(17:60) And recall when We said to you, (O Muhammad), that your Lord encompasses these people;70 and that We have made that vision that We have shown you,71 and the tree accursed in the Qur'an,72 but as a trial for people. We go about warning them, but each warning leads them to greater transgression.
70. That is, at the very beginning of your Prophethood, when the disbelievers of the Quraish had started opposition to your message, We declared that We are encircling them. They might try their best to obstruct your message, but they will inevitably fail in this and your mission will succeed regardless of opposition. Can’t they see that this declaration has come out true as a miracle, for their opposition has failed to hinder your message, and they have not been able to do any harm to you at all. This was a clear sign of the fact that the mission of the Prophet (peace be upon him) was being supported by the Almighty God. As regards to the declaration that Allah is encircling the disbelievers and helping the mission of the Prophet, it occurs in several Surahs of the first stage of Prophethood at Makkah. For instance, in (Ayats 17-20 of Surah Al-Burooj), Allah says: These disbelievers do not learn a lesson from the stories of the people of the Pharaoh and Thamud but are rejecting the message here as Allah is encircling them on all sides.
71. This refers to Miraj (Ascension) for here word ruya does not mean “seeing things in a dream” but seeing things actually with physical eyes. It is quite obvious that if it had been a mere dream and the Prophet (peace be upon him) had presented it as a dream to the disbelievers, there was no reason why it should have become a trial for them. Everyday people see strange dreams and relate them to the people but these dreams never become such a curious thing as to make people scoff at the dreamer and accuse him of making a false claim or of being a mad person.
72. This cursed tree, Az-zaqqum which has been mentioned in (Ayat 43-44 of Surah Ad-Dukhan), grows at the bottom of Hell and its dwellers shall have to eat from it. This has been called a cursed tree because it is not given to people to eat as a mercy from Allah but as a symbol of His curse so that the accursed people should eat it and get more sore, for this will, so to speak, burn in their bellies like the boiling water.( via islamicstudies.info )
THE PROPHET'S "Night Journey" (isra') from Mecca to Jerusalem and his subsequent "Ascension" (mi'raj) to
heaven are, in reality, two stages of one mystic experience, dating
almost exactly one year before the exodus to Medina (cf. Ibn Sa'd I/1,
143). According to various well-documented Traditions - extensively
quoted and discussed by Ibn Kathir in his commentary on 17:1, as well as by Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari VII, 155 ff. - the Apostle of God, accompanied by the Angel Gabriel, found himself transported by night to
the site of Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem, where he led a congregation
of many of the earlier, long since deceased prophets in prayer; some of
them he afterwards encountered again in heaven. The Ascension, in
particular, is important from the viewpoint of Muslim theology inasmuch
as it was in the course of this experience that the five daily prayers
were explicitly instituted, by God's ordinance, as an integral part of
the Islamic Faith.
Since
the Prophet himself did not leave any clear-cut explanation of this
experience, Muslim thinkers - including the Prophet's Companions - have
always widely differed as to its true nature. The great majority of the
Companions believed that both the Night Journey and the Ascension were physical occurrences
- in other words, that the Prophet was borne bodily to Jerusalem and
then to heaven - while a minority were convinced that the experience was
purely spiritual. Among the latter we find, in particular, the name of
A'ishah, the Prophet's widow and most intimate companion of his later
years, who declared emphatically that "he was transported in his spirit (bi-ruhihi), while his body did not leave its place" (cf. Tabari, Zamakhshari and Ibn Kathir in their commentaries on 17:1); the great Al-Hasan al-Basri, who belonged to the next generation, held uncompromisingly to the same view (ibid.). As against this, the theologians who maintain that the Night Journey and
the Ascension were physical experiences refer to the corresponding
belief of most of the Companions - without, however, being able to point
to a single Tradition to the effect that the Prophet himself described
it as such. Some Muslim scholars lay stress on the words asra bi-'abdihi ("He transported His servant by night") occurring in 17:1, and contend that the term 'abd ("servant")
denotes a living being in its entirety, i.e., a combination of body and
soul. This interpretation, however, does not take into account the
probability that the expression asra bi-'abdihi simply refers to the human quality of
the Prophet, in consonance with the many Qur'anic statements to the
effect that he, like all other apostles, was but a mortal servant of
God, and was not endowed with any supernatural qualities. This, to my
mind, is fully brought out in the concluding words of the above verse -
"verily, He alone is all-hearing, all-seeing" - following upon the
statement that the Prophet was shown some of God's symbols (min ayatina), i.e., given insight into some, but by no means all, of the ultimate truths underlying God's creation.
The most convincing argument in favour of a spiritual interpretation of both the Night Journey and
the Ascension is forthcoming from the highly allegorical descriptions
found in the authentic Traditions relating to this double experience:
descriptions, that is, which are so obviously symbolic that they
preclude any possibility of interpreting them literally, in "physical"
terms. Thus, for instance, the Apostle of God speaks of his encountering
at Jerusalem, and subsequently in heaven, a number of the earlier
prophets, all of whom had undoubtedly passed away a long time before.
According to one Tradition (quoted by Ibn Kathir on the authority of
Anas), he visited Moses in his grave, and found him praying. In another Tradition, also on the authority of Anas (cf. Fath alBari VII, 158), the Prophet describes how, on his Night Journey, he encountered an old woman, and was thereupon told by Gabriel, "This old woman is the mortal world (ad-dunya)". In the words of yet another Tradition, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah (ibid.), the
Prophet "passed by people who were sowing and harvesting; and every
time they completed their harvest, [the grain] grew up again. Gabriel
said, 'These are the fighters in God's cause (al-mujahidun ).'
Then they passed by people whose heads were being shattered by rocks;
and every time they were shattered, they became whole again. [Gabriel]
said, 'These are they whose heads were oblivious of prayer.'... Then
they passed by people who were eating raw, rotten meat and throwing away
cooked, wholesome meat. [Gabriel] said, 'These are the adulterers.'"
In
the best-known Tradition on the Ascension (quoted by Bukhari), the
Prophet introduces his narrative with the words: "While I lay on the
ground next to the Kabah [lit., "in the hijr"], lo! there came unto me an angel, and cut open my breast and took out my heart. And then a golden basin full of faith was
brought unto me, and my heart was washed [therein] and was filled [with
it]; then it, was restored to its place…" Since "faith" is an abstract
concept, it is obvious that the Prophet himself regarded this prelude to
the Ascension - and therefore the Ascension itself and, ipso facto, the Night Journey to Jerusalem - as purely spiritual experiences.
But whereas there is cogent reason to believe in a "bodily" Night Journey arid Ascension, there is, on the other hand, no reason to doubt the objective reality of this event. The early Muslim theologians, who could not be expected to possess adequate psychological knowledge, could
visualize
only two alternatives: either a physical happening or a dream. Since it
appeared to them - and rightly so - that these wonderful occurrences
would greatly lose in significance if they were relegated to the domain
of mere dream, they instinctively adopted an interpretation in physical
terms and passionately defended it against all contrary views, like
those of A'ishah, Muawiyah or Al-Hasan al-Basri. In the meantime,
however, we have come to know that a dream-experience is not the only alternative
to a physical occurrence. Modern psychical research, though still in
its infancy, has demonstrably proved that not every spiritual experience
(that is, an experience in which none of the known organs of man's body
has a part) must necessarily be a mere subjective manifestation of the
"mind" - whatever this term may connote - but that it may, in special
circumstances, be no less real or "factual" in the objective sense of
this word than anything that man can experience by means of his
physiological organism. We know as yet very little about the quality of
such exceptional psychic activities, and so it is well-nigh impossible
to reach definite conclusions as to their nature. Nevertheless, certain
observations of modern psychologists have confirmed the possibility -
claimed from time immemorial by mystics of all persuasions - of a
temporary "independence" of man's spirit from his living body. In the
event of such a temporary independence, the spirit or soul appears to be
able freely to traverse time and space, to embrace within its insight
occurrences and phenomena belonging to otherwise widely separated
categories of reality, and to condense them within symbolical
perceptions of great intensity, clarity and comprehensiveness. But when
it comes to communicating such "visionary" experiences (as we are
constrained to call them for lack of a better term) to people who have
never experienced anything of the kind, the person concerned - in this
case, the Prophet - is obliged to resort to figurative expressions: and
this would account for the allegorical style of all the Traditions
relating to the mystic vision of the Night Journey and the Ascension.
At
this point I should like to draw the reader's attention to the
discussion of "spiritual Ascension" by one of the truly great Islamic
thinkers, Ibn al-Qayyim (Zad al-Ma'ad II, 48 f.): "A'ishah and Muawiyah maintained that the [Prophet's] Night Journey was performed by his soul (bi-ruhihi), while
his body did not leave its place. The same is reported to have been the
view of Al-Hasan al-Basri. But it is necessary to know the difference
between the saying, 'the Night Journey took place in dream (manaman)', and
the saying, 'it was [performed] by his soul without his body'. The
difference between these two [views] is tremendous. . . , What the
dreamer sees are mere reproductions (amthal) of
forms already existing in his mind; and so he dreams [for example] that
he ascends to heaven or is transported to Mecca or to [other] regions
of the world, while [in reality] his spirit neither ascends nor is
transported. . . .
"Those
who have reported to us the Ascension of the Apostle of God can be
divided into two groups - one group maintaining that the Ascension was
in spirit and in
body, and the other group maintaining that it was performed by his
spirit, while his body did not leave its place. But these latter [also]
do not mean to say that the Ascension took place in a dream: they merely mean that it was his soul itself which actually went on the Night Journey and ascended to heaven, and that the soul witnessed things which it [otherwise] witnessses after death [lit., mufaraqah, "separation"].
Its
condition on that occasion was similar to the condition [of the soul]
after death... But that which the Apostle of God experienced on his Night Journey was
superior to the [ordinary] experiences of the soul after death, and, of
course, was far above the dreams which one sees in sleep… As to the
prophets [whom the Apostle of God met in heaven], it was but their souls
which had come to dwell there after the separation from their bodies,
while the soul of the Apostle of God ascended there in his lifetime."
It
is obvious that this kind of spiritual experience is not only not
inferior, but on the contrary, vastly superior to anything that bodily
organs could ever perform or record; and it goes without saying, as
already mentioned by Ibn al-Qayyim, that it is equally superior to what
we term "dream-experiences", inasmuch as the latter have no objective
existence outside the subject's mind, whereas spiritual experiences of
the kind referred to above are not less "real" (that is, objective)
than. anything which could be experienced "in body", By assuming that
the Night Journey and
the Ascension were spiritual and not bodily, we do not diminish the
extraordinary value attaching to this experience of the Prophet, On the
contrary, it appears that the fact of his having had such an experience
by far transcends any miracle of bodily ascension, for it presupposes a
personality of tremendous spiritual perfection - the very thing which we
expect from a true Prophet of God. However, it is improbable that we
ordinary human beings will ever be in a position fully to comprehend
spiritual experiences of this kind, Our minds can only operate with
elements provided by our consciousness of time and space; and everything
that extends beyond this particular set of conceptions will always defy
our attempts at a clear-cut definition.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the Prophet's Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, immediately preceding his Ascension was apparently meant to show that Islam is not a new doctrine
but a continuation of the same divine message which was preached by the
prophets of old, who had Jerusalem as their spiritual home, This view
is supported by Traditions (quoted in Fath al-Bari VII, 158), according to which the Prophet, during his Night Journey,
also offered prayers at Yathrib, Sinai, Bethlehem, etc. His encounters
with other prophets, mentioned in this connection, symbolize the same
idea. The well-known Traditions to the effect that on the occasion of
his Night Journey the
Prophet led a prayer in the Temple of Jerusalem, in which all other
prophets ranged themselves behind him, expresses in a figurative manner
the doctrine that Islam, as preached by the Prophet Muhammad, is the
fulfilment and perfection of mankind's religious development, and that
Muhammad was the last and the greatest of God's message-bearers.
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