Thursday, June 19, 2008

Research Suggests Militant Jihadists Are Inspired By Night Dreams

"This is the conclusion of a study of the reported dreams of many of the best-known al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders carried out by Dr Iain Edgar a social anthropologist at Durham University.
Edgar identified four key themes from his research:

* Militant jihadists are inspired by night dreams
* Militant jihadists legitimize their actions partly on the basis of night dreams
* The inspirational night dream can be more 'real' than reality, connecting the individual to a mythical past
* Militant Jihadism can be directly authorized by dream content"

Medical News Today, 09 Jun 2008
Interesting, and slightly worrying, but after a quick search in the hadith it doesn't seem like such a big surprise after all.
Check out this link to the USC-MSA hadith collection and do a search for "Dream" in all four hadith collections, and you will get approximately 170 hits.

Here's one from the Bukhari collection:
"Volume 1, Book 5, Number 260: Narrated Maimuna:
The Prophet took the bath of Janaba. (sexual relation or wet dream). He first cleaned his private parts with his hand, and then rubbed it(that hand) on the wall (earth) and washed it. Then he performed ablution like that for the prayer, and after the bath he washed his feet. "

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