Isra and Mi'raj

Two journeys in one night

"Isra" and "Mi'raj" name two connected parts of the same night: the Isra is the night journey from the Sacred Mosque in Makkah (al-Masjid al-Haram) to the Farthest Mosque in Jerusalem (al-Masjid al-Aqsa); the Mi'raj is the ascension that followed, from Jerusalem up through the seven heavens into the Presence of Allah. Tradition places this in the final years of the Prophet's ﷺ life in Makkah, during a period of intense personal grief — not long after the deaths of his wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib, his two closest protectors.

The event opens the Quran's seventeenth surah, named Al-Isra after it:

The ayah is deliberately brief; the detail of the night is preserved in the hadith literature. What follows is the journey told in order — and, deliberately, told only from narrations in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the two most rigorously authenticated hadith collections. Many famous details of popular retellings come from weaker reports; this page leaves those out and says so where it matters.

Before the night: a mercy after grief

The journey came at the lowest point of the Makkan years. In a short span the Prophet ﷺ had lost Khadijah, who believed in him first and stood by him for twenty-five years, and his uncle Abu Talib, who had shielded him from Quraysh — a span the seerah remembers as the Year of Sorrow (ʿam al-huzn). He had then travelled to Ta'if to call its people to Islam, and was driven out with stones until his feet bled; when the angel of the mountains offered to crush the town between the two hills, he ﷺ refused, hoping Allah would bring from their descendants those who worship Him alone (Sahih al-Bukhari 3231, Sahih Muslim 1795). It was into this grief — with his protectors gone and his call rejected — that Allah honoured His servant with the greatest journey ever granted to a human being: a consolation, and a sign, on the eve of the Hijrah that was soon to come.

Before the ascent: the opening of his chest

The sahih narrations open the night with a preparation. In the narration of Abu Dharr, Jibril (Gabriel) descended, opened the Prophet's ﷺ chest, and washed it with the water of Zamzam before pouring into it a golden tray filled with wisdom and faith. In the narration of Malik ibn Sa'sa'ah, the Prophet ﷺ was lying in the Hijr beside the Ka'bah — "between sleep and wakefulness," in Sahih Muslim's wording — when he was opened "from here to here," his heart taken out and washed with Zamzam, then filled with faith and wisdom and returned to its place.

This was not the first time. Sahih Muslim preserves, from Anas, that the Prophet's ﷺ chest had been opened once before — in his childhood, while he played with the other boys: Jibril took him, opened his chest, took out the heart, removed from it a clot and said, "This is the portion of Shaytan in you," then washed it in a golden basin with Zamzam water and returned it (Sahih Muslim 162). The night of the ascent, the heart that would carry the greatest revelation was prepared once more.

The night ride: al-Buraq

The Prophet ﷺ was then brought al-Buraq — a white riding animal, smaller than a mule but larger than a donkey, whose every stride carried it as far as its sight could reach. On it he travelled from Makkah to Jerusalem:

The small details carry weight: the mount is tethered at the ring the prophets used — the final prophet arriving where every prophet before him had arrived — and the first thing he ﷺ does in Jerusalem is pray.

In Jerusalem: leading the prophets in prayer

Sahih Muslim preserves, from Abu Hurairah, the Prophet's ﷺ own account of finding himself among the earlier prophets — seeing Musa, Isa, and Ibrahim each standing in prayer, and then being brought forward to lead them all when the prayer time came:

Other narrations, including one recorded in Sunan an-Nasa'i (450), place this congregational prayer explicitly at Bayt al-Maqdis. The scholars who have written on this narration, including al-Nawawi, note that the various reports don't agree on exactly when it took place — whether at Bayt al-Maqdis on the way up, or after the Prophet ﷺ came back down from the ascension — though they agree on the fact of it happening. Either way, the symbolism is treated as deliberate: the final prophet leading every prophet who came before him in prayer, at the mosque that had been the direction of prayer (qiblah) for many of them.

The two cups

Also placed at Jerusalem in the sahih narrations is a quiet test. Jibril presented the Prophet ﷺ with two vessels — one of wine, one of milk — and told him to choose:

In Sahih Muslim's long Anas narration the choice comes right after the two rak'ahs at Bayt al-Maqdis, with Jibril saying simply, "You have chosen the fitrah" (Muslim 162a). The Malik ibn Sa'sa'ah narration instead mentions vessels of wine, milk, and honey offered near the end of the ascent, by al-Bayt al-Ma'mur (Bukhari 3887). The reports place the offering at different points of the night; this page notes both placements rather than silently merging them. The meaning, in every version, is the same: milk is the fitrah — the sound, natural way — and the Prophet's ﷺ choice stood for his Ummah's.

Through the seven heavens

From Jerusalem, Jibril took the Prophet ﷺ upward. At each heaven's gate the same exchange repeated: Jibril sought entry, was asked "Who is it?" — "Jibril." — "And who is with you?" — "Muhammad." — "Has he been sent for?" — "Yes." And each gate opened with the words, "He is welcomed — what an excellent visit his is!" At each heaven an earlier prophet received him. The sequence is preserved in detail in Sahih Muslim, narrated by Anas ibn Malik:

In Malik ibn Sa'sa'ah's narration, Jibril introduces each prophet by name — "This is your father, Adam; give him your greeting" — and each returns the salam with the same warm formula: "Welcome, O righteous brother and righteous Prophet" — except Adam and Ibrahim, the two fathers, who both say "Welcome, O righteous son and righteous Prophet." Abu Dharr's narration adds a striking detail about Adam: he sat with dark multitudes of souls on his right and on his left — the souls of his descendants. "When he looked towards his right, he laughed; and when he looked towards his left, he wept" — for those on his right were the people of Paradise, and those on his left the people of the Fire (Bukhari 349).

And Musa, at the sixth heaven, wept as the Prophet ﷺ moved past him:

The commentators read those tears carefully: not envy, but grief for his own people — the prophet who had struggled hardest with Bani Israel, weeping at what a younger prophet's Ummah would be given. This same order of heavens — Adam, then Isa and Yahya, then Yusuf, then Idris, then Harun, then Musa, then Ibrahim at the seventh — is the one preserved in Sahih Muslim (162a) and Sahih al-Bukhari (3887, narrated by Malik ibn Sa'sa'ah). Even within the Sahih collections there is honest variation: in Abu Dharr's narration (Bukhari 349), Anas relates that the stations of most prophets were not fixed, "except that he found Adam in the nearest heaven and Ibrahim in the sixth." It's worth being equally honest that not every popular retelling agrees on every small detail — some later, less rigorously sourced accounts reorder or add to this list — so this page follows the wording of the two Sahih collections rather than any single popular summary.

At the utmost boundary

At the seventh heaven, Ibrahim sat reclining against al-Bayt al-Ma'mur — "the much-frequented House," the heavenly counterpart of the Ka'bah, which the Quran swears by in Surah at-Tur (52:4):

Seventy thousand angels a day, and never the same angel twice — a single line that quietly conveys the scale of the unseen creation. Then the Prophet ﷺ was taken to Sidrat al-Muntaha, the Lote Tree of the utmost boundary — the point, as Sahih Muslim 173 describes it, where everything that ascends from the earth terminates and is received, and everything that descends from above terminates and is received:

The sahih narrations record one more sight before the descent: Paradise itself, seen with his own eyes. In Malik ibn Sa'sa'ah's account: "Then I was admitted into Paradise where I found small walls (or tents) of pearls and its earth was of musk." And Anas relates that during the ascension the Prophet ﷺ came upon a river whose banks were domes of hollow pearls, and asked Jibril what it was. "This is al-Kawthar which your Lord has given you" — the river of abundance promised in the Quran's shortest surah (108:1), its soil the most excellent musk. Not every gift of the night was an obligation carried down; some were promises shown.

Bukhari's version adds that the tree's fruits were "like the jars of Hajar," and Sahih Muslim 173 says that what covered the tree was "moths of gold." One honest footnote: Muslim 173 describes the Sidrah as being "in the sixth heaven," while the Anas narrations reach it after the seventh; al-Nawawi's reconciliation — that its roots stand in the sixth heaven while its body rises above the seventh — is the classical answer, and the difference is stated here rather than smoothed over.

What did he ﷺ see?

Surah an-Najm speaks of this very scene — a second sight, at the Lote Tree, of what the Prophet ﷺ had once seen filling the horizon:

Whom did he see? When Masruq asked Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) whether Muhammad ﷺ had seen his Lord, she answered emphatically that whoever claims so "has fabricated the greatest lie against Allah" — and reported that she was the first of this Ummah to ask the Prophet ﷺ about these very verses. His answer: "It is only Jibril. I have not seen him in the form in which he was created except on those two occasions: I saw him descending from the heaven, the greatness of his form filling what is between the sky and the earth" (Sahih Muslim 177a). Abu Dharr asked the Prophet ﷺ the question directly:

Sahih Muslim also records Ibn Abbas saying "he saw Him with his heart" (Muslim 176) — a seeing of the heart, not of the eyes. The sahih texts, taken together, affirm that the Prophet ﷺ saw Jibril in his true form and "the greatest signs of his Lord," while Aisha's report and Abu Dharr's question stand against any claim of ocular vision of Allah Himself. This page presents the question as the sahih texts leave it, without forcing a resolution the sources themselves do not give.

What he ﷺ was given: fifty prayers, then five

At the summit of the journey, Allah revealed the command of prayer directly to the Prophet ﷺ: fifty prayers a day. Coming back down, he passed Musa, who — drawing on his own hard experience leading the Children of Israel — told him plainly that the Ummah would not be able to bear it, and sent him back to ask for less.

What followed was a repeated back-and-forth: the Prophet ﷺ returning to Allah, a reduction granted each time, and Musa sending him back again — until the number reached five. In Malik ibn Sa'sa'ah's narration the reduction came ten at a time; in Muslim's Anas narration, five at a time; in Abu Dharr's, by halves. The reports agree exactly where it matters: it began at fifty and ended at five.

Even after this final word, Musa urged him to ask for still more relief. The Prophet ﷺ declined to return again, saying he had asked his Lord so many times that he now felt too ashamed to ask further — "but I am satisfied, and I submit." And as he passed on, in Bukhari's wording, a caller announced: "I have decreed My obligation, and lightened the burden of My servants" (Bukhari 3887). This is the origin of Salah, the five daily prayers, as one of the Five Pillars of Islam; see the full step-by-step guide to how each prayer is performed. The reward, notably, was never reduced — five prayers were kept credited at the full weight of fifty, alongside the standing rule that an intended good deed is written even if left undone, and a bad deed is written only once it is actually committed.

Nor were the prayers the only gift. A narration in Sahih Muslim, from the Companion Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, counts three things given at the summit of the night:

The "concluding verses of Surah al-Baqarah" are the two closing ayat (2:285-286) — "Allah does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear…" — recited by Muslims every night since. The third gift is a promise about the great sins that would otherwise destroy a person (al-muqhimat): that for those of this Ummah who die free of shirk, forgiveness is within Allah's promise.

The morning after

By morning the Prophet ﷺ was back in Makkah — and telling Quraysh what had happened. They scoffed: caravans took a month each way to Syria, and he claimed to have gone and returned in a night. In Sahih Muslim's account he was questioned in the Hijr about details of Bayt al-Maqdis he had not memorised on the way through, and he described the distress: "I was vexed as I had never been before" — until Allah raised the city before his eyes, and he described it while looking at it:

One famous element of the morning after deserves an honest label. The story of Abu Bakr — told by the mockers that his companion claimed to have reached Jerusalem overnight, and answering, "If he said it, then he has spoken the truth; I already believe him about revelation coming from heaven morning and evening," and thereby earning the title as-Siddiq, the great affirmer of truth — is not found in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim. It is recorded with a chain in al-Hakim's al-Mustadrak, who graded it sahih, and it is widespread in the seerah literature; but because it lies outside the two Sahih collections this page relates it with that label rather than alongside the sahihayn material above.

A second honest note: many popular retellings of the Mi'raj include vivid punishment scenes — people whose heads are crushed by rocks, those who consume riba, backbiters tearing at their own faces. Those scenes come from reports outside the two Sahih collections, several of them with weak chains. The long narration in Sahih al-Bukhari (7047) that does describe a man's head being crushed belongs to a different vision — a dream (ru'ya) the Prophet ﷺ related, which the narration itself introduces as such and never ties to the Isra. Since the sahih Isra and Mi'raj narrations do not contain these scenes, this page — deliberately — does not either.

A physical journey, or a vision?

The overwhelming majority of the Companions, and of later scholars of hadith and theology, held that the Isra and Mi'raj were a physical journey — that the Prophet ﷺ was taken bodily, awake, not merely in a dream. Ibn Kathir wrote that the hadith of the Isra "is a matter of consensus among the Muslims," and treated the account as settled among the community of believers. Some early commentaries, however, preserve a minority view attributed to Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) and a few others, holding that the journey was of the spirit alone, with the body remaining in place — a position recorded in classical tafsir works such as those of al-Tabari and al-Zamakhshari on this ayah. Both positions are found within the scholarly tradition; this page follows the majority position without dismissing the minority one, since deen2u's aim is to represent sourced disagreement honestly rather than flatten it.

When did it happen?

There is no fully authenticated hadith that fixes an exact date. Biographers place the event in the Makkan period, commonly described as roughly a year before the Hijrah — though earlier scholars of seerah also transmitted other estimates, ranging up to five years before the migration, and there is no single agreed year. The popular association with the 27th night of Rajab is widespread in many communities today, but is not supported by an authentic chain of narration; Ibn Kathir noted this explicitly, and later scholars such as Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani concurred that the Rajab date has no sound basis. This page states the timing honestly as disputed, rather than presenting a specific date as settled fact.

Should the night be commemorated?

Because the sources leave the date unsettled, scholars also differ on whether the night should be marked at all. One position — held by Ibn Taymiyyah and, in our time, by scholars such as Ibn Baz and Saudi Arabia's Permanent Committee — is that singling out a night the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions never singled out introduces into worship what has no sourced basis. Another — taken by Egypt's Dar al-Ifta and widely followed in Shafi'i communities, including much of Southeast Asia — permits gatherings that retell the story and give thanks, citing the Quran's instruction to rejoice in Allah's bounty and mercy (10:58), so long as no specific prayer or fast is treated as legislated for the night. Both are serious, sourced positions, and this page does not resolve them. On one thing all agree: no special worship for 27 Rajab is established from the Prophet ﷺ — and the surest way to honour the night is the five prayers it gave us.