The Ascension

From Jerusalem he ﷺ was taken up. At each heaven a gate opened, and a prophet welcomed him: Adam (as) in the first, greeting his righteous son; 'Isa (as) and Yahya (as) in the second; Yusuf (as), given half of all beauty, in the third; Idris (as) in the fourth; Harun (as) in the fifth; Musa (as) in the sixth; and in the seventh, Ibrahim (as), leaning against al-Bayt al-Ma'mur, the much-frequented House, which seventy thousand angels enter daily, never to return as the lines of worshippers never end.

He ﷺ was shown the Sidrat al-Muntaha, the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, the frontier of created knowledge, washed in colours he ﷺ said no describer could describe, when there covered the Lote Tree what covered it. The Qur'an testifies for him: the sight did not swerve, nor did it transgress; he certainly saw of the greatest signs of his Lord.

There, the obligation that defines a Muslim's day was given directly, with no angel as intermediary: the prayer, fifty times daily at first. Descending, he ﷺ passed Musa (as), who had led a great nation and knew the weight of human weakness: return and ask lightening, your ummah cannot bear it. He ﷺ returned, again and again, until fifty became five, with the announcement that the five would be rewarded as fifty: deeds are tenfold, the gift of a Lord whose decree had been mercy all along.

Morning came, and he ﷺ told Makkah. The disbelievers laughed and clapped: a month's caravan to Syria, and you claim one night? They ran to test it against the most literal measure they had, and he ﷺ described Jerusalem while, he said, Allah displayed it before him as he spoke, and described their own caravans on the road, down to a stray camel, all later confirmed.

The five prayers came down from that night, and the scholars draw the lesson gently: everything else in Islam was revealed by the angel descending; the prayer alone was given by ascending. Whoever stands to pray is keeping an appointment first made above the seventh heaven.