A short text by Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Muṣtafā about his spiritual master and maternal uncle, Muḥammad Sambo, is translated and annotated. Sambo was the son of Usman dan Fodio, founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. While modern scholarship focuses on political and legal aspects of the jihad movement, this text details spiritual practices and discussions among the Fodiawa clan, showing the centrality of the Akbarī tradition and its unique developments in nineteenth-century West Africa. The work includes an account of a dream, Sambo's spiritual method, and his responses to esoteric questions, combining oneirology, hagiography, and Sufism to illuminate the founders' spiritual and intellectual traditions.
Dreams and visions in Islamic societies were long dismissed as irrelevant to history or society, but recent scholarship has overturned that view. This article argues that understanding the development of Kubrawī oneirology—the theory of dreams—offers important insights into Islamic thought and society. Focusing on the first generation of Kubrawī Sufi thinkers in the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth centuries, it shows how diagnostic oneirology emerged through two steps: first, the systematization of oneiric theory in early Kubrawī thought; second, the crafting of a close relation between Sufi theory and communal and institutional bonds, enabling the Sufi community to adapt to changing socio-political circumstances.