Isrāʾ

Isrāʾ, in Islam, the Prophet Muhammad’s night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. As alluded to in the Qurʾān (17:1), a journey was made by a servant of God, in a single night, from the “sacred place of worship” (al-masjid al-ḥarām) to the “further place of worship” (al-masjid al-aqṣā).

Traditionally, there was general agreement that the servant of God was Muhammad and that the “sacred place of worship” was Mecca. Early commentators, however, interpreted the “further place of worship” as heaven, and the entire verse was considered a reference to the Prophet’s ascension into heaven (Miʿrāj), an ascension which also originated in Mecca. In the period of the Umayyad caliphate (661–750), the “further place of worship” was read as Jerusalem. The two versions were eventually reconciled by regarding the Isrāʾ simply as the night journey and relocating the point of Muhammad’s ascension from Mecca to Jerusalem to avoid confusion. Some commentators also suggested that the Isrāʾ was a vision sent to Muhammad in his sleep and not an actual journey at all; but orthodox sentiment has emphatically preserved the physical, thus miraculous, nature of the trip.

The Isrāʾ story, greatly elaborated by tradition, relates that Muhammad made the journey astride Burāq, a mythical winged creature, in the company of the archangel Jibrīl (Gabriel). Muhammad meets Ibrāhīm (Abraham), Mūsā (Moses), and ʿĪsā (Jesus) in Jerusalem at al-masjid al-aqṣā (identified in the Umayyad period with the site now known eponymously as Al-Aqṣā Mosque); he then officiates as leader (imām) of the ritual prayer (ṣalāt) for all the prophets assembled, thereby establishing his primacy among God’s messengers. See also Miʿrāj.