clouds and attentive angels on his way to heaven is quite common, this
painting also shows the origin of the goldenflame on a stool located in a
mihrab, indicating the locus of Islamic prayer. Like the lamp frequently
depicted in a mihrab, theflame may have Shi’a associations with the holy
imamate.^19 The presence of the three Sufis as witnesses to the divine event
is symbolized through their sleep, a time when visitations from prophets or
earlier masters would indicate their spiritual attainment.
While some scenes, including the mi’raj, were depicted frequently
enough in Islamic painting to establish a standard visual iconography,
iconographic codes proliferated far more readily in textual dream manuals
that interpreted mental images as signs for worldly actions. Such practices
were grounded in oneiric passages of the Quran, where Abrahamic pro-
phets use dream interpretation to realize their prophecy: Yusuf (Q12:100),
and Isaac (Q37:83–113).^20 If there is anything resembling the iconographic
method dominating modern art history in Islamic cultures, it might be
these dream manuals. Much as Erwin Panofsky’s 1939Studies in Iconology:
Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissanceintegrated cultural inter-
pretation into formalist art history, these dream manuals provide a sym-
bolic structure through which to decode dreams, based on close readings of
the Quran as well as many pre-Islamic Mesopotamian sources.^21 The
proliferation of an iconography of dreams more studied than an icono-
graphy of images in the Islamic world underscores a comparable process of
deductive analysis of the visual directed less toward outward than toward
inward mimesis. The enumeration of dream typologies underscores both
the differences between the potential content of dreams across eras and the
possibility that by expecting specific meanings from dreams, one might
direct them. Indeed, Suhrawardi offers a pragmatic approach to dreams,
suggesting that Sufiaspirants (fuqara, meaning literally the destitute, but
figuratively those in recognition of the impoverishment of mundane exis-
tence) should express a“Prayer of Incubation”before sleep in order to
ascertain the correctness of their intention to travel beyond the worldly
realm.^22
Underpinning the veracity of his Prophetic experience, records of
Muhammad’s sleeping dreams appear in theHadith. He is said to have
initiated the ritual call to prayer through the human voice because of a
dream.^23 Suggestive of thenasibstyle of the ode (qasida) of pre-Islamic
Arabia, in which the poet rests only to be haunted by visions of his future
(^19) Mulder, 2014 : 81. (^20) Green, 2003 : 289. (^21) Sirriyeh, 2011. (^22) Ohlander, 2012 : 204.
(^23) Green, 2003 : 290.
The Materiality of Dreams 191