogue and we are starting to understand different cultures, there are Chinese and Japanese restaurants all over the country. China has McDonalds… But we have not done this as far as the Muslim world is concerned. For example, what do they know here in the US about Turkish culture? It could be a start to take the story of the Ottoman Empire and let them learn about the baklava and Turkish hospitality. The same thing is true for the Arabs. We have not done a good job, and on their side I must say they have neglected for a long time to develop any knowledge of the Muslim world or to understand faith or the strong feelings of the Muslims about their faith.

On the individual level, both sides need to be exposed to each other more, and here exchange programs and all kinds of education centers can help. But I tend to put more blame on the Muslim world because we have not taken the initiative to communicate about ourselves as much as the rest of the world does.

You live in California with your wife and two children. How do you keep the balance of work and family life and other personal issues?

I have been fortunate in this because my wife’s father is a professor and she has seen what it means for somebody to work hard, so she knows. She has said many times that my first love is my work. However, having said that, I think my children will say that I am a caring father. I try to balance things. For example, I always spend Sundays with my children; even if I’m staying home reading, they are around me. I see them, I go with them to soccer games, and so on. If you don’t, if you take it to the extreme and you claim that your work is everything, then you have weakened a whole corner of your life, and I don’t believe you will have the strength to do many other things in life.

What is it that keeps you so motivated even after getting a Nobel Prize? Does your background as a Muslim play a role in this?

I think it is a composite of things. First of all, God created me with a passion for whatever I do. If I read a book, I have the passion to finish it. The other thing is my background, as you said. When I came to the United States, I was challenged. As I mention in my book, there were political barriers, there were cultural barriers and scientific barriers. So I was challenged to show that somebody with my background, someone who is a Muslim and grew up with mosques and everything like that can achieve something.

Nowadays, I also try to go beyond the Nobel Prize, and I ask myself if I can help people and if I can help science in general. Perhaps also because of my upbringing and the mosque, I have faith. So I think it’s that kind of faith in life, in the universe, in myself, and in God, of course-all of this makes me who I am.

Nuh Gedik is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before moving to MIT, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech in the research group of Prof. Ahmed Zewail.

The four largest Muslim communities are located in Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, all Asian countries. Indonesia has more Muslims than Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia combined. Malaysia is home to more Muslims than Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait combined. Muslims are found in sizable numbers in Albania and Bulgaria; even China has 25 million Muslim believers.

Wherever one looks, Islam is on the move. As people increasingly find themselves rootless, disconnected, and alienated, they seek help in a comforting Islamic ideological refuge. In a world of incoherent violence, widening inequities, political oppression, personal corruption, and shattered families, many world citizens are massing behind the green flag of Islam. This movement is populist in nature, a bubbling up from below, a march of the distressed, oppressed, dispossessed.

Although most Muslims seek to improve their conditions through quiet, moderate, and peaceful means, some fringe groups have adopted violent methods, as have their Christian and Jewish counterparts.

Oblivious to their own ignorance and often harboring hidden agendas, many Western opinion and political leaders label all Muslims as militants, fanatics, and terrorists. According to these Western voices, Islam is the religion of the sword, Muslim activists are terrorists, and Muslim countries that challenge Western global hegemony are labelled “rouge” or “renegade” states.

The Muslim Viewpoint

Muslims have a quite different worldview. They see themselves as the afflicted, not the afflictors; on the defensive, not on the offensive; the objects of violence, not its initiators. In sum, Muslims consider themselves the victims.

To make their case, Muslims will take their Christian and Jewish neighbors on a quick world tour. They begin with Bosnia, where Serbian Christians killed nearly 200,000 Muslims and raped 22,000 Muslim women in the early 1990s.(1)

In Chechnya, the Russian army attacked a Muslim people who fought back furiously but found themselves slaughtered in large numbers by Russian troops. The Western world, including the United States, scarcely protested.(2)

In Kashmir, occupying Indian troops have oppressed, jailed, and executed large numbers of Muslim Kashmiris over the past decade.(3) During December 1992 and January 1993, Hindu mobs went on a rampage in Bombay, killing over 800 Muslims, destroying 5,000 Muslim homes, and forcing 200,000 Muslims to flee the city. In China’s western province of Xinjiang, the ethnically Turkish and religiously Muslim indigenous populations are dealt with harshly by Chinese occupying troops.(4)

In many Middle Eastern countries, Muslim believers are also under attack. In Iraq, for example, Saddam Hussein has carried out a war of genocide against the Shi’is of the south. In Israel, heavily armed Israeli troops do battle against Palestinian Muslim children armed largely with stones and slingshots.

Even in countries with an Islamic leadership, Muslims are oppressed and harassed. In Egypt, for example, Hosni Mubarak’s regime imprisons and executes members of Egypt’s Muslim opposition. Muslims are discriminated against and oppressed in many other parts of the world as well, examples include Malaysia, Turkey, Algeria, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain. This litany of anti-Islamic activity is recognized and discussed by Muslims everywhere. Why, they ask themselves, are they criticized and condemned when they are in fact the victims?

Meanwhile, the United States has often encouraged its allies to confront Muslim populist movements with force. As a result, the moderate Muslim masses are becoming radicalized and live in an environment of desperation. A vicious cycle of misunderstanding, misguided policy, and increasing violence has been set in motion. Before this cycle spins pout of control, non-Muslims must try to slow it down.

A necessary first step is to discard the simplistic stereotypes. Also, military force is not always an effective way to counter systems of ideas. Resurgent Islam’s steady flame will not be extinguished by the breeze of bullets or the blast of missiles.

It is time for everyone to take a crash course on Islam. It there is any truth in the Muslim belief that they suffer as victims, then it is time to admit this fact and to implement policies that will begin to remedy this situation. Our future relations with 1.2 billion of our brothers and sisters will depend on how we in the West choose to meet this challenge.

Footnotes

1. America’s arms embargo on Yugoslavia continued to be applied to Bosnia, even after the United States and the UN recognized it as an independent country, although most weapons and weapons-producing facilities were located in Yugoslavia.
2. Russia has invaded Chechnya several times since it declared independence in 1991. Since the fighting began in 1994, the country’s infrastructure and economy have been devastated, and many people have been killed. Media coverage is rare.
3. Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, has been the focal point of three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947. Citing Pakistani involvement in Kashmiri affairs, the Indian Army occupied Kashmir in 1989 amidst mounting unrest. Again, media coverage is rare.
4. In the remote province of Xinjiang in western China, the central government has ruthlessly cracked down on the Uigur Muslims who have struggled to attain regional autonomy and to protect their Islamic identity. More than 200 Uigurs have been executed in the past 3 years.

Some people discount the reality of dreams, saying that dreams are the result of a person’s dominant fluid.(1) If melancholy (black bile) is dominant, people dream of graves, as well as scary, terrifying, and dark-colored items. If choler (yellow bile) is dominant, they dream of fire, candles, and naturally colored yellowish items. If phlegm is dominant, they dream of water, rivers, waves, and white items. If blood is dominant, they dream of wine, fragrant plants, and such musical instruments as dulcimers and flutes.

These claims cover only one type of dream. However, there is more than one type of dream. For example, a true dream originates from the inner talk of soul. Dreams caused by the four above-mentioned fluids are not true, are confused, and are no more than illusions. Hence they resemble disorderly collections of plants of different sizes, colors, and conditions that are bundled together.

True dreams descend from the spiritual mind. If, however, what is seen is inspired by images and views left in one’s imagination and memory by the imaginative faculty while one is awake, then they are called confused dreams.

Dream interpretation requires a person with subtle and deep knowledge who can see and understand the relations between images in the soul and unseen events. This knowledge allows inferences to be made based on the person’s surrounding events. The main beneficiary of such knowledge is the dreamer, for he or she either receives glad tidings of the future or warnings about things to avoid or abandon.

God guides His servants to the true path in various ways, one of which is warning them of the consequences of their actions. Sometimes these warnings are communicated through Prophets, natural phenomena, disasters, or dreams. He also encourages His servants to find the straight path by thinking about various natural phenomena.

Dreams are not mere manifestations of feelings and thoughts in our subconscious, as claimed by some psychologists. Scholars divide untrue dreams into six categories:

• Dreams resulting from the carnal soul’s wishes or desires. For example, people dream that they are with their close friends, of things that scare them, that they are eating (if they sleep while hungry) or vomiting (if they sleep with a full stomach), and that they are in a burning fire (if they sleep outside in bright sunlight).

• Dreams requiring total ablution that, being of a sexual nature, need no interpretation.

• Nightmares shown by Satan to scare believers. These are harmless.

• Dreams personally inspired by Satan. Such dreams cannot be considered true.

• Dreams caused by distress, trouble, and other personal circumstances.

• Dreams reviewing important past experiences.

These have no merit in terms of interpretation.

True Dreams

True dreams are very valuable and essential, since they serve as a contact with the Unseen, they open a window to the Unseen directly by using the spiritual faculties present in one’s essence, and by avoiding the external stimuli coming from the senses connected to the physical world. Through this window a person looks at the prospective events and encounters some of fate-related scriptures or spectacles of the Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfuz). He or she sees the hidden reality of some events. At the same time, the imagination of the dreamer intervenes and puts these realities into the mundane images. Some of these dreams happen as in their interpretations. It is known from authentic narrative records that before his prophethood, the Prophet’s (p.b.u.h.) dreams came true exactly as they were seen. (Bukhari, vol. 1, book 1, no. 3).(1)

True dreams result from a superior development of premonition, which exists in everyone and even in many animals. Most important of all, true dreams show that even minute events are known, recorded, and foreordained by God. For this reason, there is no happenstance, and events do not happen by chance or without a plan (Bayram, 41).

There are four types of true dreams:

• True dreams coming from God and are so clear that no interpretation is necessary. Anyone can have such a dream, and several will be presented below.

• Dreams conveying glad tidings from God about something that the person will perform. Some-times these dreams are sent to warn His servants away from evil or to expose their faults that need to be corrected so that they can follow the true path.

• Dreams representing reality through symbols and that come from the spiritual world.

• Dreams in which the agencies of the dream’s witness, the dreamer’s soul, and the place seen in the dream are important.

Nonbelievers, as seen in the case of the King of Egypt during the time of Prophet Joseph,(2) and even children can have true dreams.

For example, when he was seven years old, Prophet Joseph told his father that: “Father, I saw (in a dream) eleven stars, the sun, and the moon prostrating before me.” His father replied: “My son, don’t tell this vision to your brothers, lest they plot against you. Verily, Satan is the open enemy of humanity. God will choose you and teach you how to interpret dreams (and other things). He will perfect His favor on you and on the offspring of Jacob, as He perfected it on your fathers, Abraham and Isaac, aforetime. Your Lord is All-Knowing, All-Wise” (12:4-6). Everything came true later in Egypt.

Factors influencing a dream’s interpretation

A person’s similar or even identical dreams at different times might result in very different interpretations. Therefore, factors such as the time, sort, season, and even the day of a dream must be considered by the interpreter. An example is given below. Someone once told Abu Bakr that he dreamed someone had given him 70 tree leaves. Abu Bakr replied that the person would receive 70 sticks. Within a week, the person was beaten 70 times with a stick. A year later he had the same dream. This time, Abu Bakr told him he would earn 70,000 gold coins. When asked why the same dream had such radically different meanings, Abu Bakr replied: “When you had the dream last year, the trees were dropping their leaves, and branches were becoming like sticks. Hence, I interpreted so. But this year your dream was in spring (the trees were coming into leaves), and so I interpreted this year as I did.” Before long, the man earned 70,000 gold coins (Bayram, 44). The best time for interpreting a dream is between true dawn and sunrise, for at this time both the dreamer and the interpreter have clear minds free from fatigue and earthly affairs, and the dreamer can remember more of the dream’s details.

Signs of a true dream

The first sign of a true dream is that you wake up instantly after it. Those who receive good news do not sleep, just as those who receive good tidings and signs from God do not sleep; rather, they get up as soon as the dream has finished. A second sign is the continuation of the images seen. In other words, all of the dream’s details remain in the person’s mind. A person can have a true dream concerning family members, relatives, siblings, friends, and others.

Some famous historical dreams

• One day, King Philip the Lame of Macedonia dreamed a fire started in his house and spread all over the world. When he returned home, he saw that his wife had given birth to Alexander (“the Great”). He understood that his son would tyrannize everybody, terrorize the world, turn everything upside down, and destroy everything. He wanted to kill the child, but his wife prevented it.

• Osman I, founder of Ottoman State, visited Sheikh Edibaali to ask about an issue. He was treated well in the guestroom. That night before going to bed, he noticed that the Qur’an was in a case hung on the wall. Out of respect, he did not stretch himself out on the bed, but read a couple pages of the Qur’an and then kept it on his heart, while sitting on his knees, all night. Falling asleep around dawn due to extreme fatigue, he dreamed of a plane tree emerging from his chest and growing so large that its branches and leaves covered a vast area in three continents. When he related the dream to Edibaali the next morning, the scholar told him: “O Osman, you will establish a state that will spread over three continents, here at Sogut.” And so he did: The Ottoman State expanded to Europe, Asia, and Africa, and ruled a potentially chaotic region in peace for centuries. In addition, the plane tree came to be the symbol of Ottoman State.

• On April 14, 1865, a sweating President Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, jumped out of his bed because of a dream. He changed his clothes, read for a while, and then laid back down to sleep. Feeling that his dream was waiting for him on the bed, it took a few hours to go back to sleep. In the morning, he told his dream to his wife, relatives, and even the Congress. In his dream, the White House servants were running around a coffin draped in American flag and told him that the president was inside it. His relatives interpreted it positively, saying that he would have a long life. That night, he went to see a play at a nearby theatre with his wife, still thinking about his dream. During an exciting scene of the play, the balcony door opened, and John Wilkes Boothe fatally shot President Lincoln. His dream had come true in less than 24 hours. History records many other such dreams.

Footnotes

1. In ancient and medieval philosophy and physiological theory, it was believed that there are four basic fluids (humors) in human body, of which the dominant element determines a person’s temperament and features. In the ancient physiological theory still current during the European Middle Ages and later, the four cardinal humors were blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile). The variant mixtures of these humors in different persons determined their “complexions” or “temperaments,” their physical and mental qualities, and their dispositions.
2. The King dreamed that he saw seven fat cows eaten by seven lean ones, and seven green ears of corn and seven dry ears of corn. Joseph told him that for seven years he should order the corn to be left in the ear and conserved, except for that which they needed to eat. After that, seven years of hardship would come and destroy everything but what they had stored. After that, a year of plenty would come, and the people would have enough food and would press (wine and oil) (12:46-49).

References

• Bayram, Ali, and M. Sadi Cogenli. Ruya Tabirleri Ansiklopedisi (The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreta-tions). Istanbul: 1993.
• http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud/002.sat.html#002.0507.
• Hakki, Erzurumlu Ibrahim. Marifetname (The Book of Wisdom). Turkey (then Ottoman State): 1756 ce (compiled and simplified by M. Faruk Meyan, Istanbul: 1993).
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