AD 620

Isra and Mi‘raj

Traditional Isra and Miʿraj: Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension

At each heaven Gabriel was challenged at the gate: who was he, who was with him, and had Muhammad been summoned?

One verse, and no date

The Night Journey is conventionally dated to about 620, but no contemporary source supplies a Gregorian year. Muslim biographical traditions generally place it in Muhammad’s Meccan period before the 622 Hijra, while disagreeing over its year, month and day.

Qur’an 17:1 says that God carried “His servant” by night from the Sacred Place of Worship to the Farthest Place of Worship to show him divine signs. Islamic tradition identifies the servant as Muhammad and the destinations as Mecca and Jerusalem; the verse names none of them.

The commonly commemorated 27 Rajab is not established by an early, securely authenticated report.

Seven heavens, in the hadith

In the majority developed tradition Muhammad travelled with Gabriel on Buraq to Jerusalem and then ascended through the heavens, though early interpretations differed over whether the Jerusalem journey and the heavenly ascent were one event.

Sahih al-Bukhari’s account places Adam in the first heaven, Jesus and John in the second, Joseph in the third, Idris in the fourth, Aaron in the fifth, Moses in the sixth and Abraham in the seventh.

Buraq is described there as a white animal larger than a donkey and smaller than a mule.

Fifty prayers down to five

In that hadith Muhammad was shown the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary and the Frequented House, after which fifty daily prayers were imposed and then reduced to five following Moses’s repeated advice — each retaining the reward associated with the original fifty.

The shorthand “Muhammad met Allah” suppresses a major theological distinction: Aisha rejected the claim that Muhammad visually saw God.

Early traditions and later scholars also disagree over whether the experience was bodily, spiritual or visionary.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at ~0620.

What the sources leave uncertain

No contemporary source supplies a Gregorian year. Muslim biographical traditions generally place the event in Muhammad’s Meccan period before the 622 Hijra, but disagree over its year, month and day.
The commonly commemorated 27 Rajab is not established by an early, securely authenticated report.
Early traditions and later scholars disagree over whether the experience was bodily, spiritual or visionary and whether Isra and Miʿraj were originally one journey or separate narratives.
Qur’an 17:1 does not name Muhammad, Mecca or Jerusalem explicitly, although those identifications became standard in Islamic exegesis.