A Night Journey and an Ascent, and the Prayers Said to Follow From It

Isra and Miraj are kept together on the twenty seventh of Rajab, though the two names describe two stages of one tradition rather than one event. The Isra is the night journey, a single Quranic verse, sura seventeen verse one, describing Muhammad carried by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque, a passage later tradition identifies with a journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. The Miraj, the ascent, is the much more elaborated continuation found in hadith literature rather than the Quran itself, describing Muhammad's passage upward through the heavens, meetings with earlier prophets, and an approach to the divine presence.

The Miraj narrative is the source Islamic tradition gives for the institution of the five daily prayers, described as reduced from an original fifty through repeated intercession, tradition holding that Moses, encountered during the ascent, urged Muhammad to keep asking for the number to be lowered until it was fixed at five. Jerusalem's standing in Islamic tradition, and the architectural prominence later given the Dome of the Rock on the site associated with the ascent, both trace directly to this one night's narrative rather than to any other event in the Prophet's biography.