Book of Muhammad's Ladder

The Book of Muḥammad's Ladder is a first-person account of the Islamic prophet Muḥammad's night journey (isrāʾ) and ascent to heaven (miʿrāj), translated into Latin (as Liber scalae Machometi) and Old French (as Livre de l'eschiele Mahomet) from traditional Arabic materials.

It also includes sections on Muḥammad's visit to the seven regions of Hell and his face-to-face vision of God, during which he was granted the power to intercede on behalf of believers on Judgement Day.

It survives only in Latin and Old French versions, known respectively by the titles Liber scalae Machometi and Livre de l'eschiele Mahomet.

[1] According to the preface of these versions, King Alfonso X of Castile commissioned Abraham of Toledo to translate an Arabic work entitled al-Miʿrāj into Castilian (Old Spanish) and divide it into chapters.

In addition, the surviving texts seem to incorporate material from Christian commentaries on Islamic traditions, possibly added by Bonaventura.

The influence of Christian (and Jewish) commentaries may be explained by the author's reliance on popular traditions and less authoritative ḥadīths, which had already incorporated such material.

[5] The first four chapters describe the isrāʾ or night journey when Muḥammad was brought from Mecca to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by the angel Gabriel.

[1] It also includes Muḥammad's face-to-face visit with God and the grant to him of the power to intercede on behalf of believers on Judgement Day.

[20] The French preface makes clear that the reader is to perceive in the work "the errors and unbelievable things" of Islam.

[15] The response of Muḥammad's kinsmen to his account probably reflects how the translators expected the work to be received by Christian readers: You wish to have us understand thereby that in a single night you went to the Temple in Jerusalem and saw everything that is within it and, afterwards, you saw all the heavens and all the lands and celestial gardens and regions of hell!

[14] It is cited as Muḥammad's second book in the Liber illustrium personarum of Juan Gil de Zamora (died c. 1318) and the Primera Crónica General.

It has been argued that the Divine Comedy was composed as a kind of Christian counter to Muḥammad's Ladder, although there is as yet no scholarly consensus.