Buraq

The Encyclopaedia of Islam, referring to the writings of Al-Damiri (d.1405), considers al-burāq to be a derivative and adjective of Arabic: برق barq "lightning/emitted lightning" or various general meanings stemming from the verb: "to beam, flash, gleam, glimmer, glisten, glitter, radiate, shimmer, shine, sparkle, twinkle".

He mounted the Buraq again as the creature ascended to the seven heavens, where he successively met Adam, Jesus and his cousin John, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Abraham one by one until he reached the throne of God.

God communicated with him, giving him words and instructions, and most importantly the commandment to Muslims to offer prayers, initially fifty times a day.

Tradition states that Abraham lived with Sarah in Canaan but the Buraq would transport him in the morning to Mecca to see his family there and take him back in the evening.

An excerpt from a translation of Sahih al-Bukhari describes Buraq: Then a white animal which was smaller than a mule and bigger than a donkey was brought to me ...

It is typically male, yet Ibn Sa'd has Gabriel address the creature as a female, and it was often rendered by painters and sculptors with a woman's head.

[12] The idea that "al-Buraq" is simply a divine mare is also noted in the book The Dome of the Rock,[13] in the chapter "The Open Court", and in the title-page vignette of Georg Ebers's Palestine in Picture and Word.

[16] In 1866, the Prussian Consul and Orientalist Georg Rosen wrote: "The Arabs call Obrâk the entire length of the wall at the wailing place of the Jews, southwards down to the house of Abu Su'ud and northwards up to the substructure of the Mechkemeh [Shariah court].

Obrâk is not, as was formerly claimed, a corruption of the word Ibri (Hebrews), but simply the neo-Arabic pronunciation of Bōrâk, ... which, whilst (Muhammad) was at prayer at the holy rock, is said to have been tethered by him inside the wall location mentioned above.