Isra' and Mi'raj

In the Israʾ ("Night Journey"), Muhammad is said to have traveled on the back of Buraq (a winged horse-like bird) to Al-Aqsa (i.e. the Noble Sanctuary), where he led other prophets including Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), and Isa (Jesus) in prayer.

[4] Muhammad then ascended into heaven during the Miʿraj (Ascension), where he individually greeted the prophets, and later spoke to God, who agreed to lower the number of required ṣalāt (ritual prayer) from 50 a day to only five.

The Israʾ is the part of the journey of Muhammad from Mecca to the farthest place of worship, though the city is not explicitly mentioned.

The journey began when Muhammad was in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, and the Archangel Jibrīl (or Jibrāʾīl, Gabriel) came to him, and brought Buraq, the traditional heavenly mount of the prophets.

In accounts written by Muslims, Bukhari, Ibn Ishaq, Ahmad b. Hanbal and others, physical descriptions of the prophets are given.

[19] Muhammad's beast of burden, the Buraq is described in several sahih hadith as "white" and "bigger than a donkey and smaller than a mule".

[20] Although hadith seldom if ever explicitly describe the Buraq as having wings or a human face, Near Eastern and Persian art typically portrays it as having one.

Muhammad's chest was opened up and water of Zamzam was poured on his heart giving him wisdom, belief, and other necessary characteristics to help him in his ascent.

Other important details that Ibn ʿAbbas adds to the narrative are the Heavenly Host Debate, the Final Verses of the Cow Chapter, and the Favor of the Prophets.

In an attempt to reestablish Ibn ʿAbbas as authentic, it seems as though a translator added the descent of Muhammad and the meeting with the prophets.

Ibn ʿAbbas may have left out the meeting of the prophets and the encounter with Moses that led to the reduction of daily prayers because those events were already written elsewhere.

Whether he included that in his original narrative or if it was added by a later translator is unknown, but often a point of contention when discussing Ibn ʿAbbas's Primitive Version.

The Subtleties of the Ascension by Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sulami includes repeated quotations from other mystics that also affirm the superiority of Muhammad.

[23] Muhammad Iqbal, a self-proclaimed intellectual descendant of Rumi and the poet-scholar who personified poetic Sufism in South Asia, used the event of the Miʿraj to conceptualize an essential difference between a prophet and a Sufi.

The mystics claim Muhammad was transported to the farthest place of worship and then onward to the Seven Heavens, even though "the apostle's body remained where it was.

"[28] Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Reiter mentions some alternative interpretations among some Muslim sects in the 21st century which dispute that the night journey took place in Jerusalem, believing instead it was either in the Heavens, or in Medina and its vicinity by Jaf'ari Shi'tes.

From Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock now stands, he is accompanied by Jibrīl to heaven, ascending possibly by ladder or staircase (miʿrāj).

[31] The Lailat al-Miʿraj (Arabic: لیلة المعراج, Lailatu 'l-Miʿrāj), also known as Shab-e-Mi'raj (Bengali: শবে মেরাজ, romanized: Šobe Meraj, Persian: شب معراج, Šab-e Mi'râj) in Iran, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and Miraç Kandili in Turkish, is the Muslim holiday on the 27th of Rajab (the date varying in the Western calendar) celebrating the Isra and Miʿraj.

The exact date of the Journey is not clear, but is celebrated as though it took place before the Hijrah and after Muhammad's visit to the people of Ta'if.

The normative view amongst Sunni Muslims who ascribe a specific date to the event is that it took place on the 27th of Rajab, slightly over a year before Hijrah.

[39] A hadith reports Muhammad's account of the experience: "Then Gabriel brought a horse (Burraq) to me, which resembled lightning in swiftness and lustre, was of clear white colour, medium in size, smaller than a mule and taller than a (donkey), quick in movement that it put its feet on the farthest limit of the sight.

[43][44] After the Jewish population was expelled a second time from Jerusalem and shortly before Heraclius retook the city (AD 630), a small synagogue was already in place on the Temple Mount.

It was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem.

[46]Israeli Political Scientist Yitzhak Reiter also claimed that the location being in Jerusalem was a tradition invented after Muhmmad's life by the Umayyad Caliphate to divert pilgrimage to either Shi'ite sites such as Al-Kufa, or Mecca when it was held by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr during the Second Muslim Civil war[29] Traditions of living persons ascending to heaven are also found in early Jewish and Christian literature.

[47] In the Book of Kings of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the prophet Elijah is said to have entered heaven alive by a chariot and horses of fire.

According to Brooke Vuckovic, early Muslims may have had precisely this ascent in mind when interpreting Muhammad's night journey.