What Ismailis Should Know About Mi‘raj (13 Min. Read)
The Prophet’s Ascension and the Believer’s Path through the Light of Imamat
“You must have also heard about the Mi‘raj (the celestial ascent) of the Holy Prophet. People say that he rode on a horse up to the heavens and that that was his Mi‘raj. This is the foolish idea of the masses. God does not dwell only in heaven; He is to be found everywhere. The night of Mi‘raj is the one on which the Prophet revisited his original abode. Only the wise and the intelligent will understand the parables of the prophets. The unintelligent ones will take stories at their face value.”
— Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah⁽ᶜ⁾
(Dar-es-Salaam, September 29, 1899)
In the traditional exoteric (zahir) understanding of the Mi‘raj, the Prophet Muhammad⁽ˢ⁾ first undertook the Night Journey (al-Isra), traveling from the Ka’bah in Makkah — the “sacred masjid” — to the site of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem — the “farthest masjid” — upon the winged steed Buraq. There, after leading all the Prophets in prayer, he ascended through the seven heavens in the Mi‘raj until experiencing a direct encounter with God.
In Ismaili prophetic philosophy, however, this widely accepted zahiri account of the Night Journey and Mi‘raj is understood symbolically, pointing to a deeper esoteric (batin) meaning revealed through ta’wil (revelatory hermeneutics).