| Sumario: | An often-overlooked area within Ismaili studies is Nāṣir Khusraw's transformative encounter with a dream at the age of forty, which served as a catalyst for his intellectual awakening. This dream marked the point of his realization, directing him toward the qibla, the direction of prayer, and promising wisdom and enlightenment. Thus inspired, Khusraw embarked on a seven-year journey, initially toward Mecca, but ultimately making Fatimid Cairo his primary place of stay. He documented his experiences in his travelogue, Safarnāmah , which opens with a vivid account of this pivotal dream. Interestingly, a reference to sleep and dreaming also appears in Khusraw's confession-ode, a poetic expression detailing his intellectual journey from obscurity to enlightenment in the pursuit of true knowledge. By employing Ibn ʿArabī's three-part typology of dreams, this study juxtaposes Khusraw's mention of the dream and its associated events in Safarnāmah with his intellectual transformation as reflected in his confession-ode. Through conceptual metaphoric analysis, it posits that the allusions recorded in the poem offer personalized interpretations of Khusraw's physical experiences chronicled in Safarnāmah. Despite Khusraw's initial declaration in Safarnāmah of embarking on a pilgrimage to Mecca to pursue intellectual awakening, the text intriguingly lacks any direct mention of this awakening or its connection to his pilgrimage. Instead, his narrative appears predominantly centered around Fatimid Cairo and its ruling Caliph-Imāms. This observation leads to the proposition that Safarnāmah , potentially composed in a hostile environment upon his return to Persia, could also be read as a symbolic rendition of his spiritual awakening, a theme poetically articulated with greater explicitness in his confession-ode.
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