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105-514: The Israʾ and Miʿraj ( Arabic : الإسراء والمعراج , al-’Isrā’ wal-Miʿrāj ) are the two parts of a Night Journey that Muslims believe the Islamic prophet Muhammad ( AD 570–632) took during a single night around the year AD 621 (1 BH – 0 BH). Within Islam , the majority of Islamic scholars claim that the journey was both a physical and spiritual one. Islamic tradition believes

210-727: A brief mention of the story is found in the 17th surah (chapter) of the Quran , called al-Isra' , while details of the story are found in the hadith (the later collections of the reports, teachings, deeds and sayings of Muhammad). In the Israʾ ("Night Journey"), Muhammad is said to have traveled on the back of Buraq (a winged horse-like bird) to Al-Aqsa (i.e. the Noble Sanctuary ), where he led other prophets including Ibrahim ( Abraham ), Musa ( Moses ), and Isa ( Jesus ) in prayer . Muhammad then ascended into heaven during

315-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as

420-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By

525-402: A day, but as Muhammad descends back to Earth, he meets Moses who tells Muhammad to go back to God and ask for fewer prayers because 50 is too many. Muhammad goes between Moses and God nine times, until the prayers are reduced to the five daily prayers, which God will reward tenfold. To that again, Moses tells Muhammad to ask for even fewer but Muhammad feels ashamed and says that he is thankful for

630-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to

735-587: A high place. The events of Isra and Miʿraj are mentioned briefly in the Quran and then further expanded and interpreted within the hadith (the literary corpus of reported sayings of Muhammad), which form supplements to the Quran. Two hadith sources on the Isra and Miʿraj considered the most reliable are Anas ibn Malik and Ibn ʿAbbas . Both are considered ṣaḥāba or " Companions of the Prophet ", but were young boys at

840-404: A later translator is unknown, but often a point of contention when discussing Ibn ʿAbbas's Primitive Version. The belief that Muhammad made the heavenly journey bodily was used to prove the unique status of Muhammad. One theory among Sufis was that Muhammad's body could reach God to a proximity that even the greatest saints could only reach in spirit. They debated whether Muhammad had really seen

945-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic

1050-660: A member of the Najjar clan of the Khazraj tribe of Yathrib , was born in 612, ten years before the Hijrah . Anas ibn Malik's father was Malik ibn Nadr and his mother was Umm Sulaym. His father, Malik ibn Nadr was a non-Muslim and was angry with his mother, Umm Sulaym for her conversion to Islam. Malik bin Nadr went to Damascus and died there. She remarried to a new convert, Abu Talha al-Ansari . Anas's half-brother from this marriage

1155-587: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb  [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak

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1260-402: A prophet and a Sufi. He recounts that Muhammad, during his Miʿraj journey, visited the heavens and then eventually returned to the temporal world. Iqbal then quotes another South Asian Muslim saint by the name of ' Abdul Quddus Gangohi who asserted that if he (Gangohi) had had that experience, he would never have returned to this world. Iqbal uses Gangohi's spiritual aspiration to argue that while

1365-469: A quadrangular mosque for a capacity of 3,000 worshipers is recorded somewhere on the Haram ash-Sharif. A hadith reports Muhammad's account of the experience: "Then Gabriel brought a horse (Burraq) to me, which resembled lightning in swiftness and lustre, was of clear white colour, medium in size, smaller than a mule and taller than a (donkey), quick in movement that it put its feet on the farthest limit of

1470-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from

1575-441: A saint or a Sufi would not wish to renounce the spiritual experience for something this-worldly, a prophet is a prophet precisely because he returns with a force so powerful that he changes world history by imbuing it with a creative and fresh thrust. Many sects and offshoots belonging to Islamic mysticism interpret Muhammad's night ascent – the Isra and Miʿraj – to be an out-of-body experience through nonphysical environments, unlike

1680-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",

1785-593: A second time at the Lote Tree of the most extreme limit ˹in the seventh heaven˺— near which is the Garden of ˹Eternal˺ Residence— while the Lote Tree was overwhelmed with ˹heavenly˺ splendours! The ˹Prophet's˺ sight never wandered, nor did it overreach. He certainly saw some of his Lord's greatest signs. Various hadiths contain much greater detail. The Israʾ is the part of the journey of Muhammad from Mecca to

1890-543: A second time from Jerusalem and shortly before Heraclius retook the city (AD 630), a small synagogue was already in place on the Temple Mount. This synagogue was reportedly demolished after Heraclius retook Jerusalem. French American Academic Oleg Grabar believed that the Quranic Al-masjid al-aqṣā referred to one of two sanctuaries in a Hijazi village known as al-Juʽranah near Mecca, basing this on

1995-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for

2100-689: A tour of heaven given by an angel to the patriarch Enoch , the great-grandfather of Noah . According to Brooke Vuckovic, early Muslims may have had precisely this ascent in mind when interpreting Muhammad's night journey. In the Testament of Abraham , from the first century CE, Abraham is shown the final judgement of the righteous and unrighteous in heaven. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

2205-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means

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2310-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as

2415-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted

2520-528: Is "transported in a single night from Mecca to Jerusalem by the winged mythical creature Burāq. From Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock now stands, he is accompanied by Jibrīl to heaven, ascending possibly by ladder or staircase (miʿrāj)." This interpretation shares the belief that the Isra' Mecca-to-Jerusalem story does not belong with the other two, according to Yitzhak Reiter. In the 13th century AD, an account of

2625-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic

2730-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak

2835-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It

2940-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in

3045-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon

3150-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and

3255-540: Is in surah al-A'raf :143. In the Biblical narrative ( Exodus 3:4–4:17), the texts for verse 3:6 state simply that Moses "hid his face" ( Masoretic Hebrew , Targum Aramaic , and Samaritan ) or "averted his face" ( Septuagint Greek ).) The Subtleties of the Ascension by Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sulami includes repeated quotations from other mystics that also affirm the superiority of Muhammad. Many Sufis interpreted

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3360-472: Is like the moon. His presence in the Miʿraj is to show his popularity and how it relates to Muhammad's. Aaron is described as Muhammad's brother who is older and one of the most beautiful men that Muhammad had met. Again, the love for Aaron by his people relates to Muhammad and his people. Abraham is described with likeness to Muhammad in ways that illustrate him to be Muhammad's father. Jesus is usually linked to John

3465-577: Is mentioned in later Islamic literature and in the hadith as the place of Isra and Miʽraj. Regardless however, some figures contest the consensus that Al-masjid al-aqṣā was in Jerusalem, and believe it was somewhere other than Jerusalem. This arises from the belief that there's no evidence of a Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem prior to the Islamic conquest of the Levant , and Umar 's arrival The first and second temples were destroyed by

3570-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference

3675-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not

3780-703: Is the Muslim holiday on the 27th of Rajab (the date varying in the Western calendar) celebrating the Isra and Miʿraj. Another name for the holiday is Mehraj-ul-Alam (also spelled Meraj-ul-Alam ). Some Muslims celebrate this event by offering optional prayers during this night, and in some Muslim countries, by illuminating cities with electric lights and candles. The celebrations around this day tend to focus on every Muslim who wants to celebrate it. Worshippers gather into mosques and perform prayer and supplication. Some people may pass their knowledge on to others by telling them

3885-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As

3990-460: Is the day of Muhammad's first calling or Mab'as . The al-Aqsa Mosque and surrounding area is now the third-holiest place on earth for Muslims. The general consensus of modern Muslim scholars is that the Isra' and Mi'raj were specific to a physical place called al-Masjid al-Aqsā ("the Far Mosque") and that Muhammad did indeed go to a physical location. Minority Muslim groups have also regarded

4095-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that

4200-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into

4305-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while

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4410-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary

4515-771: The Al Haram Mosque built after Muhammad's death in its vicinity. A small prayer hall ( musalla ), what would later become the Al-Aqsa Mosque , was built by Umar , the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate . This was rebuilt and expanded by the caliph Abd al-Malik in AD 690 along with the Dome of the Rock . In the reign of the caliph Mu'awiyah I of the Umayyad Caliphate (founded in AD 661),

4620-572: The Babylonians and the Romans , respectively, the latter more than five centuries before Muhammad's life. After the initially successful Jewish revolt against Heraclius , the Jewish population resettled in Jerusalem for a short period of time from AD 614 to 630 and immediately started to restore the temple on the Temple Mount and build synagogues in Jerusalem. After the Jewish population was expelled

4725-518: The Miʿraj (Ascension), where he individually greeted the prophets, and later spoke to God , who agreed to lower the number of required ṣalāt (ritual prayer) from 50 a day to only five. The story of the journey and ascent are marked as one of the most celebrated in the Islamic calendar —27th of the Islamic month of Rajab . Isra means walking or traveling at night; miʿraj means rising, or going up to

4830-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to

4935-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic

5040-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In

5145-722: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c.  8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Anas ibn Malik Anas ibn Malik,

5250-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to

5355-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of

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5460-779: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

5565-686: The Baptist, who is not mentioned much. Moses is different than the other prophets that Muhammad meets in that Moses stands as a point of difference rather than similarities. Muhammad's beast of burden, the Buraq is described in several sahih hadith as "white" and "bigger than a donkey and smaller than a mule". Although hadith seldom if ever explicitly describe the Buraq as having wings or a human face, Near Eastern and Persian art typically portrays it as having one. Some narratives also record events that preceded

5670-604: The Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing. And ˹remember, O Prophet˺ when We told you, "Certainly your Lord encompasses the people." And We have made what We brought you to see as well as the cursed tree ˹mentioned˺ in the Quran only as a test for the people. We keep warning them, but it only increases them greatly in defiance. And he certainly saw that ˹angel descend˺

5775-926: The Isra' and Mi'raj was translated into several European languages— Latin , Spanish and French . Known as the Book of Muhammad's Ladder , this account purports to be the words of Muhammad himself as recorded by Ibn Abbas. It was translated by Abraham of Toledo and Bonaventure of Siena . It may have influenced Dante Alighieri 's account of an ascent to heaven and descent to hell in the Divine Comedy . The Lailat al-Miʿraj ( Arabic : لیلة المعراج , Lailatu 'l-Miʿrāj ), also known as Shab-e-Mi'raj ( Bengali : শবে মেরাজ , romanized :  Šobe Meraj , Persian : شب معراج , Šab-e Mi'râj ) in Iran, Pakistan , India and Bangladesh , and Miraç Kandili in Turkish ,

5880-519: The Journey is not clear, but is celebrated as though it took place before the Hijrah and after Muhammad's visit to the people of Ta'if . The normative view amongst Sunni Muslims who ascribe a specific date to the event is that it took place on the 27th of Rajab, slightly over a year before Hijrah. This would correspond to the 26th of February 621 in the Western calendar . In Twelver Iran , Rajab 27

5985-466: The Lord and if he did, whether he did so with his eyes or with his heart. Nevertheless, Muhammad's superiority is again demonstrated in that even in the extreme proximity of the Lord, "his eye neither swerved nor was turned away," whereas Moses had fainted when the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush. Various thinkers used this point to prove the superiority of Muhammad. (The source for Moses' having fainted

6090-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around

6195-495: The Miʿraj to ask questions about the meaning of certain events within the Miʿraj, and drew conclusions based on their interpretations, especially to substantiate ideas of the superiority of Muhammad over other prophets. Muhammad Iqbal , a self-proclaimed intellectual descendant of Rumi and the poet-scholar who personified poetic Sufism in South Asia, used the event of the Miʿraj to conceptualize an essential difference between

6300-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

6405-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With

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6510-693: The Rooster angel (whose call influences all earthly roosters), Half-Fire Half-Snow angel (who provides an example of God's power to bring fire and ice in harmony), the Angel of Death (who describes the process of death and the sorting of souls), and the Guardian of Hellfire (who shows Muhammad what hell looks like). These four angels are met in the beginning of Ibn ʿAbbas' narrative. They are mentioned in other accounts of Muhammad's ascension, but they are not talked about with as much detail as Ibn ʿAbbas provides. As

6615-427: The Sunni Muslims or mainstream Islam. The mystics claim Muhammad was transported to the farthest place of worship and then onward to the Seven Heavens , even though "the apostle's body remained where it was." Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Reiter mentions some alternative interpretations among some Muslim sects in the 21st century which dispute that the night journey took place in Jerusalem, believing instead it

6720-403: The ascent—but either way it plays an important role in determining Muhammad's spiritual righteousness. Ibn ʿAbbas ' Primitive Versions narrates all that Muhammad encounters throughout his journey through heaven. This includes seeing other angels, and seas of light, darkness, and fire. With Gabriel as his companion, Muhammad meets four key angels as he travels through the heavens. These angels are

6825-509: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

6930-417: The earlier prophets such as Abraham ( ʾIbrāhīm ), Moses ( Musa ), John the Baptist ( Yaḥyā ibn Zakarīyā ), and Jesus ( Isa ). Muhammad was then taken to Sidrat al-Muntaha – a holy tree in the seventh heaven that Gabriel was not allowed to pass. According to Islamic tradition, God instructed Muhammad that Muslims must pray fifty times per day; however, Moses told Muhammad that it was very difficult for

7035-412: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

7140-407: The encounters with the prophets, and does so in a way that is in chronological order rather than the normal order usually seen in ascension narratives. Ibn ʿAbbas may have left out the meeting of the prophets and the encounter with Moses that led to the reduction of daily prayers because those events were already written elsewhere. Whether he included that in his original narrative or if it was added by

7245-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around

7350-447: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

7455-423: The farthest place of worship, though the city is not explicitly mentioned. The journey began when Muhammad was in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca , and the Archangel Jibrīl (or Jibrāʾīl, Gabriel ) came to him, and brought Buraq , the traditional heavenly mount of the prophets. Buraq carried Muhammad to the "farthest place of worship". Muhammad alighted, tethered Buraq and performed prayer, where on God's command he

7560-489: The five. Al-Tabari is a classic and authentic source for Islamic research. His description of the Miʿraj is just as simplified as the description given above, which is where other narratives and hadiths of the Miʿraj stem from, as well as word of mouth. While this is the simplest description of the Miʿraj, others include more details about the prophets that Muhammad meets. In accounts written by Muslims, Bukhari , Ibn Ishaq , Ahmad b. Hanbal and others, physical descriptions of

7665-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and

7770-430: The heavenly ascent. Some scholars believe that the opening of Muhammad's chest was a cleansing ritual that purified Muhammad before he ascended into heaven. Muhammad's chest was opened up and water of Zamzam was poured on his heart giving him wisdom, belief, and other necessary characteristics to help him in his ascent. This purification is also seen in the trial of the drinks. It is debated when it took place—before or after

7875-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward

7980-748: The journey as an out-of-body experience. Al-Masjid al-Aqsā is traditionally associated with the Temple in Jerusalem (both the structure and the city being called Bayt al-Maqdis in Islamic tradition calquing the Jewish name for the Temple) as well as the general area of the site, i.e. the Temple Mount , analogous to how the term al-Masjid al-Harām "the Sacred Mosque" refers to both the Kaaba and

8085-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about

8190-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c.  603 –689)

8295-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA

8400-451: The lowest heaven". But sometime "early in Islamic history" this story of purification and ascension to heaven began to be associated with the story of a night journey (Isrāʾ) by Muhammad from the “sacred place of worship” (Mecca) to the “further place of worship” (Jerusalem). Eventually the night journey came to be combined with Muhammad's purification and ascension, falling between the two in the sequence, so that after his purification Muhammad

8505-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya

8610-524: The masjid al-aqsa applies specifically to al-Ji'ranah, near Mekkah, where there were two sanctuaries (masjid al-adnai and masjid al-aqsa), and where Muhammad so-journed in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah. Israeli Political Scientist Yitzhak Reiter also claimed that the location being in Jerusalem was a tradition invented after Muhmmad's life by the Umayyad Caliphate to divert pilgrimage to either Shi'ite sites such as Al-Kufa , or Mecca when it

8715-704: The narrative are the Heavenly Host Debate, the Final Verses of the Cow Chapter, and the Favor of the Prophets. These important topics help to outline the greater detail that Ibn ʿAbbas uses in his Primitive Version. In an attempt to reestablish Ibn ʿAbbas as authentic, it seems as though a translator added the descent of Muhammad and the meeting with the prophets. The narrative only briefly states

8820-458: The narrative continues, Ibn ʿAbbas focuses mostly on the angels that Muhammad meets rather than the prophets. There are rows of angels that Muhammad encounters throughout heaven, and he even meets certain deeply devoted angels called cherubim . These angels instill fear in Muhammad, but he later sees them as God's creation, and therefore not harmful. Other important details that Ibn ʿAbbas adds to

8925-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum  [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve

9030-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on

9135-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on

9240-601: The people and urged Muhammad to ask for a reduction, until finally it was reduced to five times per day. There are different accounts of what occurred during the Miʿraj, but most narratives have the same elements: Muhammad ascends into heaven with the angel Gabriel and meets a different prophet at each of the seven levels of heaven; first Adam , then John the Baptist and Jesus , then Joseph , then Idris , then Aaron , then Moses , and lastly Abraham . After Muhammad meets with Abraham, he continues on to meet God without Gabriel. God tells Muhammad that his people must pray 50 times

9345-409: The prophets are given. Adam is described first as being Muhammad's father, which establishes a link between them as first and last prophets. Physical descriptions of Adam show him as tall and handsome with long hair. Idris, who is not mentioned as much as the other prophets Muhammad meets, is described as someone who was raised to a higher status by God. Joseph is described as the most beautiful man who

9450-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within

9555-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there

9660-517: The sight. He made me ride it and carried me to Jerusalem. He tethered the Burraq to the ring of that Temple to which all the Prophets in Jerusalem used to tether their beasts..." Although the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned by any of its names in Surah Al-Isra 17:1, the consensus of Islamic scholars is that Quranic reference to masjid al-aqṣā in the verse refers to Jerusalem. Jerusalem

9765-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of

9870-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of

9975-516: The statement of two near-contemporary medieval Muslim travelers Al Waqidi and Al-Azraqi who used the term " Al-masjid al-aqṣā" , and " Al-masjid al-Adna" : Bevan has shown that among early traditionists there are many who do not accept the identification of the masjid al-aqsa, and among them are to be found such great names as al-Bukhari and Tabari. Both Ibn Ishaq an al-Ya'qubi precede their accounts with expressions which indicate that these are stories which are not necessarily accepted as dogma. It

10080-428: The story on how Muhammad's heart was purified by the archangel Gabriel , who filled him with knowledge and faith in preparation to enter the seven levels of heaven. After salah , food and treats are served. In Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, the structure of the Dome of the Rock , built several decades after Muhammad's death, marks the place from which Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven . The exact date of

10185-465: The time of Muhammad's journey of Mi'raj. Within the Quran , chapter ( surah ) 17 al-Isra , was named after the Isra', and the first verse contains a brief description. There is also some information in a later verse, and some scholars say a verse in surah an-Najm also holds information on the Isra and Miʿraj. Glory be to the One Who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to

10290-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to

10395-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study

10500-534: Was Abdullah ibn Abi Talha. When Muhammad arrived in Medina in 622, Anas's mother presented him to Muhammad as a servant to him. Under the leadership of Muhammad, he participated in major events including Treaty of al-Hudaybiya , Battle of Khaybar , Conquest of Mecca , Siege of Taif and the Farewell Pilgrimage . After Muhammad's death in 632, Anas participated in the early Muslim conquests . He

10605-520: Was considered as the last of the prominent companions of Muhammad to die, having outlived Muhammad by 80 years. Anas died in 93 AH (712 CE) in Basra at the age of 103 (lunar) years. His tomb is located 20 minutes away from Basra City Center and was demolished in 2016 during war and till now is not reconstructed by the Iraqi government. However, the shrine was destroyed with explosive devices. Although

10710-675: Was either in the Heavens , or in Medina and its vicinity by Jaf'ari Shi'tes . Another question (more than an interpretation) is whether Isra' and Mi'raj originally belonged together. According to Britannica, in "the earliest interpretations of the Miʿrāj", while he is in the Kaʿbah in Mecca, Muhammad's body is cut open by the angel Jibrīl, cleansed and purified, before being transported by Jibrīl "directly to

10815-597: Was held by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr during the Second Muslim Civil war Traditions of living persons ascending to heaven are also found in early Jewish and Christian literature. In the Book of Kings of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament , the prophet Elijah is said to have entered heaven alive by a chariot and horses of fire. The Book of Enoch , a late Second Temple Jewish apocryphal work , describes

10920-460: Was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem. But while Horovitz thought that it referred to a place in heaven, A. Guillaume's careful analysis of the earliest texts (al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, both in the later second century A.H.) has convincingly shown that the Koranic reference to

11025-534: Was tested by Gabriel. It was told by Anas ibn Malik that Muhammad said: "Jibra'il brought me a vessel of wine, a vessel of water and a vessel of milk, and I chose the milk. Jibra'il said: 'You have chosen the Fitrah (natural instinct).'" In the second part of the journey, the Miʿraj (an Arabic word that literally means "ladder"), Jibra'il took him to the heavens, where he toured the seven stages of heaven , and spoke with

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