Ali Ataie – Ascent After Anguish Reflections on The Miraculous Night Journey (Isra & Miraj)
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Dear beloved community, I hope you're all doing
well and staying safe.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
increase
you in all good things and
relieve you of your
troubles and hardships.
Allah
is the one whose help,
is to be sought.
This is your brother Ali speaking to you
on the occasion
of the blessed night of 27th
of Rajab,
1,442
lunar years after the Hijra
of our master Muhammad
from Mecca
to Medina Tonight,
I'm going to, talk to you about,
one of the greatest
miracles, one of the greatest of the
of our master Muhammad,
the miracle of the night journey and ascension
Even though there are numerous,
miracles attributed to the prophets in general,
there are a select few
that only he
received.
They are from the of the prophet
the special qualities of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
No one before him received them and no
one after him will receive them. First and
foremost, of course, is the of the Quran.
Okay?
The Quran is the final revelation of God.
There is no more
after the Quran.
The Quran
supersedes
all of the previous revelations.
The injunctions, the
of the Quran supersede all of the previous
revealed injunctions.
In the Torah, there are 613
commandments. These are called mitzvot.
Yet about 40% of them have no application
in the world today because they're predicated upon,
the priesthood and the temple
and the sacrificial system at the temple. There's
there's no more temple. There hasn't been for
2000 years. The priesthood is dissolved.
Sacrifices are not done.
Thus, the of Allah
his
in effect
abrogated 40%
of the Jewish or the Mosaic Mitzvot.
They are abrogated as a circumstance of history.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala saw it fit
for those Mitzvot to be rendered obsolete.
Okay. So this is compelling evidence that the
Torah was never meant to be
the last and,
universal
sacred law for humanity
and that something else would be forthcoming.
Of course, there are certain mutable
theological and moral principles
and foundations. We call them
that all of the prophets
affirmed.
However, the religion, the deen
found its iqmal,
its completion
and,
perfection with the revelation given to the prophet
Muhammad
which includes the Quran
and the prophet's precedent. In other words,
the prophet's firmly established ethos
and practice.
And of course, then you have the splitting
of the moon
which is from his special miracles.
And finally, you have the Isra and Mi'raj,
the night journey in ascension in body and
soul. Okay.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the first
ayah of Suratul Isla also called Surat, Bani
Israel,
That's how he begins the ayah.
He begins the ayah with the word subhan,
okay, which denotes,
tanzih
and tasbih.
So the utter dissimilarity
of Allah
is absolute perfection
anything
such
as space, time or matter.
The Quran says this is one of the
great theological statements of the Quran.
That there's nothing like the likes of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Okay. The six directions cannot contain him.
Everything in creation,
right,
is contained by the 6 directions like for
example there's something in front of you and
behind you, something to your right, to your
left, above you and below you. None of
these things apply to Allah.
When it comes to creation, you're either moving
or you're still. Allah
is neither moving nor still. There's no color
to Allah
Our theologians also mention
that he is neither transcendent
nor imminent with relation to his creation.
So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala utterly crashes the
logic barrier.
He is the first without a beginning.
He is the last without an end.
He is the necessary
existent
who created space, time and matter
ex out of nothing,
not as a necessary or compelled,
effect to a cause
but rather freely
as an act of will.
Okay. So
Glory be to the one
who took his servant on a journey by
night.
Okay. His servant, his Abd, his slave.
This is one of the greatest titles of
the prophet Muhammad
that he is Abdullah par excellence.
This is his great title in the Quran.
Many times he's mentioned by this exalted title
in the Quran.
And of course Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala uses
this title for other prophets
as well.
The prophet Isa alaihi salam is quoted in
the
Quran
Okay? So the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he
so this name denotes
the idea that the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam perfected
to Allah
Okay. He perfected
servitude,
slavehood to Allah
This was demonstrated,
just before the Isra.
Okay. When the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam visited
the city of Ta'if, right, and
he went there for dawah to call the
people of Bani Thateef
to Tawhid.
Okay, and the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam was
rejected by the people and
he was abused by them. They stoned him
out of the city.
They
bruised and battered him. Okay.
And the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam he
made this beautiful dua to Allah Subhanahu wa
ta'ala
in which he said
Oh Allah, I complained to you
due to the weakness of my strength.
Okay. So he did not complain to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He didn't say that
I complained to you because of what you've
done to me,
right?
He attributes,
the weakness to himself. I complain to you
due to the due to the weakness of
my strength.
Okay.
And then he said that if this is
happening to me
and you're not angry with me,
okay, then I don't mind.
It's the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. His only
concern is if this is a manifestation of
the wrath of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And if it isn't, then he's willing to
go through it and give the ultimate sacrifice,
give his life,
if need be,
for the sake of Allah
So this is good Urbudea. This is beautiful
Urbudea.
Beautiful servitude to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So
Urbudiya deals with your your attitude
towards Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Okay. And the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
he said,
you know, so how wondrous is the affair
of the believer.
Okay. The affair of the believer is always
good.
Okay. Then he elaborates. When the believer is
in a state of hardship, he shows patience.
When the believer is in a state of
prosperity,
he's grateful. There's gratitude. So sabr and shukr,
very, very important.
These are 2 of the greatest
of the theological virtues in our tradition, patience
and gratitude,
patience and gratitude.
We should be in 1,
one of or
one or both of these states
constantly.
Now interestingly, the Quran does not seem to
affirm
atheism.
Right? That everyone worships something.
Everyone is a servant to something.
The prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam he said
cursed is the slave
of the gold coin and the silver coin
meaning wealth or money in general and this
is a very common form
of idolatry.
Anyone who tells you that they don't worship
anything,
you should be very skeptical. You know, just
like, you know, how the atheist tells the
theists to be very skeptical of the claims
of your religious book, we should also tell
the atheist
to be very skeptical of his own claims,
that he doesn't worship something.
Because when the nafs of the disobedient,
okay, says to him,
Oh my slave,
Right? The naf says
at your service,
Oh my lord.
People have to make a decision.
Who do they want to serve?
Do they want to serve God who is
the all powerful creator of the universe
or something else.
The Quran says
Have you not seen the one or have
you seen the one
who takes as his,
god his desires,
his caprice.
Can you be a guardian over him?
Or do you think that the majority of
them
listen or use their intellects?
Okay.
They are nothing but cattle
or even worse.
Right? So for a lot of people,
it's really all about eating and drinking,
you know,
reproducing.
You know, people are becoming more and more
hedonistic.
In other words, the pursuit of pleasure,
right, okay, becomes the goal of life is
very common.
Now, a severe difficulty that many Muslims face
today
in our day and age
is the loss of faith, the loss of
iman
among their immediate family members, friends, and relatives
due to the prevalence of of atheism, of
existential
nihilism,
of of this idea of, you know, this
idea of doing whatever feels good, hedonism,
a a cancel culture that is offended
by everything. People are afraid to say things,
now they're afraid to believe in things,
as well as this insidious
revolt against tradition,
traditional religion, traditional values, young people in particular
are led to believe
that faith in God is somehow
antiquated,
old fashioned,
and even opposed to reason,
okay, and that faith equates
to quote belief without evidence.
Now what is especially disturbing about this phenomenon
is that Islam is often portrayed as being
the one major religion
that is the most fundamentally
antithetical to reason
And this is simply erroneous.
Nothing is further from the truth.
As Muslims, we have traditionally adhered,
to a a three-dimensional
epistemological
approach.
Okay. That that we can know that things
are true
based upon
3 sources working in conjunction.
The senses,
the
the intellect or reason, the and revelation,
Okay? And with respect to the latter 2,
the intellect and revelation
or naqal and aqal, since both of these
came from the very same source,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, then they cannot be
in conflict.
Okay. In other words, revelation does not task
us to embrace the irrational
or the falsifiable.
Quite the contrary, it is the revelation itself
that constantly,
bids us to exercise reason.
The Quran declares, indeed the worst of creatures
in God's sight are those who are deaf
and dumb,
those who do not reason.
And at times the Quran also reveals
the,
rational basis
for its commands
such as the command to pray for example,
the command to prayer.
Indeed,
prayer prevents
indecency
and wrong action.
The rationale behind the prohibition
of adultery
is is similarly given in the Quran. You
see the Quran
says
okay. And notice here that the Quran does
not say
the Quran does not say don't don't commit
adultery.
It says don't even
draw near
to adultery.
Okay. Don't even put yourself in a position
where that could even be possible.
It is indecency and an evil path. So
once you go down that path,
things get worse and worse. I mean, we
can make a cogent argument
that people destroy their lives and they destroy
the lives of their children
do and and and their children's children due
to their engagement in illicit sexual relations.
Okay? The rationale behind fasting is given in
the Quran.
Oh you who believe Fasting has been prescribed
upon you.
Just as it was prescribed upon those before
you
in order for you to attain taqwa.
Right? Taqwa is often translated as,
piety or the fear of God, God consciousness
and these certainly have something to do with
taqwa.
Linguistically the word taqwa is related to meaning
protection
or prevention.
Okay. Now unfortunately,
the word faith,
okay, the word the English word faith has
been sullied
in our modern culture.
People like material
reductionists,
what we would call 1 dimensional
empiricists,
These are only people who who,
these are people who only rely on their,
on their ability to see and hear and
touch and smell and taste.
They imagined faith
to be something that religious
dogmatists
cling to, blindly cling to
in spite of their intellects.
In reality, however, we believe precisely
because it is reasonable
to believe,
you see.
So perhaps the word,
confidence
rather than faith,
is a more appropriate word in our context,
you see.
The word confidence comes from the Latin con,
which means with, and fides,
which means faith. So it means with faith.
Yet this word does not have the unfortunate
negative connotations
of the word faith in English. For example,
if I were to tell a modern atheist
that I that I have faith,
in the occurrence of a hurricane tomorrow,
okay, he would probably
deem me to be some sort of religious
oddball
or superstitious,
soothsayer.
However, if I said that I have confidence
in the occurrence of a hurricane,
He might ask me if I happen to
be a a meteorologist.
Right? If I've done actual studies
because the word confidence is is a better
word. So used in this sense
used in this sense it becomes apparent
that everyone is with faith
concerning a multitude of things, everybody.
There are no exceptions.
The staunches of atheists have confidence
that the law of gravity
will continue to function
from one moment to the next or that
the the sun will rise in the east
tomorrow and set in the west.
So both experience and reason convince them.
Right? Convince
with victory.
It convinces them
of these things.
Similarly, both experience and reason
convince us as Muslims
that an ordered material universe
dependent upon space and time must have been
brought into existence
by a being who is necessarily
spaceless, timeless and immaterial
as well as unfathomably
intelligent
and powerful beyond
comp comprehension.
Okay. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says
Oh you who believe,
whosoever
among you should renounce his religion, God will
bring a people
whom he loves and they love him.
Humble toward the believers,
stern toward the disbelievers,
striving in the way of Allah and fearing
not the blamer
fearing not the blame of the blamer.
That is the grace of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala
which he bestows upon any whom he wills
and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is all encompassing
and omniscient.
Now according to the commentators
this renouncement of religion, this irtidad
that the ayah is indicating
is due to a lack of love for
God
who is the source of all good things.
In reality those who lack the love,
the
of God actually lack knowledge
concerning him.
Okay. If they in other words, if they
were to know Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala intimately
through,
experience and reason and revelation,
Okay. This three-dimensional
approach, they would necessarily
love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Also the true believers in this ayah are
described as not fearing the blame of the
blamer.
That is because they are intellectually
formidable
in the face of aggressive attacks upon their
convictions.
So we need to study theology,
both creedal and natural,
from teachers of transmissional
knowledge
when we acquire
the ability
to be discursive with our knowledge,
when we acquire the ability to be discursive
with our knowledge of God, in other words,
when we are able to speak with confidence
and conviction
about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
his messenger salallahu alayhi wasalam
and his book, then ease will follow.
And these feeble and convoluted
philosophies
that are dominant in our culture and are
challenging our young people, especially in the academy,
will fall like a house of cards,
okay, in the face of our robust intellectual
engagement
and logically superior discourse.
Okay.
Continuing going back to the ayah then. So
glory be to the one.
Blessed be the one who took his servant
on a journey by night.
He took his servant on a journey by
night
from the inviolable mosque, the sacred mosque.
Okay,
Masjid Al Haram,
the Ka'aba in Mecca
to,
the farthest mosque,
the farthest mosque,
Masjid Al Aqsa in Jerusalem.
Okay? So the Kaaba
to Jerusalem.
The ancient name of Mecca by the way
was,
Bakr.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the
Quran,
indeed the first house
ever established for the worship of the one
true god
was at Becca, full of blessings. And interestingly,
this is a name that the Ahlul Kitab
are familiar with. It's mentioned in the Psalms
of David,
Psalm 84.
Okay. You'll find this in in Christian Bibles.
Psalm 84 begins, how lovely are your tabernacles,
oh lord of hosts. The word
tabernacle
and it's in the plural. Sometimes in some
translations, this is given in the singular
mishkan, but it's actually mishkanot.
A tabernacle is a house of worship. How
lovely are your houses of worship, oh lord
of hosts.
What joy for those whose strength comes from
the Lord,
who has set their minds on a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem.
Okay. So it's going to describe sort of
the
pilgrimage
experience
of of these pilgrims
as they pass through the valley of Bakkah.
Okay.
And the Hebrew says there I make Habakkah,
the valley of Bakkah.
They make it a spring,
a Maayan.
Okay. And so the valley of Becca.
So in in in,
Hebrew
as well as in Arabic
it means to weep. So this is sometimes
translated
in English as the weeping valley. Why is
it called the weeping valley?
Well,
because this is where Isma'il alaihis salam was
weeping for water. So this psalm, right, attributed
to Dawud alaihis salam
is describing,
pilgrims of Bani Israel
moving through or passing through the valley of
Bakkah, the valley of Becca, the Meccan valley
on their way north into Jerusalem.
Okay. So this was a place that was
known by Bani Israel.
So according to the hadith then,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he was
sleeping in the house of Umkhani
who was the sister of Saydna Ali And
he was taken
to the Kaaba
by Jibreel alaihis salaam and his chest was
split open
and then it was sealed. This is called
Okay. And his heart was placed on ice.
There was a there was a golden vessel
that was brought and his heart was put
on ice. This was literally
open heart
surgery. The incision scar,
was seen by the Sahaba years later.
And we're told according to the hadith that
the Haddu shaitan was removed from his heart.
The Haddu shaitan
portion of
of the shaitan, it's hard to translate. There's
2 ways of thinking about this
because it's a construct phrase.
Right? Haddu shaitan, either a portion from the
shaitan, which is
inconceivable,
or a portion for the shaitan. So So
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam he had a
portion of something in his heart
for the shaitan.
Right? So Imam al Suqthi he mentions this
beautiful interpretation.
He says that since the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasalam is rahmatalillalamin,
he is he is quite literally mercy. I
mean, his essence is mercy.
In the Quran, he is described as rahma.
And that's an that's a noun. It's not
a verb. So the noun
denotes the essence of a person.
Okay? So Imam al Suki says that this
was a portion of mercy that the prophet
could possibly
could possibly have had for even the shaitan
but it was taken from his heart because
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not want him
to have mercy for the shaitan.
So in other words the heart of the
prophet is
literally overflowing with rahma.
And then the buraq
is brought to him.
Okay.
And the buraq was some sort of
some sort of beast
that was
about
the size of a small horse.
The word buraq is from bark.
Okay. And of course you know people like
Richard Dawkins famously ridiculed,
our belief in the buraq while he was
being interviewed by Mehdi Hasan.
Right? You know, Richard Dawkins, he's a mustahazi.
You know, he's one of these mockers and
this is what they do.
Right? And there were mustahazi
at the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Abu Jahl was a Mustahazi.
Abu Lahab was a Mustahazi. None of these
people became Muslim.
Okay. And, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us
in the Quran that he will take care
of these people, that we're not even to
engage with these people.
Okay. But Richard Dawkins is one of these
people and this is the same man who
says that, you know, we're all African apes,
that the universe
may have been created by aliens,
and that there's no such thing as good
and evil.
Okay. So on his atheistic world
on his atheistic world view,
we are all just fizzing
stardust
with no purpose,
just atoms
moving around
aimlessly.
Okay? On his worldview, if I kill a
man
there's nothing essentially wrong with that. That's just
atoms colliding into other atoms.
That's like a stone rolling down a hill.
Okay? I mean there's no real objective moral
component
to a stone striking the earth.
Likewise, on atheism, there is no real objective
moral component to
my knife stabbing
my neighbor.
It's just stardust.
It's just it's just atoms.
Right?
So that's a very strange world view and
I think just intuitively,
normal people
reject it
and I think he rejects it as well.
But this is what he's,
these are the positions that these atheists are
forced to take
for various reasons. A lot of it has
to do with ego.
The Burak was not of this world.
Okay. The Burak was from the barzakh,
from the intermediate realm. It was a special
creation of
and it had the ability to travel at
very high speeds,
as if moving at the speed of light.
And the word, you know, barak, as we
said, comes from meaning lightning.
So it took 30 days at that time
to travel from the Hejaz,
from the Arabian Peninsula or like from Mecca
to Sham,
okay,
to,
to, you know, Damascus, the the,
the Levant.
Took 30 days to travel at that time.
Today it takes 1 hour by airplane.
There's something we have to understand and and
and realize
that Allah
has power over time and space.
You know, hypothetically, if Allah
had manifested an aircraft
behind one of the mountains of Mecca
and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam flew to
Jerusalem and back at 1 night,
the Quraysh would still not have believed him
and they and they would have continued to
ridicule him,
you know. So so my point is that
time and location,
okay, context in general
change our perception of reality.
Okay. On Earth, I weigh £200.
On on Mars,
I weigh £76.
I'm 43 years old on earth.
Okay. I would be 23 years old on
Mars.
Mass is relative.
Time is relative.
The closer you get to a, to an
event horizon
of a black hole,
the slower time becomes, the faster you travel,
the slower time slows down. It's called time
dilation.
Okay? Our mother Aisha said the bed was
still warm when the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam
returned home
after the latelatul Isra.
The latch of his door was still swinging
when he returned.
Okay. So natural law, what we call,
okay, you can call
it, you know, the law of physics.
It's the customary
laws of space and time. These were suspended
by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
This was to demonstrate that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala has power over all things.
Okay. There's there's no such thing as natural
causation.
There are only patterns of the divine will
in the created world.
Okay. This is also known as the sunnah
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So a miracle
then
is a suspension of the sunnah of perceived
causation,
a suspension of the psychological
construct that we call cause and effect.
According to the theology of
Allah
is the direct and sole cause
of everything in creation.
You know, nature in and of itself has
no power, no potency to do anything.
In every microsecond of existence,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is destroying and recreating
the atoms and accidents of all things in
creation.
God continually creates from moment to moment.
Okay. Nothing other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
has any causal potency or power
in reality.
Okay. When Suleiman alaihis salam asked his counsel
to bring him the throne of Bilqis,
the queen of Sheba,
Okay?
And Efreet Minajin,
okay, a a very powerful jin. He said,
I'll bring it to you before you rise
from the majlis in a matter of hours.
Okay? So, like, today, you know, at the
time Jerusalem to to Yemen,
he could fly down there in in,
you know, couple hours,
load up a a a throne, put it
back on the airplane and bring it back,
you know, before Soleiman alaihi salam rises from
his from his seat.
But then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us,
but someone that had
someone who had knowledge of revelation,
He said to Sulaiman alayhis salam, I'll bring
it to you before the twinkling of an
eye.
In the ulama say that's because this person
who had Al Mujitab, he knew the sort
of nature of revelation. He had he was,
he was familiar with theology, with Allah subhanahu
understanding Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
in the sunnah of Allah that he made
dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when he
disintegrated creation in that moment,
he recreated it in the very next moment
in Jerusalem
right in front of Suleyman alaihis salam.
Okay. So,
you know, this is a complicated theological issue,
you know, that deals with the difference between
things like,
Aristotelian,
what's known as hylomorphism,
and, you know, something called atomism,
occasionalism,
concurrentism.
So that's outside of the scope of this
lecture but here's the main point.
A break in natural law,
okay, what we call
is not customary
but it is not irrational.
Okay. It is not irrational.
If I told you that a a saint
of God
walked through a wall,
okay,
a skeptic might say, well, that's impossible.
It's irrational to believe that.
And I would disagree. It is not customary
at the subatomic
level,
okay, the quantum level, this happens all the
time.
It's it's actually called quantum tunneling.
Some physicists believe
that this may eventually be possible
with larger man made objects.
Okay. So Allah
he knows the physics of everything. We're we're
trying to catch up.
Okay. Allah
he is the master of creation.
And then Allah says
right?
That he brought his servant on a journey
by night from the
sacred mosque to the farthest mosque in Jerusalem,
the precincts of which we did bless.
Okay? There's barakah
due to the number of prophets that resided
in that area
in and around the land of Sham.
Also, according to the sound hadith, the descent
of Sayid Naresa alaihi sallam
will take place in the land of Sham.
Okay? And then the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
he began his ascension
through the Samawat.
Okay. And these are not the paradises.
These are not the janat.
Okay. The Samawat
are 7 realms of creation,
Okay.
And, you know, 6 of them are not
perceptible to us.
The first heaven, we call it we'll call
it the heaven. So again, by heaven, I
don't mean the garden.
I'm not talking about the place where the
believers go
after the day of judgment.
I'm talking about something else. The first heaven
is called a in
the Quran, and the Quran says that it
is the realm of the
stars, okay, the universe as we know it.
At the end of the,
according to the hadith,
there is a door or a gateway of
some sort
that Jibril alaihi salam and the prophet sallallahu
alaihi salam reached.
After passing through this gateway, they entered into
a new realm,
the second heaven.
Okay.
Today,
astronomers
and, you know, physicists, they espouse
the existence of something called a multiverse.
They talk about something called string theory.
Okay. So they postulate,
different or multiple
dimensions
existence.
Okay.
Again, we're trying to catch up.
Okay.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has power over time
and space. These things are very easy
for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he saw
various prophets
who were in these various realms of existence.
And the significance of these specific prophets is
very interesting.
Okay. So the visions of these prophets point
to certain
what we might say Muhammadan
typologies.
In other words, they prefigured events
in the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. So for example,
in the first heaven,
okay, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
had a vision of Adam alaihi wa sallam.
Okay?
And so
the some of the ulama mentioned that
the significance of that is that just as
Adam alaihis salam
was exiled as it were
from the garden,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam will be exiled
from Mecca.
He'll make hijrah.
In the second heaven, the second realm,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he met the
2 cousin prophets Isa alaihi wasallam and Yahya
alaihi wasallam.
Okay?
And and so the ulama mentioned here that
this is an indication
that just
as Isa alaihissalam
and Yahya alaihissalam were persecuted by their people
and Yahya alaihissalam was assassinated
by his people. Ya'i salaam according to the
Christians was also killed but according to,
the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala rescued him.
So there was an attempt on his life.
Just as those things happened to those prophets,
there's going to be attempts on the life
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasalam as well.
In the 3rd realm,
in the 3rd sama, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasalam,
he met Yusuf alaihi wasallam.
Okay? And so the ulama mentioned that just
as
just as, Yusuf alaihi salam came into power
over his brothers eventually.
Okay? The prophet sallallahu alaihi salam will also
come into power over his brothers.
The Quresh, when the prophet
entered Mecca
during the conquest,
Okay. He said,
quoting Yusuf alaihi wasallam from the Quran.
There's no blemish on you this day.
And when he came into the 4th heaven,
he met with Idris alaihis salaam.
And the Quran is
a bit limited with,
with descriptions of Idris alaihis salaam, but Allah
says
Alright. That remember or mentioned in the book
the story of Idris alaihi salaam.
He was truthful and a prophet and we
raised him to a high station.
Okay. So Idris
was raised to a high place, the 4th
heaven,
and Allah
says about the prophet
that we have raised your remembrance.
Okay. We've exalted your remembrance.
In the 5th heaven,
Allah
allowed the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to
meet Harun alaihi salam or Aaron peace be
upon him. So this was a
prophet, who initially was hated by his people.
Right? They wanted him to make the golden
calf in the Torah. It says he actually
made it. We don't agree with that
narration.
In the Quran,
he refused
and his people hated him but eventually they
loved him.
Okay. In a similar fashion, initially many of
the Quresh, they hated the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam but then they came to know him
and love him. In the 6th heaven, the
prophet sallallahu alaihi salam, he met Musa alaihi
salam.
Okay. And of course there are many similarities
between the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam and Musa
alayhi salam.
Probably the greatest similarity
is that
both of them received a sacred law from
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the sharia.
And in the 7th heaven,
okay, the 7th realm of existence,
the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Salam, he met Ibrahim
Alaihi Salam
and he took from Ibrahim alaihi wasallam the
rights of the Hajj.
And of course the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
he his message
is a restoration of the millah, of the
creed
of Ibrahim alaihi salam.
And then we'll end
with some ayat from the Quran,
in regard to the later to the
So this is Surah Al Najm Allah
says and he begins taking an oath
by the star when it goes down.
Okay. And there's a difference of opinion as
to what is a najam.
Some of the irlamas say that it's Pleiades,
the star constellation, Turayya.
Others say that the najm is the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Okay. That he is the star,
that he is the he is
the illuminating,
guide for humanity.
Your companion, meaning the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam,
has neither strayed nor erred
nor does he speak from his caprice.
But the prophet
he does not speak from his desire.
Right? This is strong negation.
He never speaks from his desire.
It is nothing but revelation
revealed to him.
He's taught by 1 mighty in power.
Okay. Possessed a vigor, he stood upright while
he was on the highest horizon. So some
of the ulama say that this is a
reference to the first time the prophet sallallahu
alaihi salam saw Jibbu alaihi salam
in his actual form after the initial letter
to Qadr when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
received
the initial revelation of Iqra
that he looked to the heavens and he
saw that Jibreel alaihi salam had covered the
horizon.
Okay. So possessed of vigor, he stood upright
while he was on the highest horizon, then
he drew near and came close
and he was within 2 bow lengths or
even nearer. So here
some of the ulama say that
this this is an indication that the prophet
salallahu alaihi wasalam he came
near his lord
during the Mi'raj.
So we understand this not in the sense
of anything physical,
right, in the sense of,
direction or or distance or anything like that,
that this is majaz that the, that the
meaning here is figurative
to draw within 2 bow lengths or even
nearer
is a way of saying that the prophet
was was very close,
very very beloved
to or very or very near spiritually to
Allah
And then we have an extraordinary statement
for and then Allah
revealed
to his
whatever he revealed.
Okay? And it's left open. Now Ibn Mas'uri
tells us a few things that that that,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on that occasion revealed
to the prophet
the end of Al Baqarah,
the
last 2 ayes of Surat Al Baqarah
without any type of angelic mediation because Jibril
alaihis salam could not go,
because this is this is a
this is a an an experience of the
ruya, of the beatific vision that the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had
at the base of the Arsh and it's
not to say that Allah is located anywhere.
That's not what we mean.
Okay?
That so the meaning is not that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he traveled to
a place, a physical place, and
he encountered Allah at this place. No. This
is where he experienced
the ruya, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
transcendent
of space and place. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala exists
without space or place.
Okay. But it was in this where the
prophet was, where he experienced these things. Allah
revealed to him the
the end of Al Baqarah. Jibil alaihis salam
was not there. He could not be in
this in this place.
And then also the promise, the wad of
of, of of Jannah to him and his
ummah.
And then the the prayer, 5 times daily
prayer was made fard upon the prophet
and his ummah.
So a couple of things
that we notice and then we'll close
is that
the importance of prayer.
Prayer is so important. The salawat,
okay,
the 5 daily prayers. The prayers were given
to the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam
when he was,
when he was,
at the when he was at the base
of the Arsh and Allah
was communicating to him, was revealing to him
whatever he wanted to reveal.
Okay?
This was placed directly into his heart without
any type of angelic mediation.
So the importance of prayer, I mean, it's
just it's we can't state it enough.
It is our connection to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, our to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and
it's a direct connection.
Okay. In fact, the word salah in Arabic
is related to connection.
But something else we notice
is the importance of connection to the messenger.
According to the tradition,
when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam went
beyond,
the
7th heaven,
right,
where the Sideratul Muntaha was, the the lote
tree of the uttermost region,
Jibril alaihis salam could not pass.
It was only for the prophet sallallahu alayhi
salam to go by himself.
Okay. And Jibreel he said I would if
I if I did so I would combust
into flames.
Okay? But the prophet proceeded
and one of my teachers said well why
didn't he asked us a question one time
and he said why didn't the sandals of
the prophet
combust and burn or his turban or his
clothes?
And the reason is because they were connected
to him sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. His sandal
was connected to his foot.
His, his turban was connected to his blessed
head.
Okay.
So the importance of connection to the messenger
of
Allah that we stay connected to him that
we will not burn.
Okay.
Inshallah ta'ala.
So
we'll end at this point inshallah ta'ala.
I I pray that Allah
increases us
in iman, in faith, in understanding.
Give us the tawfiq,
to
to continue to learn,
to continue to benefit,
from,
this religion,
to, give us the ability,
to,
to
become more in tune with the book of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to increase our relationship,
our connection to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to
increase our connection and relationship to the
messenger
of
Allah.
Please keep me in your dua. You are
in my dua.