We have seen how large a space Jewish legend and history fill in the contemporary suras of the Kuran, and Mahomet’s friendship with Israel increased noticeably during his last two years at Mecca.  He paid them the honour of taking Jerusalem as his Kibla, or Holy Place, to which all Believers turn in prayer, and the starting-place for his immortal Midnight Journey was the Sacred City encompassing the Temple of the Lord.

No account of this journey appears except in the traditions crystallized by Al Bokharil, but there is one short mention of it in the Kuran, Sura xviii.

“Glory be to him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the temple that is more remote, i.e.  Jerusalem.”

The vision, however, looms so large in his followers’ minds, and exercised so profound an influence over their regard for Mahomet, that it throws some light, upon the measure of his ascendancy during his last years at Mecca, and establishes beyond dispute the inspired character of his Prophetship in the imaginations of the few Believers.  There have been solemn and wordy disputes by theologians as to whether he made the journey in the flesh, or whether his spirit alone crossed the dread portals dividing our night from the celestial day.

He was lying in the Kaaba, so runs the legend, when the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and after having purged his heart of all sin, carried him to the Temple at Jerusalem.  He penetrated its sacred enclosure and saw the beast Borak, “greater than ass, smaller than mule,” and was told to mount.  The Faithful still show the spot at Jerusalem where his steed’s hoof marked the ground as he spurned it with flying feet.  With Gabriel by his side, mounted on a beast mighty in strength, Mahomet scaled the appalling spaces and came at last to the outer Heaven, before the gate that guards the celestial realms.  The angel knocked upon the brazen doors and a voice within cried: 

“Who art thou, and who is with thee?”

“I am Gabriel,” came the answer, “and this is Mahomet.”

And behold, the brazen gates that may not be unclosed for mortal man were flung wide, and Mahomet entered alone with the angel.  He penetrated to the first Heaven and saw Adam, who interrogated him in the same words, and received the same reply.  And all the heavenly hierarchies, even unto the seventh Heaven, John and Jesus, Joseph, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, Abraham, acknowledged Mahomet in the same words, until the two came to “the tree called Sedrat,” beyond which no man may pass and live, whose fruits are shining serpents, and whose leaves are great beasts, round which flow four rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates guarding it without, and within these the celestial streams that water Paradise, too wondrous for a name.

Awed but undaunted, Mahomet passed alone beyond the sacred tree, for even the Angel could not bear any longer so fierce a glory, and came to Al-M’amur, even the Hall of Heavenly Audience, where are seventy thousand angels.  He mounted the steps of the throne between their serried ranks, until at the touch of Allah’s awful hand he stopped and felt its icy coldness penetrate to his heart.  He was given milk, wine, or honey to drink, and he chose milk.