Rukn ad-Din bin Mihriz al Wahrani's Manamat (Dreams):From the Common Pattern to the Different Narrative

Abstract

Rokn Eddine  Ibn Mahrez el Wahrani (d. 575 h) adopted genuinely a new approach in the art of Dreams (manamet). The newly set up approach seemingly appeared similar to the artistic mode (maqamet) that was prevailing in the fourth 4^th century Hegira. However, it was featured with a variety of traits among which vision, method, and style. 

El Wahrani’s art of dreams belongs to vision literature genre whose scope covers the spectrum of dreams and sleeping; in this vision, time broke down and eventually vanished. These dreams are uncluttered to the various cultural, esthetic, stylistic, political, social, and lunatic popular cultural aspects.

Concerning style, El Wahrani went beyond the constraint boundaries of contemporary writing style that was dominantly featured by artistic imagery and figurative style; rather, he employed in his artistic performances irony and satire as tools to castigate the cultural and social realities of that time. Hence, the present study tries to answer the inquiries below: What are the distinctive features of the big dreams (manamet) of el-Wahrani when assimilated to prevailing art of that time? And how did these constructions reflect social realities?