Dream interpretation books in classical Turkish literature

Throughout history, dreams have been interpreted in various ways according to prevailing beliefs and philosophical perspectives, and texts devoted to dream interpretation have appeared in diverse cultures since the advent of writing. In Turkish literature, works known as tabirnames (dream interpretation manuals) attracted considerable attention from the 13th to the 19th centuries, as reflected in the large number of surviving manuscripts and printed editions. This study aims to introduce tabirnames produced during the Classical Turkish literature period as a distinct literary genre. Although these texts have been the subject of numerous individual studies, they have yet to be examined comprehensively or adequately represented within the scope of genre studies. The tabirnames accessed in Turkish and international libraries—many of which have remained undiscovered until now—have been examined in terms of both form and content, with an effort to identify gaps and inconsistencies in the existing literature. Since this study seeks to define tabirnames as a distinct literary genre, it does not engage in textual criticism or provide detailed codicological descriptions of the hundreds of identified manuscripts. Instead, it systematically classifies and presents all scanned tabirname manuscripts based on their formal characteristics. To highlight the genre's thematic and structural features, the internal divisions of these texts are outlined, and representative examples—primarily drawn from already published tabirnames—are analyzed to facilitate interpretation of the collected data. As a result of an extensive and meticulous survey, 456 manuscripts of tabirnames were identified in Turkish and international libraries, and the examination of these manuscripts revealed 96 distinct tabirname works. This figure represents the highest number identified to date. This figure represents the highest number of tabirname manuscripts documented to date. Moreover, these manuscripts are collectively examined for the first time in this study, which aims to systematically define the key characteristics of the genre.