The Night Journey: From Mecca to Jerusalem to Heaven

Surah 17 opens with a single declaration: Exalted is He who took His servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing. This is the entire Quranic account of the Night Journey (al-Isra); the details come from hadith tradition.

The account preserved in Islamic tradition describes what follows. The angel Jibril (Gabriel) comes to Muhammad at night and takes him on a creature called the Buraq — described as white, smaller than a mule but larger than a donkey, with each stride reaching the horizon — to the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. There Muhammad leads the assembled prophets in prayer: Ibrahim, Musa, Isa, and many others, all gathered as his congregation.

Then the ascent begins — al-Mi'raj, the ascension. Muhammad and Jibril ascend through seven heavens. In each heaven, Muhammad meets a prophet. In the first heaven, Adam, who greets him. In the second, Yahya (John the Baptist) and Isa. In the third, Yusuf. In the fourth, Idris. In the fifth, Harun. In the sixth, Musa, who weeps when Muhammad passes because more of Muhammad's community will enter paradise than Musa's. In the seventh, Ibrahim, sitting with his back against the Bayt al-Ma'mur, the heavenly Kaaba.

Beyond the seventh heaven, Muhammad approaches the divine presence — the Surah al-Najm describes a vision of Jibril in his true form near the Lote-tree of the Utmost Boundary, beyond which no creature passes. It is in this encounter that the five daily prayers are established: God commands fifty prayers; Moses counsels Muhammad to negotiate; through multiple rounds, the number is reduced to five, though the reward of fifty is maintained.

The journey is the foundational event for the direction of prayer (initially toward Jerusalem, then toward Mecca), for the five daily prayers, and for the physical and spiritual geography of Islamic cosmology.