ÇeviriTHE MYRTLE IN A MUSLIM WOMAN’S DREAM AND ITS LATE ANTIQUE ECHOES
Journal of Semitic Studies LXI/2 Autumn 2016 doi: 10.1093/jss/fgw025 © The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved. THE EMERGENCE OF THE HOLY MAN IN EARLY ISLAMIC MYSTICISM: THE MYRTLE IN A MUSLIM WOMAN’S DREAM AND ITS LATE ANTIQUE ECHOES [1] S ara S viri HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM Abstract This paper brings together an account of an early Muslim woman’s dream with texts relating to the ‘holy man’ and the spiritual hierarchy in early Islam. Both dream account and the holy men texts were authored by the dreamer’s husband, the third/ ninth century mystic al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, in whose oeuvre the holy man, al-wali, the ‘friend of God’, occupies a central position. His writings had a significant impact on the teachings on wilaya in Islamic mysticism early and late. The dream and the texts reveal a historical and religious setting in which the God-Man co