Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

64 t CHAPTER THREE
moving whatever imperfection existed there and pouring into its
place plenteous faith and wisdom.
This cathartic initiatory procedure is followed immediately in
the mystics’ imaginings by Muhammad’s being carried in his sleep
first to Jerusalem—the famous Night Journey just described—and
thence, from the temple site in the Holy City, to the highest
heaven. This is the Prophet’s Ascension (miraj), which is never
quite described in the Quran but is often celebrated in literature
and art. Some of its details seem extrapolated from what were
almost certainly traces of the Prophet’s actual visions, like the ones
described almost in passing in Quran 53:1–18. The Quran’s own
annotation of these visions is minimal in the extreme, but the Sufi
tradition, including the Prophetic reports (hadith) that purported
to go back to Muhammad himself, placed the Ascension firmly
and forever in the context of Muhammad’s heavenly journey. The
Prophet is borne aloft by a mythical steed through the seven
heavens of the ancient and medieval cosmologies to stand in the
presence of God.
As in the Jewish “Chariot” and “Palaces” literature of celestial
ascent, each heaven of Muhammad’s journey is entered only after
a challenge and a response given to its prophetic guardian—Adam
in the first heaven, then Jesus, Joseph, Idris (Enoch), Aaron,
Moses, and finally, in the seventh heaven, Abraham. Beyond this
patriarch is God himself, who, according to Muhammad’s own
account reported in the hadith, “inspired in me what He inspired.”
There then follows another altogether typical “bargaining” sequence
(cf. Abraham’s on behalf of the doomed Sodom in Gen.
18:20–32) in which God initially assigns fifty daily prayers to the
Muslim community, which Muhammad gradually bargains down
to the canonical five.
This prophetic paradigm proved infinitely fruitful for later Sufis
of Islam. They too had their own “ascensions” over the same terrain,
though often embellished with new details, to end in the same
awesome place before the throne of God. Now in the sacred company
of the prophets assembled there was Muhammad himself to
greet his mystical fellow traveler.