Who is Ibn Sirin? The Famous Dream Interpreter

Interpretation of dreams has always been of great interest to mankind, but only a handful of people in Islamic history were as successful in interpretation in their unique way then there was Ibn Sirin. Ibn Sirin was the extolled scholar of the day about wisdom, naming, and divine knowledge, hence the pioneer of dream interpretation in the Islamic world. Even to this day, he has had a legacy concerning dream interpretation methods, and he is a legendary person in his way, like Prophet Yusuf in his fantastic skills.

Ibn Sirin’s Early Life and Background

Abu Bakr al-Bassari/Mohammed bin Sirin, known as Ibn Sirin, was born in Basra in 33 AH (653 AD) and died in 110 AH (729 AD). This outstanding Ibn Sirin gave 76-77 years of his life to study and serve people, having an opportunity to work with his wonderful gift of dream interpretation.

He grew up in a meager but worthy family. His father was an ex-slave who served as a copper potter, whereas his mother, Safia, was once the slave of the first Caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq. This affiliation to the leaders in early Islamic religious life influenced the personalities and piety of the Islamic values to Ibn Sirin.

Brought up in an educational setting, Ibn Sirin learned under many of the companions of Prophet Muhammad which including Zaid ibn Thabit, Anas bin Malik, Abu Hurairah, and Abdullah bin Zubair. All these early influences contributed to the conceptual grasp of Islamic concepts and the behavioral mechanisms in man by Ibn Sirin.

Ibn Sirin’s Approach to Dream Interpretation

The extraordinary nature of dream interpretation by Ibn Sirin was that he had a different way of interpreting dreams. Ibn Sirin also used literal semantic explanations as compared to other interpreters who only considered the symbolic meanings. He would interpolate dreams at markets and councils and could not spare his beliefs with leaders, and this earned him jail time.

One of the works by Ibn Sirin is the so-called A Concise Guide to the Interpretation of Dreams, which to this day serves as a valuable source on how to interpret dreams. His way of doing it was like a revolution since Ibn Sirin not only interpreted symbols, but he also read men and knew the psychology of dreams and the dreamer.