The Night Journey and the Ascent

Isra and Mi'raj commemorates two joined events kept on a single night: the Isra, the miraculous night journey of the Prophet Muhammad from the sacred mosque at Mecca to "the farthest mosque" (al-masjid al-aqsa), traditionally identified with Jerusalem; and the Mi'raj, the ascent from there through the heavens, where he is said to have met the earlier prophets and where the five daily prayers were fixed. The Qur'an alludes to the journey in a single verse of Surah 17 without naming the destination; the fuller narrative, including the meetings with Adam, Jesus, Moses and Abraham and the negotiation that reduced the prayers from fifty to five, comes from the hadith and the biographical tradition. It is usually dated to 27 Rajab.

Observance is markedly uneven across the Muslim world. It is a public holiday and a night of prayer, lamps and public retellings in Indonesia, Malaysia and much of the Arab world, while Salafi and Wahhabi scholars decline to single the night out for worship, accepting the event itself but rejecting the commemoration as an innovation without early warrant, the same pattern of dispute that surrounds the Mawlid. The identification of the "farthest mosque" with Jerusalem is a foundation of the city's standing in Islam.