Abdul Nasir Jangda – Reflections on Isrāʾ wal-Miraj

AI: Summary ©
The importance of preserving the connection between the Prophet Muhammad Islam and the life and legacy of the Prophet Muhammad Islam is discussed in various interviews and legends. The Prophet provides comfort to those who have lost their spiritual source and is linked to a narration of a woman who found comfort in a place called[unsure]. The Prophet provides gifts and guidance to those who have experienced a crisis and is called for by God. The interviewer discusses the importance of belief in the church's life and the extension of the Prophet's day. The speaker emphasizes the importance of belief in the church's life and encourages listeners to stay connected to Him until their last breath.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wasalamu ala rasulillah wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in, assalamu alaikum
warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
The grandson of Sa'ad bin Abi Waqas
radiallahu ta'ala anhu.
Sa'ad bin Abi Waqas is one of
the illustrious companions of the Prophet ﷺ.
He was by the side of the Prophet
ﷺ since the very early days of Islam
in Mecca.
And he fought by the side of the
Prophet ﷺ through all the different battles.
He has the distinction of being known as
awwalu man ramaa bi sahmin fee sabeelillah.
He was the first one to launch an
arrow in the battle defending Islam.
And so there are many accolades to the
name of Sa'ad bin Abi Waqas.
His grandson says something really interesting and remarkable.
He says that my father, who was the
son of Sa'ad bin Abi Waqas, he
said that he used to teach us the
life and the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ
every day.
In the home, every day we would talk
about the life, the events, the lessons from
the life of the Prophet ﷺ.
It was something that was a part of
our lives.
It was akin to eating food.
Just like a family gets together and eats
food every single day, we would sit and
we would talk about the life of the
Prophet ﷺ every single day.
And he says that he would teach us
and talk to us about the life of
the Prophet ﷺ just like he would teach
us a seerah from the Qur'an.
And just think about when we have small
children, or maybe we experience it ourselves with
our parents, and how you recite the seerah
every day and you go over it verse
after verse and make sure you've memorized it.
That is how they would impart the life
of the Prophet ﷺ to us.
And he used to say, هذا مآثر آبائكم
This is the legacy of the people that
came before you.
This is your heritage.
This is your heritage.
فلا تضيعها So don't lose it.
And so since that time, it has been
a part of our tradition, a part of
our way of life, a part of our
culture, that we preserve and we maintain this
connection to the life of the Prophet ﷺ.
And so in the spirit of that, that's
done in many different ways.
We probably all have a seerah book sitting
at home somewhere on our shelves.
We regularly have different classes or lectures or,
you know, courses on the life of the
Prophet ﷺ.
But another way to really practically preserve that
connection to the life of the Prophet ﷺ
is that throughout the calendar year, the lunar
calendar, the Islamic calendar, throughout the calendar year,
it's a very good practice.
And it's been a part of our tradition,
as I was stating before, throughout 1,400
years, that whenever the month of Rajab comes
around, we have a little bit of a
discussion where we get together, we sit, and
we reflect on the journey of al-Isra
wal-Mi'raj.
Similarly to how about halfway through the month
of Ramadan, on the 17th of Ramadan, we
sit and we reflect on the Battle of
Badr.
And in the month of Shawwal, we reflect
on the Battle of Uhud.
And so on and so forth.
And during the month of Rabi al-Awwal,
we'll talk about the birth and the passing
of the Prophet ﷺ.
So in light of that, in spirit of
that, we want to preserve this, you know,
this connection to the life of the Prophet
ﷺ.
So I thought that it would be fitting
for us to take out a little bit
of time here tonight, not make it too
long, not keep it too long, so that
everyone can get home, but still spend at
least a few moments remembering and reflecting and
taking lessons, connecting to our heritage.
The more important heritage.
Not where my grandfather was born or where
my great-grandfather was from.
All those things are good and important.
The more important heritage that we all have
is the life and the legacy of the
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
So in the spirit of that, I wanted
to take out some time for us to
talk about and reflect on the journey of
al-israa wal-mi'raj.
We might have heard this word a lot,
al-israa wal-mi'raj.
What does it actually mean?
Al-israa, it means to travel a long
distance by night, at night time.
And that refers to the first part of
this miraculous night for the Prophet ﷺ, where
he traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem.
Allah ﷻ tells us about this in the
Qur'an.
سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي أَسْرَى بِعَبْدِهِ لَيْلًا That all glory
belongs to the one who took his servant
on this miraculous journey at night.
من المسجد الحرام from the sacred house of
Allah in Mecca إلى المسجد الأقصى to the
sacred house of worship, the sacred house of
Allah in Jerusalem, in Al-Quds, in Palestine.
المسجد الأقصى الذي باركنا حوله that is surrounded
by blessings, that is the blessed land, the
holy land.
لِنُرِيَهُ مِنْ آيَتِنَا And we wanted to show
him so many signs of our greatness on
that night so that then he could bring
it back to the rest of humanity.
And that's exactly what transpired on that night.
This night came at a time of great
tragedy and difficulty for the Prophet ﷺ.
Just a few months before this night, the
Prophet ﷺ had lost the man who raised
him, Abu Talib.
And then three weeks after that, the Prophet
ﷺ lost the love of his life, the
mother of his children, the very first believer,
our mother Khadija رضي الله تعالى عنها back
to back.
Lost the man who raised him and his
wife.
at that same time because of the absence
of Abu Talib defending the Prophet ﷺ, the
vicious animals in Mecca, they unleashed their fury
upon the Prophet ﷺ physically.
And they started assaulting him and attacking him.
And so he went to try to explore
greener pastures in Ta'if.
But when he went to Ta'if, the
people of Ta'if chased him out of
town, throwing rocks at him, stoning him for
three miles.
To the point where he bled so much
that his sandals became soaked in blood and
dried and became glued to his feet.
So he had gone through all of these
difficulties, all of these adversities, great personal tragedy.
When he even tried to come back home
to Mecca after this horrific experience in Ta
'if, when he tried to come back home
to Mecca, they didn't allow him to enter
into Mecca for three days.
Until one of the non-Muslim leaders of
Mecca vouched for the Prophet ﷺ and brought
him in on his guarantee.
It seemed like it was just tragedy after
tragedy after tragedy after tragedy.
And his heart was so heavy.
And Allah ﷻ provided the Prophet ﷺ the
healing, the comfort, the confidence, the faith, the
serenity, the tranquility that he needed by taking
him on this miraculous journey of al-Isra
wal-Mi'raj.
So what happened is the Prophet ﷺ tells
us that the angels came to him and
laid him down there in front of the
Ka'bah and they cleansed and washed his
heart.
And then he, Jibreel ﷺ asked him to
board to sit on the Buraq, this miraculous
creature that travels at the speed of light.
And then took him from Mecca to Jerusalem.
And he stopped and he prayed along the
way.
Jibreel ﷺ after every second, because they were
traveling so fast, after just a couple of
seconds, he would stop him and then he
would say please offer prayer here.
And so first they offered prayer at Medina.
And that was kind of a good news,
a foreshadowing that you will be given a
home in Medina.
And then he asked them to stop and
pray at the place where Allah spoke to
the Prophet Musa ﷺ.
Then he asked them to stop and pray
at the place where Isa ﷺ was miraculously
born.
And then finally they arrived there at Masjid
Al-Aqsa.
And when he arrives there he finds that
all the souls of all the prophets and
messengers throughout human history that have been sent
from Adam ﷺ to the Prophet ﷺ.
There's a narration in the Musnad of Imam
Ahmad that says over 100,000 prophets were
sent.
Over.
It doesn't give a maximum number.
It says the minimum number is 100,000.
Over.
And the Quran says وَلِكُلِّ قَوْمٍ هَادُ وَلِكُلِّ
أُمَّةٍ رَسُولٍ Every group of people throughout human
history received a prophet and a messenger.
You can just imagine hundreds of thousands, if
not millions of prophets gathered.
All of their souls.
And the Prophet ﷺ think about how overwhelming
that moment is.
And the comfort was provided to the Prophet
ﷺ.
That you're struggling right now.
You're in pain right now.
The Prophet ﷺ never felt alone but just
it's teaching us the lesson.
Any one of us in that kind of
a situation, the person who raised you, who
was your whole family as a child, his
father had died, his mother had died, his
grandfather had died, he didn't have any siblings.
That man, his uncle, was his whole family.
He was everything to him.
He was mother, father, grandfather, uncle.
He was everything.
Big brother.
He was everything.
That the man who was your entire family
growing up, he's gone.
He passed away.
And then his wife, the mother of his
children, his partner in life, the first person
to believe in him, to follow him, to
accept him.
She's passed away.
So think about, put yourself in the shoes
of the Prophet ﷺ and how alone a
person would feel.
How lonely you would be.
And Allah ﷻ provided the comfort to the
Prophet ﷺ that moment that you're not alone.
إِنَّكَ لَمِنَ الْمُرْسَلِينَ You belong to a fraternity
and a brotherhood of hundreds of thousands of
Prophets and Messengers.
You're not alone.
You were never alone.
You will never be alone.
Everyone is with you.
And then to honor the Prophet ﷺ, the
Prophet ﷺ was instructed by the angel Jibreel
to lead all the souls of all the
Prophets throughout history to lead them all in
prayer at Masjid Al-Aqsa.
And after leading them in prayer, then Jibreel
ﷺ said to the Prophet ﷺ that now
Allah has called you for a tour of
the heavens.
You will leave this worldly realm and you
will enter into the otherworldly realm.
No human being before you has gone and
just visited the otherworldly realm and come back.
Isa ﷺ will.
Isa ﷺ was lifted up by Allah but
he will come back at the end of
time.
But before the Prophet ﷺ, no human being
had been given the privilege, the honor of
going to that otherworldly realm and then coming
back to tell all of human beings about
it, about his experience.
And so the Prophet ﷺ is called and
he leaves this worldly realm and there are
angels waiting at the gates, guarding the gates
of that heavenly realm.
And Jibreel ﷺ knocks on the door, knocks
on the gates of heaven.
They say, who's there?
He says, this is Jibreel.
But you're not alone.
He said, no, Muhammad ﷺ is there.
Look at this, the angels standing at the
gates.
They say, it's time?
This is the time?
That tells you that from the moment these
angels were created, only Allah knows how many
eons ago, from the moment that these angels
were created and posted at this gate, they
were told that a time will come when
the most beloved creation of Allah, Muhammadun Rasulullah
ﷺ will come and will tour the heavens.
And that will be the greatest day of
your angelic life.
That you will welcome and escort the greatest
of Allah's creation into the heavens.
The gates opened and the Prophet ﷺ comes
through.
And all the angels وَمَا يَعْلَمُوا جُنُودَ رَبِّكَ
إِلَّهُ We can't even count how many angels.
The Prophet ﷺ said I can't even fathom
how I can't tell you how many angels
were there.
I've never seen so much creation in my
life.
They're all welcoming the Prophet.
مَرْحَبًا بِرَسُولِ اللَّهِ مَرْحَبًا بِرَسُولِ اللَّهِ مَرْحَبًا بِالنَّبِيِّ
الصَّالِحِ The righteous Prophet has come.
And then same way he receives this grand
welcome at each of the stages of the
heavens.
And he is greeted at each of the
stages of the heavens by one of his
Prophets, by one of his brothers, the Prophet
ﷺ.
At the first stage is Adam ﷺ.
At the second stage it's Isa and Yahya
ﷺ.
At the third stage it's Yusuf ﷺ.
At the fourth stage it's the Prophet Idrees
ﷺ.
At the fifth stage it's Harun ﷺ.
At the sixth stage it is Musa ﷺ.
And at the seventh stage of the heavens,
the final stage, it is the Prophet Ibrahim
ﷺ.
And he takes the Prophet ﷺ and he
goes and he sits with him in the,
you know, nearby al-Bayt al-Ma'mur, which
is the Ka'bah of the heavens.
And this Ka'bah of the heavens, angels
are appointed there to perform tawaf and get
this, once an angel has been given the
opportunity to perform tawaf there, they never get
an opportunity to perform tawaf again for the
rest of time.
70,000, that's the number in the narration,
excuse me, 70,000 angels every day worship
at al-Bayt al-Ma'mur, the Ka'bah
of the heavens.
And an angel for the entirety of time
only gets one opportunity to worship there.
There's no math.
There's no AI model that can do that
for you.
There's no math.
وَمَا يَعْلَمُ جُنُودَ رَبِّكَ إِلَّهُ That is the
greatness of Allah.
And Ibrahim ﷺ, he shows the Prophet ﷺ
that there's this area where there are all
these countless children, babies.
And they're sitting and they're playing and they're
crawling and they're looked after by these nurses,
these nannies.
He says to the Prophet Ibrahim ﷺ, what
is this, ya Khalilullah?
And he said, all the babies, all the
children of the believers that pass away in
infancy and childhood, they are brought here to
heaven.
And they are under my watch and supervision.
And they stay here.
And Allah ﷻ has created these special nannies
of the heavens who look after them and
take care of them.
And that was giving comfort to the Prophet
ﷺ because by this time the Prophet ﷺ
had lost two young boys.
One was a little bit older and one
was very young.
And eventually in Medina then he would lose
a third son as well, as a baby,
as an infant.
And then the Prophet Jibreel ﷺ says to
the Prophet ﷺ, we need to proceed.
And then they go to this reaches point,
Sidratul Muntaha, there's this great tree there.
And Jibreel ﷺ stops and the Prophet ﷺ
is told to walk forward and he asked
Jibreel, you're not going to come forward?
And he said, this is where I stop
but this is where you continue.
You will go where no creation has ever
gone before.
And then the Prophet ﷺ said that the
tree wrapped, he went into sajdah, the tree
wrapped around him and then he was in
the presence of Allah.
And Allah spoke to him.
And he had a conversation with Allah.
ثُمَّدَنَا فَتَدَلَّا فَكَانَ قَعْبَ قَوْسَيْنِ أَوْأَدَنَا Nearness to
Allah that we can't even imagine our father.
And then Allah gave gifts to the Prophet
ﷺ but in actuality they were gifts to
us.
One of the gifts that Allah gave to
the Prophet ﷺ to deliver to us was
he said that here's a gift for your
Ummah.
Whoever from your Ummah will make the intention
to do a good deed, the angels will
write a good deed for him and every
good deed is multiplied by 10, minimum 10.
Then if they follow through and they do
the good deed, another good deed is written
for them.
And again, every good deed is multiplied by
a minimum of 10.
If they don't end up following through with
the intention to do the good deed, I
tell the angels leave the 10 good deeds
that you wrote for them.
And if the person makes the intention to
commit a sin, I tell the angels don't
write the sin yet, not until he does
it.
And then if he commits the sin, I
tell the angels to write only one sin
and do not multiply it.
And then if he repents after committing the
sin, I tell the angels erase it.
But if he makes the intention to commit
a sin and then does not follow through
with committing the sin, I tell the angels
to write a good deed because resisting the
temptation is a good deed.
And every good deed is multiplied by a
minimum of 10 times.
This is a gift for your Ummah.
And then Allah ﷻ bestowed many gifts.
Another one of the gifts was that Allah
ﷻ gave 50 prayers in a day.
That just as you have come here to
talk to me, your Ummah will have the
ability to talk to me throughout the day
by offering this Salah, this prayer.
50 prayers in a day.
Then as they are returning back, Musa ﷺ
asks the Prophet ﷺ, what did Allah ﷻ
give you to take home to your Ummah,
to your followers?
And he said, gave 50 prayers in a
day.
He said that's too much.
You need to ask for some ease for
your Ummah.
They won't be able to do 50 prayers.
So then the Prophet ﷺ goes back and
asks Allah ﷻ, please make it lighter for
my Ummah.
So Allah ﷻ decreases five prayers.
Then he comes back.
Musa ﷺ says, what happened now?
Now it's five less, 45.
He says, you need to ask for more
ease.
He goes back again, requests again.
Now it's decreased to 40.
Then he goes back and Musa ﷺ says
that's still too much.
And then he goes back and requests for
more ease and now 35.
Then he tells Musa ﷺ, he says that's
too much.
He goes back and he requests again.
He says, okay, 30.
Then he comes and Musa ﷺ says that's
too much.
So he goes back and requests more ease
and it becomes 25.
Then he comes and Musa ﷺ says that's
still too much.
So he goes back and requests more ease
and Allah ﷻ makes it 20.
Then he goes and again Musa ﷺ says
that's way too much.
He goes back and request again.
It becomes 15.
Then Musa ﷺ says that's still too much.
So he goes back, requests again.
It becomes 10.
Then he's returning and Musa ﷺ says that's
still too much.
So he goes back and requests again, it
becomes 5.
And then he comes back and Musa ﷺ
says that's still too much.
My Ummah had to do two and they
couldn't keep up with it.
And the Prophet ﷺ says, no, I'm not
going back again.
An announcement is made in the heavens.
It is five prayers in a day.
But whoever will offer these five, I will
give them the reward of 50.
And I mentioned this entire process back and
forth and back and forth and back and
forth.
Instead of just saying, he kept on going
back and forth until it became five, I
mention it because I got tired of talking
about it.
You got tired of hearing it.
We get the math.
It kept on decreasing until it got to
five.
But imagine the Prophet ﷺ going back over
and over and over and over and over
and over and over again, even though he
was totally fine with 50.
And he could have totally done 50.
But he did it for you and me,
for us, for our sake, on our behalf,
because that's how much he cared about us.
And so then he brings these five prayers
back.
While the Prophet ﷺ, before the journey ended,
Allah ﷻ gave him a tour and a
glimpse of paradise and * and many, many
different things he saw.
For instance, one thing he saw, I'll just
share one, one thing.
One thing he saw in paradise was that
there are these people and they take a
seed and they put it into the ground.
And as soon as they put it into
the ground, immediately it sprouts and it starts
growing and it becomes a whole tree and
the branches come out of it and the
fruits come out of the branches and the
fruits are ripe and ready.
And I described it over like five seconds,
but the Prophet ﷺ said they put the
seed and immediately it occurs in a second.
They take the fruit and they take a
bite.
And then they go and they put another
seed and immediately same thing occurs.
The Prophet ﷺ said, ما هذا يا جبريل,
what's this?
And he said, this is the reward of
the people who used to pray their salah
regularly.
That this is how Allah will multiply their
rewards.
Every good deed they did in the world,
every salah they prayed becomes multiple rewards.
This is symbolic of the reward of the
people who took care of their prayers every
day.
And I'll share one of the glimpses of
the punishment in *.
May Allah protect us all.
The Prophet ﷺ saw, it's very scary, but
it's supposed to be.
Saw that these people in *, they're grabbed
by these very tough, strong, powerful angels.
They're grabbed and then they're pinned down.
And the angel reaches inside their mouth and
pulls out their tongue.
And then they bring these big, like imagine
like gardening shears that are being like heated
in the fire.
They're red and severed their tongue.
The Prophet ﷺ felt the pain.
He was very soft hearted.
He was very empathetic.
ما هذا يا جبريل.
Why, why, O Jibreel, why?
Jibreel ﷺ tells the Prophet ﷺ, these are
the people who used to backbite other people.
When they talk about other people, pick at
people's flaws and faults and shortcomings and tragedies
and difficulties, backbiting.
Talking about people behind their back.
These are the people that indulge in that.
This is their punishment.
May Allah forgive us and may Allah protect
us.
But it's a powerful reminder of the consequences.
The Prophet ﷺ then comes back.
On his way back, strategically, Jibreel ﷺ slows
down at a couple of places.
Right outside, a little bit a ways from
Mecca, he slows down and the Prophet ﷺ
sees that this trade caravan from Mecca is
on its way back.
But they're stopped, they're stalled at about a
day's journey, half a day's journey from Mecca
because they're searching.
They lost one of their camels.
The camel was loaded with a lot of
the goods that they were bringing back and
they lost the camel.
So they're looking for it.
And then the Prophet ﷺ, because he's flying
over, he can see that on the other
side of the valley, he sees the camel
just kind of wandering about over there.
And then the Prophet ﷺ returns back at
night.
All of this transpired in one night.
And when he returns back, he rushes to
the Haram because he wants to share this
remarkable experience.
This is the most remarkable experience that any
human being has ever had.
And he runs into Abu Jahl.
He's the worst disbeliever.
The Prophet ﷺ called him the pharaoh, the
pharaoh of my ummah.
And Abu Jahl says, why are you so
excited so early in the morning?
He says, I had this unbelievable experience.
And he says, really?
The Prophet ﷺ starts to tell him.
And he says, wait, wait, wait, everybody needs
to hear this.
He's, of course, doing that to try to
create a spectacle, gather the mob.
So he starts gathering people.
The Prophet ﷺ goes inside the Haram and
Abu Jahl is out there gathering people.
Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him,
sees Abu Jahl gathering people and he goes,
this guy's never up to any good.
And he goes to him, he says, what
are you doing?
He says, you hear what your buddy's saying?
Then Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with
him, says, I don't trust you.
I don't believe a word that comes out
of your mouth.
But I accept and believe everything and anything
that Muhammad Rasulullah ﷺ said.
And then Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased
with him, goes inside to get the back
of the Prophet ﷺ.
When the Prophet ﷺ starts telling them the
story of everything that transpired, then they start
to believe it.
And then you start to say, well, what's
your proof?
Anybody can tell a fancy story, what's your
proof?
So the Prophet ﷺ says, you guys are
waiting for that caravan to come back, right?
They say, yeah, but everybody knows.
The caravan went, of course it's gotta come
back.
He says, they've been delayed.
Okay, they were delayed because they lost a
camel carrying a lot of the goods.
You'll find out when they get back.
They should be back by the end of
the day.
Okay, we'll see, pending, right?
And then one of them says, hey, you
know what?
Some of us have been to Jerusalem as
well because they used to go on their
trade caravans.
We've seen it, describe it to us.
We'll know whether you've been there or not.
Now, obviously the Prophet ﷺ went there at
night.
He was there for a few moments and
he was a little preoccupied with the fact
that he was leading all the souls of
Prophets in prayer.
He wasn't there taking pictures, right?
Posting it on his story.
He didn't have time for that.
He wasn't there studying like, you know, the
doors here and the windows there.
But now they put him on the spot.
Allah sends the Prophet Jibreel ﷺ.
The Prophet Jibreel ﷺ comes in front of
the Prophet ﷺ.
And the narration says he opens up one
of his wings and onto his wing is
the whole Al-Aqsa projected.
And then Jibreel ﷺ starts pointing at specific
things and it zooms in on it.
And the Prophet ﷺ, some of the narration
say it looked like he was looking at
something.
And he said, well, there's a door over
here and the door is kind of broken.
There's a window there that's cracked.
There's this many pillars and the pillars are
these colors and this.
And he starts describing it in so much
detail that they're blown away.
They're flabbergasted.
Astonished, what is this?
And as the Prophet ﷺ is giving every
little detail of Al-Aqsa, Abu Bakr ﷺ
who sits right in front of the Prophet
ﷺ and he starts saying, Sadaqt, Sadaqt, Sadaqt.
You speak the truth, you speak the truth,
you speak the truth, you speak the truth.
Just there, just, you know, rallying behind the
Prophet ﷺ.
And it means so much to the Prophet
ﷺ how loyal Abu Bakr is.
That the Prophet ﷺ stops and he points
at Abu Bakr and he says, Anta Siddiq.
You are the most loyal believer.
That's how he got his title, Al-Siddiq.
And to kind of fast forward, as this
is mentioned in the narration of Sahih Muslim,
the Prophet ﷺ said that the caravan should
arrive by the evening.
It took them a little longer than expected
to find the camel.
So they got delayed.
Now, the thing is, they didn't travel at
night.
So they started making it back to Mecca,
but the daytime was running out.
And if nighttime would have come, they would
have had to camp out outside of Mecca.
Especially Mecca, the terrain is very rough.
Even when you go today outside of Mecca,
it's rough.
Awali Mecca, it's rough.
So you can't travel at night.
You'll fall, you'll get hurt.
But nighttime is coming.
But the Prophet ﷺ said they'll arrive this
evening.
So the hadith of Sahih Muslim mentions that
Allah ﷻ extended that day.
You know how like in wintertime?
By like 5, 36 o'clock, it's dark
outside.
But in the summertime.
Right.
It doesn't get dark till 9 p.m.
Allah ﷻ extended that day so much so
that the people in Mecca started freaking out
like, is it just me or will this
day not end?
Because they used to work until sunset.
So they're working and then they're working and
then they're working and they're like, what is
going on?
Why won't this day end?
This is the longest work day of all
time.
Right.
And subhanAllah, Allah ﷻ extended that day.
So that the caravan could arrive.
And as soon as the caravan arrived, a
bunch of the leaders of Mecca ran out
and were like, hey.
Did you guys lose a camel?
They say, yeah, we did.
How do you know?
And they said, where did you find the
camel?
And they said, we found it on the
other side of the valley.
They said, oh, no.
So you cannot tell anybody.
This this day is here.
And that was the truth of the Prophet
ﷺ.
But of course, many of them didn't still
believe.
Because belief at the end of the day
isn't based off of, can you prove this
to me?
Can you prove that to me?
Belief, iman, is sincere.
It comes from the heart.
It is a yearning to live one's life
with purpose and truth.
That's where iman comes from.
And then that day, Jibreel ﷺ came to
the Prophet ﷺ and led the Prophet ﷺ
in prayer over the next two days, showing
him the timings of the five times daily
prayer.
And that's.
The great legacy of this night of al
-Isaw al-Mi'raj.
That it's a reminder of the fact.
Number one, we talked about we're never alone.
We always have Allah with us.
When we're isolated.
We have Allah with us.
And when we're in the middle of a
room full of people, we still have Allah
with us.
That's the thing.
Even when you're surrounded by people and there's
a lot of noise and you're talking and
you're laughing and it's great and fantastic.
How do I still not forget Allah?
That's salah.
That's our connection.
That when Salat al-Maghrib comes in, whether
I'm sitting by myself or I'm sitting in
a room full of friends.
Hayya ala al-salah, hayya ala al-falah.
I will go and I will talk to
Allah.
That's the great lesson and the legacy of
this remarkable night.
And so I encourage everyone to make time
to learn more about the life of the
Prophet ﷺ in general, but particularly about al
-Isaw al-Mi'raj.
There's so much detail on al-Isaw al
-Mi'raj.
This is not, what I've presented here tonight
is not even a summary.
It's just a glance.
The most extensive work on the life of
the Prophet ﷺ was authored by the great
scholar, al-Salihi from Ash-Sham in 13
volumes called Subul al-Huda wal-Rashad.
And in that work, his section on the
Mi'raj, al-Israw al-Mi'raj, this
night journey of the Prophet ﷺ is 200
pages.
And even someone like myself who doesn't know
much and doesn't understand all of it, in
the detailed seerah classes that I had taught,
which became the podcast, the seerah podcast, we
covered al-Israw al-Mi'raj over seven
sessions.
That's over seven hours, almost eight hours.
And that, I felt, was scratching the surface.
That was a summary.
That was a summary.
So there's so much for us to learn.
So I encourage everyone, go listen to the
sessions on the podcast, pick up a book,
a work of the seerah, the sealed nectar,
Prophet of Mercy, Nabi al-Rahma, Rahiq al
-Makhtum, whatever it may be.
We have a class every semester here at
the academy, on the seerah of the Prophet
ﷺ, at Qalam Academy.
I encourage everyone that continue to learn about
the seerah in general, but particularly about al
-Israw al-Mi'raj.
The big takeaway is take advantage of this
opportunity.
As-salatu mi'raj al-mu'min.
This salah, and it doesn't have to be
the five times daily prayer.
I could just, I get a phone call,
something that stresses me out, it's something that
upsets me, it's something that is pleasing to
me, whatever it may be.
I get a message, I get a call.
I don't even need it to be one
of the five times obligatory prayers.
I could go right now, make wudu, face
the qiblah, stand up, pray two rak'ahs,
and talk to Allah.
That channel is always open.
Just as the Prophet ﷺ had that experience
of al-mi'raj, salah is our mi
'raj.
So take advantage of that opportunity.
May Allah ﷻ grant us the tawfiq and
the ability to learn the life of the
Prophet ﷺ, to follow in the footsteps of
the Prophet ﷺ, to live our lives in
accordance with the practice, the tradition, the sunnah
of the Prophet ﷺ.
And may Allah ﷻ give us a powerful
connection to Allah in our salah.
May Allah ﷻ make us steadfast and consistent
upon our salah.
And may Allah ﷻ allow us to remain
connected to Him until our very last breath
in this world, and grant us His forgiveness
and His mercy in the afterlife.
Ameen.