# Isra' and Mi'raj

The Israʾ and Miʿraj (Arabic: الإسراء والمعراج, al-’Isrā’ wal-Miʿrāj); In Islamic culture, it is the name given to the narrations that the prophet Muhammad ascended to the sky during a night journey, saw Allah and the afterlife, and returned. It is believed that expressions without a subject in verses 1-18 of surah An-Najm and some verses of 17th surah of the Quran, commonly called al-Isra', allude to the story. Framework and the details are elaborated and developed in the miraculous accounts, some of which are based on hadith, the reports, teachings, deeds and sayings of Muhammad collected later centuries attributed after him. The story of the journey and ascent are marked as one of the most celebrated in the Islamic calendar—27th of the Islamic month of Rajab.
Ibn Sa'd summarizes the earliest version of the written stories under the title "Ascension and the Order of Prayer" and dated the event to a Saturday, the 17th of Ramadan, eighteen months before Muhammad's Hijrah. According to him, the angels Gabriel and Michael accompanied Muhammad to a place in the sacred precinct of the Kaaba, between the well of Zamzam and Maqam Ibrahim. There, a ladder (miʿrāj) is said to have been set up by Muhammad and Gabriel, with whose help they ascended to heaven. When he reached the top, Muhammad is said to have met the previous prophets. According to one version of the tradition, Gabriel held Muhammad's hand tightly and ascended with him to heaven. When he reached the Sidrat al-Muntaha mentioned in Sura 53, verse 14, Muhammad saw heaven and hell. So, he was required to perform the original fifty prayers, which were reduced to five by the intervention of Moses.
Sunni culture adds to the story that Abu Bakr, who heard about the miracle from the pagans, approved the event without question and was given the title of al-Ṣiddīq, the Veracious. In the version accepted in Sunnism, story tells of Muhammad's negotiations with God, who ordered him and his ummah to pray 50 times a day, under the guidance of the prophet Moses. After repeated back and forth and negotiations, the 50 times a day was reduced to 5. In the Alawite-Bektashi culture there is no place for the five daily prayers and they adds also to the story that during his meeting with Allah, Allah spokes to Muhammad by Ali's voice and that he joins the 40's majlis on his return journey, a meeting very important for him. In the mirajnamas, religious/political leader who lived centuries after Muhammad, such as Satuq Bughra Khan, Ahmad Yasawi and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, are also included in stories. Thus, the views and practices of these persons are legitimized and included among the fundamental parts of Islamic culture and glorified.

## Terminology

While al-’Isrā’ lit means "to make someone walk" frequently translated as walking or traveling at night; and ʿMiʿrāj lit means "ascending device" / ladder" or "ascending place" as counted me'raj, derived from "uruj", lit means rising, or going up to a high place. The fact that the general name given to the stories is Miʿrāj rather than uʿruj may be a reference to the ladder motif in early narratives mentioned above.

#### Journey

There are different accounts of what occurred during the Miʿraj. Al-Tabari's description can be summarized as; Muhammad ascends into heaven with Gabriel and meets a different prophet at each of the seven levels of heaven; first Adam, then John the Baptist and Jesus, then Joseph, then Idris, then Aaron, then Moses, and lastly Abraham. Then continues to meet God without Gabriel. God tells Muhammad that his people must pray 50 times a day, but on returns to Earth, he meets Moses who tells him persistently "return to God and ask for fewer prayers because fifty is too many". Muhammad goes between Moses and God nine times, until the prayers are reduced to the five daily prayers, which God will reward tenfold. Other accounts, such as Muhammad al-Bukhari, ibn Ishaq, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, vary by details to some extend.
Some narratives also record events that preceded the heavenly ascent. Muhammad's chest was opened up and water of Zamzam was poured on his heart giving him wisdom, belief, and other necessary characteristics to help him in his ascent. This purification thema is also seen in the trial of the drinks. It is debated when it took place—before or after the ascent—but either way it plays an important role in determining Muhammad's spiritual righteousness.
Todays narrations consist of purifying Muhammad's heart, going to the Al-Aqsa (i.e. the Farthest or Noble Sanctuary) on Buraq (a winged horse-like creature) accompanied by Gabriel (named "Isra meaning night journey"), tying Buraq and leading the prophets such as Ibrahim, Musa, and Isa in prayer, ascending to the sky (Miʿrāj) from the muallak (suspended) stone, conversations with Allah, dialogues with other prophets in the different sky layers, seeing heaven and hell, and returning sections.
Many sects and offshoots belonging to Islamic mysticism interpret Muhammad's night ascent to be an out-of-body experience through nonphysical environments, stating "the apostle's body remained where it was" while the majority of Islamic scholars claim that the journey was both a physical and spiritual one.

## Sources

Except for a few verses in the Quran that are thought to refer to Isra and Miraj, the other narratives consist of stories added to the biography and hadith collections. Two hadith considered the most reliable ones are relies on Anas ibn Malik and ibn ʿAbbas persons who were recorded as children at the time in question.

### The Quran

The 17th chapter of the Quran takes its name from a word used in the first verse, which is presented as the first stage of the journey, expressed as Isra. However, the Surah was known as the Surah "banu Israel" "Children of Israel" during the time of the companions and the successors, and other views state that the relevant verse, together with the verses that follow it, tells about the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt (..his servant means Moses, in this case). According to a different interpretation of the verse through Muhammad, the Al-aqsa used in the verse is not associated with Jerusalem, but with Cirana, which is located near Mecca.
   Glory be to the One Who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing.
An expression that is connected with the ascention part of the story is the subject-free poetic expressions in the surah an-Najm.
   And he certainly saw that ˹angel descend˺ a second time
   at the "Sidr" of the most extreme limit ˹in the seventh heaven˺—
   near which is the Garden of ˹Eternal˺ Residence—
   while the "sidr" was overwhelmed with ˹heavenly˺ splendours!
   The ˹Prophet's˺ sight never wandered, nor did it overreach.
   He certainly saw some of his Lord's greatest signs.

### Hadith
#### Ibn ʿAbbas Primitive Version

Ibn Abbas's Primitive Versions describe everything Muhammad encountered during his journey through heaven. This includes seeing other angels and the seas of light, darkness, and fire. Muhammad, as companion of Gabriel, met four important angels as he traveles through heaven. These angels were the Rooster angel (whose call influences all earthly roosters), the Half Fire Half Snow angel (an example of God's power to bring fire and ice together in harmony), the Angel of Death, and the Guardian of Hellfire. These four angels are introduced at the beginning of Ibn Abbas's narrative and focuses on the angels rather than the prophets. There are ranks of angels in heaven, and he even meets some deeply connected angels called cherubim. These angels instill fear in Muhammad, but he sees later them as God's creation and not harmful.
Other important details that Ibn Abbas adds to the narrative are the Heavenly host, the final verses of the Cow Chapter, and the blessing of the Prophets.

#### Others

Various hadiths adds much more details; the Israʾ, which was not present in the previous hadiths of the miraj, is now part of Muhammad's journey from Mecca to "the farthest place of worship", although the city is not explicitly stated. The journey begins while Muhammad is in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, when the Archangel Gabriel arrives and brings the prophets' heavenly mount, Buraq.
Buraq carried Muhammad to the "farthest place of worship." Muhammad dismounted, tied Buraq up, and prayed, where he was tested by Gabriel at God's command. Anas ibn Malik narrated that Muhammad said: "Gabriel brought me a vessel of wine, a vessel of water, and a vessel of milk, and I chose the milk. Gabriel said: 'You have chosen the fitra (natural instinct).'" During the second part of the journey, on the "ladder" of Miraj, Gabriel took him to the heavens, where he circled the seven heavens and spoke with the previous prophets: Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus.
In other versions by Ibn Abbas, a transmitter seems to have added to Ibn Abbas' authentic narrative the descent of Muhammad and the meeting with the prophets. These are the stories of the meeting with the prophets and the meeting with Moses, which led to the reduction of the daily prayers, which are not included in Ibn Abbas' primitive version. Whether Ibn Abbas included this in his original narrative or whether it was added by a later transmitter is a matter of debate.

#### Of mutating hadith

Another question is whether the Isra and Mi'raj originally occurred together. According to Britannica, in the "earliest interpretations of the Mi'raj", while Muhammad in the Kaaba in Mecca, Muhammad's body is cut, cleansed and purified by the angel Jibreel, after which Jibreel carries him "directly to the lower heaven". However, at some point "in early Islamic history", this story of purification and ascent to heaven became associated with the story of Muhammad's night journey (Isra) from the "sacred house of worship" to the "other house of worship". Eventually, Muhammad was "carried from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night by the legendary winged beast Buraq. From Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock is now located, he was escorted to heaven by Jibreel and ascended, presumably by a ladder or staircase (Mi'raj)."."

## Historical (anacronistic) issues / Jerusalem connection

In the reign of the caliph Mu'awiyah I of the Umayyad Caliphate (founded in AD 661), a quadrangular mosque for a capacity of 3,000 worshipers is recorded somewhere on the Haram ash-Sharif. This was rebuilt and expanded by the caliph Abd al-Malik in AD 690 along with the Dome of the Rock. According to Islamic tradition, a small prayer hall (musalla), what would later become the Al-Aqsa Mosque, was built by Umar, the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
A hadith reports Muhammad's account of the experience:
   "Then Gabriel brought a horse (Burraq) to me, which resembled lightning in swiftness and lustre, was of clear white colour, medium in size, smaller than a mule and taller than a (donkey), quick in movement that it put its feet on the farthest limit of the sight. He made me ride it and carried me to Jerusalem. He tethered the Burraq to the ring of that Temple to which all the Prophets in Jerusalem used to tether their beasts..."
Although not in all of them, in some hadiths, such as bukhari 3207, the Miraj story is handled and processed independently of Al-Aqsa. Besides that city of Jerusalem is not mentioned by any of its names in Surah Al-Isra 17:1, however the consensus of Islamic scholars is that Quranic reference to masjid al-aqṣā in the verse refers to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mentioned in later Islamic literature and in the hadith as the place of Isra and Miʽraj. Some figures contest the consensus that Al-masjid al-aqṣā was in Jerusalem, and believe it was somewhere other than Jerusalem. This arises from the belief that there's no evidence of a Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem prior to the Islamic conquest of the Levant, and Umar's arrival;
The first and second temples were destroyed by the Babylonians and the Romans, respectively, the latter more than five centuries before Muhammad's life. After the initially successful Jewish revolt against Heraclius, the Jewish population resettled in Jerusalem for a short period of time from AD 614 to 630 and immediately started to restore the temple on the Temple Mount and build synagogues in Jerusalem. After the Jewish population was expelled a second time from Jerusalem and shortly before Heraclius retook the city (AD 630), a small synagogue was already in place on the Temple Mount. This synagogue was reportedly demolished after Heraclius retook Jerusalem.
French American Academic Oleg Grabar believed that the Quranic Al-masjid al-aqṣā referred to one of two sanctuaries in a Hijazi village known as al-Juʽranah near Mecca, basing this on the statement of two near-contemporary medieval Muslim travelers Al Waqidi and Al-Azraqi who used the term "Al-masjid al-aqṣā" , and "Al-masjid al-Adna":
   Bevan has shown that among early traditionists there are many who do not accept the identification of the masjid al-aqsa, and among them are to be found such great names as al-Bukhari and Tabari. Both Ibn Ishaq an al-Ya'qubi precede their accounts with expressions which indicate that these are stories which are not necessarily accepted as dogma. It was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem. But while Horovitz thought that it referred to a place in heaven, A. Guillaume's careful analysis of the earliest texts (al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, both in the later second century A.H.) has convincingly shown that the Koranic reference to the masjid al-aqsa applies specifically to Al-Ji'rana, near Mekkah, where there were two sanctuaries (masjid al-adnai and masjid al-aqsa), and where Muhammad so-journed in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah.
Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Reiter mentions some alternative interpretations among some Muslim sects in the 21st century which dispute that the night journey took place in Jerusalem, believing instead it was either in the Heavens, or in Medina and its vicinity by Jaf'ari Shi'tes. Reiter also claimed that the location being in Jerusalem was a tradition invented after Muhmmad's life by the Umayyad Caliphate to divert pilgrimage to either Shi'ite sites such as Al-Kufa, or Mecca when it was held by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr during the Second Muslim Civil war

## Similarities to other traditions

Traditions of living persons ascending to heaven are also found in early Jewish and Christian literature. The Book of Enoch, a late Second Temple Jewish apocryphal work, describes a tour of heaven given by an angel to the patriarch Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. According to Brooke Vuckovic, early Muslims may have had precisely this ascent in mind when interpreting Muhammad's night journey.
The similarity of many details in the Miraj narratives to Zoroastrian literature is striking. While critics argue that these narratives are a transfer from Zoroastrian literature, another claim argues that the relevant literature was written after Islam.

## Celebrations and reception

In Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, the structure of the Dome of the Rock, built several decades after Muhammad's death, marks the place from which Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven. The exact date of the Journey is not clear, but is celebrated as though it took place before the Hijrah and after Muhammad's visit to the people of Ta'if. The normative view amongst Sunni Muslims who ascribe a specific date to the event is that it took place on the 27th of Rajab, slightly over a year before Hijrah. This would correspond to the 26th of February 621 in the Western calendar. In Twelver Iran, Rajab 27 is the day of Muhammad's first calling or Mab'as. The al-Aqsa Mosque and surrounding area is now the third-holiest place on earth for Muslims.
The Lailat al-Miʿraj (Arabic: لیلة المعراج, Lailatu 'l-Miʿrāj), also known as Shab-e-Mi'raj (Bengali: শবে মেরাজ, romanized: Šobe Meraj, Persian: شب معراج, Šab-e Mi'râj) in Iran, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and Miraç Kandili in Turkish, is the Muslim holiday on the 27th of Rajab (the date varying in the Western calendar) celebrating the Isra and Miʿraj. Another name for the holiday is Mehraj-ul-Alam (also spelled Meraj-ul-Alam). Some Muslims celebrate this event by offering optional prayers during this night, and in some Muslim countries, by illuminating cities with electric lights and candles. The celebrations around this day tend to focus on every Muslim who wants to celebrate it. Worshippers gather into mosques and perform prayer and supplication. Some people may pass their knowledge on to others by telling them the story on how Muhammad's heart was purified by the archangel Gabriel, who filled him with knowledge and faith in preparation to enter the seven levels of heaven. After salah, food and treats are served.

### Sufism

The belief that Muhammad made the heavenly journey bodily was used to prove the unique status of Muhammad. One theory among Sufis was that Muhammad's body could reach God to a proximity that even the greatest saints could only reach in spirit. They debated whether Muhammad had really seen the Lord and if he did, whether he did so with his eyes or with his heart. Nevertheless, Muhammad's superiority is again demonstrated in that even in the extreme proximity of the Lord, "his eye neither swerved nor was turned away," whereas Moses had fainted when the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush. Various thinkers used this point to prove the superiority of Muhammad.
The Subtleties of the Ascension by Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sulami includes repeated quotations from other mystics that also affirm the superiority of Muhammad. Many Sufis interpreted the Miʿraj to ask questions about the meaning of certain events within the Miʿraj, and drew conclusions based on their interpretations, especially to substantiate ideas of the superiority of Muhammad over other prophets.
Muhammad Iqbal, a self-proclaimed intellectual descendant of Rumi and the poet-scholar who personified poetic Sufism in South Asia, used the event of the Miʿraj to conceptualize an essential difference between a prophet and a Sufi. He recounts that Muhammad, during his Miʿraj journey, visited the heavens and then eventually returned to the temporal world. Iqbal then quotes another South Asian Muslim saint by the name of 'Abdul Quddus Gangohi who asserted that if he (Gangohi) had had that experience, he would never have returned to this world. Iqbal uses Gangohi's spiritual aspiration to argue that while a saint or a Sufi would not wish to renounce the spiritual experience for something this-worldly, a prophet is a prophet precisely because he returns with a force so powerful that he changes world history by imbuing it with a creative and fresh thrust.

### European reception

In the 13th century AD, an account of the Isra' and Mi'raj was translated into several European languages—Latin, Spanish and French. Known as the Book of Muhammad's Ladder, this account purports to be the words of Muhammad himself as recorded by Ibn Abbas. It was translated by Abraham of Toledo and Bonaventure of Siena. It may have influenced Dante Alighieri's account of an ascent to heaven and descent to hell in the Divine Comedy.