Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad
APPENDIX IV
THE NIGHT JOURNEY
THE PROPHET'S "Night Journey" (isra') from Mecca to Jerusalem and his subsequent
"Ascension" (mi’raj) to heaven are,
in reality, two stages of one mystic experience, dating almost exactly one year
before the exodus to Medina (cf. Ibn Sa’d I/1, 143). According to various well-documented
Traditions - extensively quoted and discussed by Ibn Kathir in his commentary on 17:1, as well as by Ibn Hajar in Fath
al-Bari VII, 155 ff. - the Apostle of God,
accompanied by the Angel Gabriel, found himself transported by night to the
site of Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem, where he led a congregation of many of
the earlier, long since deceased prophets in prayer; some of them he afterwards
encountered again in heaven. The Ascension, in particular, is important from
the viewpoint of Muslim theology inasmuch as it was in the course of this
experience that the five daily prayers were explicitly instituted, by God's
ordinance, as an integral part of the Islamic Faith.
Since the Prophet himself did not leave any clear-cut
explanation of this experience, Muslim thinkers - including the Prophet's
Companions - have always widely differed as to its true nature. The great
majority of the Companions believed that both the Night Journey and the Ascension
were physical occurrences - in other words, that the Prophet was borne
bodily to Jerusalem and then to heaven - while a minority were convinced that
the experience was purely spiritual. Among the latter we find, in particular,
the name of A'ishah, the Prophet's widow and most
intimate companion of his later years, who declared emphatically that "he
was transported in his spirit (bi-ruhihi), while
his body did not leave its place" (cf. Tabari, Zamakhshari and Ibn Kathir in their commentaries on 17:1); the great Al-Hasan al-Basri, who belonged to
the next generation, held uncompromisingly to the same view (ibid.). As
against this, the theologians who maintain that the Night Journey and the
Ascension were physical experiences refer to the corresponding belief of most
of the Companions - without, however, being able to point to a single Tradition
to the effect that the Prophet himself described it as such. Some Muslim
scholars lay stress on the words asra bi-‘abdihi ("He transported His servant by
night") occurring in 17:1, and contend that the term ‘abd ("servant") denotes a living being in its
entirety, i.e., a combination of body and soul. This interpretation, however,
does not take into account the probability that the expression asra bi-‘abdihi simply
refers to the human quality of the Prophet, in consonance with the many Qur'anic statements to the effect that he, like all other
apostles, was but a mortal servant of God, and was not endowed with any
supernatural qualities. This, to my mind, is fully brought out in the
concluding words of the above verse - "verily, He alone is all-hearing,
all-seeing" - following upon the statement that
the Prophet was shown some of God's symbols (min ayatina),
i.e., given insight into some, but by no means all, of the ultimate truths
underlying God's creation.
The most convincing argument in favour
of a spiritual interpretation of both the Night Journey and the
Ascension is forthcoming from the highly allegorical descriptions found in the
authentic Traditions relating to this double experience: descriptions, that is,
which are so obviously symbolic that they preclude any possibility of
interpreting them literally, in "physical" terms. Thus, for instance,
the Apostle of God speaks of his encountering at
In the best-known Tradition on the Ascension (quoted by Bukhari), the Prophet introduces his narrative with the
words: "While I lay on the ground next to the Kabah
[lit., "in the hijr"], lo! there came unto me an angel, and cut open my breast and took
out my heart. And then a golden basin full of faith was brought unto me,
and my heart was washed [therein] and was filled [with it]; then it, was
restored to its place…" Since "faith" is an abstract concept, it
is obvious that the Prophet himself regarded this prelude to the Ascension -
and therefore the Ascension itself and, ipso facto, the Night Journey to
But whereas there is cogent reason to believe in a
"bodily" Night Journey arid Ascension, there is, on the other hand,
no reason to doubt the objective reality of this event. The early Muslim
theologians, who could not be expected to possess adequate psychological
knowledge, could
visualize only two alternatives:
either a physical happening or a dream. Since it appeared to them - and rightly
so - that these wonderful occurrences would greatly lose in significance if
they were relegated to the domain of mere dream, they instinctively adopted an
interpretation in physical terms and passionately defended it against all
contrary views, like those of A'ishah, Muawiyah or Al-Hasan al-Basri. In the meantime, however, we have come to know that
a dream-experience is not the only alternative to a physical occurrence.
Modern psychical research, though still in its infancy, has demonstrably proved
that not every spiritual experience (that is, an experience in which none of
the known organs of man's body has a part) must necessarily be a mere
subjective manifestation of the "mind" - whatever this term may
connote - but that it may, in special circumstances, be no less real or "factual"
in the objective sense of this word than anything that man can experience by
means of his physiological organism. We know as yet very little about the
quality of such exceptional psychic activities, and so it is well-nigh
impossible to reach definite conclusions as to their nature. Nevertheless,
certain observations of modern psychologists have confirmed the possibility -
claimed from time immemorial by mystics of all persuasions - of a temporary
"independence" of man's spirit from his living body. In the event of
such a temporary independence, the spirit or soul appears to be able freely to
traverse time and space, to embrace within its insight occurrences and
phenomena belonging to otherwise widely separated categories of reality, and to
condense them within symbolical perceptions of great intensity, clarity and
comprehensiveness. But when it comes to communicating such
"visionary" experiences (as we are constrained to call them for lack
of a better term) to people who have never experienced anything of the kind,
the person concerned - in this case, the Prophet - is obliged to resort to
figurative expressions: and this would account for the allegorical style of all
the Traditions relating to the mystic vision of the Night Journey and the
Ascension.
At this point I should like to draw the reader's attention
to the discussion of "spiritual Ascension" by one of the truly great
Islamic thinkers, Ibn al-Qayyim
(Zad al-Ma’ad II,
48 f.): “A'ishah and Muawiyah
maintained that the [Prophet's] Night Journey was performed by his soul (bi-ruhihi), while his body did not leave its place. The
same is reported to have been the view of Al-Hasan al-Basri. But it is necessary to know the difference between
the saying, 'the Night Journey took place in dream (manaman)',
and the saying, 'it was [performed] by his soul without his body'. The
difference between these two [views] is tremendous. . . , What the dreamer sees
are mere reproductions (amthal) of forms
already existing in his mind; and so he dreams [for example] that he ascends to
heaven or is transported to Mecca or to [other] regions of the world, while [in
reality] his spirit neither ascends nor is transported. . . .
"Those who have reported to us the Ascension of the
Apostle of God can be divided into two groups - one group maintaining that the
Ascension was in spirit and in body, and the other group maintaining
that it was performed by his spirit, while his body did not leave its place.
But these latter [also] do not mean to say that the Ascension took place
in a dream: they merely mean that it was his soul itself which actually went on
the Night Journey and ascended to heaven, and that the soul witnessed things
which it [otherwise] witnessses after death [lit., mufaraqah, "separation"].
Its condition on that occasion was similar to the condition
[of the soul] after death... But that which the Apostle of God experienced on
his Night Journey was superior to the [ordinary] experiences of the soul after
death, and, of course, was far above the dreams which one sees in sleep… As to
the prophets [whom the Apostle of God met in heaven], it was but their souls
which had come to dwell there after the separation from their bodies, while the
soul of the Apostle of God ascended there in his lifetime."
It is obvious that this kind of spiritual experience is not
only not inferior, but on the contrary, vastly superior to anything that bodily
organs could ever perform or record; and it goes without saying, as already
mentioned by Ibn al-Qayyim,
that it is equally superior to what we term "dream-experiences",
inasmuch as the latter have no objective existence outside the subject's mind,
whereas spiritual experiences of the kind referred to above are not less
"real" (that is, objective) than. anything which could be experienced
"in body", By assuming that the Night Journey and the Ascension were
spiritual and not bodily, we do not diminish the extraordinary value attaching
to this experience of the Prophet, On the contrary, it appears that the fact of
his having had such an experience by far transcends any miracle of bodily
ascension, for it
presupposes a personality of
tremendous spiritual perfection - the very thing which we expect from a true
Prophet of God. However, it is improbable that we ordinary human beings will
ever be in a position fully to comprehend spiritual experiences of this kind,
Our minds can only operate with elements provided by our consciousness of time
and space; and everything that extends beyond this particular set of
conceptions will always defy our attempts at a clear-cut definition.\
In conclusion, it should be noted that the Prophet's Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, immediately preceding his Ascension was apparently meant to show that Islam is not a new doctrine but a continuation of the same divine message which was preached by the prophets of old, who had Jerusalem as their spiritual home, This view is supported by Traditions (quoted in Fath al-Bari VII, 158), according to which the Prophet, during his Night Journey, also offered prayers at Yathrib, Sinai, Bethlehem, etc. His encounters with other prophets, mentioned in this connection, symbolize the same idea. The well-known Traditions to the effect that on the occasion of his Night Journey the Prophet led a prayer in the Temple of Jerusalem, in which all other prophets ranged themselves behind him, expresses in a figurative manner the doctrine that Islam, as preached by the Prophet Muhammad, is the fulfilment and perfection of mankind's religious development, and that Muhammad was the last and the greatest of God's message-bearers.