It has been narrated from: Imam Hassan Asgari (p.b.u.h.): “ When 40 years passed since Mohammad was born, Almighty God found his heart the best and the most excellent of all hearts concerning purity, humility, and modesty. Then He bestowed to his eyes another sort of light and prescribed that all the doors of the sky were opened and the angels were descended on the earth and Gabriel came down and said: “Read! Mohammad! Read in the name of your God Who created the world, Who created man out of coagulate blood, Read that your God is the greatest, One who taught man by Pen whatever he did not know.” Sura: Alagh, verses: 1 to 5
Prophet (p.b.u.h.) prescribed: “when I was inspired by sura: Alagh, I moved towards home from the peak of mount: Hara. Suddenly, in the middle of the mount, I heard some voice from the sky which said: “Thou! Mohammad! You are the Prophet of God and I am Gabriel.”
This way, Islam commenced in the name of God by reading, pen, rebel, warning, purity, loyalty, and commemoration of God. One of the miracles of prophet (p.b.u.h.) is his divine ascendance to the skies up to the heaven to watch the wonders of creation and knowledge.
His ascend might be divided into two sections: 1. From Masjed Alharam to Masjed Alaghsa and from Masjed Alaghsa to Arsh Aala. Arsh Aala will be mentioned in the first part of ascend.
“Pure and immaculate is God Who took his creature in one night from Masjed Alharam to Masjed Alaghsa which was surrendered with charity and bounty to show to him some of our verses, because God is listener and sighted.” Sura: Asra, verse: 1.
In this verse, the first part of Ascending from Mecca to Bayt Almoghadas has been mentioned in which relation the following cases might be mentioned.
1. Ascent of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) occurred in one night and within a short time from Mecca to Masjed Alaghsa at Bayt Almoghadas; because the word: Asra, means night journey in Arabic and together with the word: Laylan, it emphasizes the fact that the journey takes place at night.
2. The term of creature means that the voyage has been in the form of spiritual and physical survey, occurring waked. It means that prophet has attended the journey by his body and soul. On the other part, the verse states the peak of his dignity and rank, because ascent to heaven when somebody is sleeping will not state the same fact and rank.
Regarding the aforesaid verse, Allameh Tabatabaei comments that: “The original word of Ascent will not be denied as stipulated by Koran and under the different narrations; but according to the aforementioned verse, ascent of prophet (p.b.u.h.) from Mecca to Bat Almoghadas has occurred both by body and soul; but it is possible that he has ascended from Baty Almoghadas to heaven, which has been mentioned as a spiritual voyage. But its being spiritual does not mean that it occurred when he was sleeping or something like that, because in that case, it would not be mentioned in Koran to prove the bounty of prophet (p.b.u.h.). Its being spiritual, means that the sacred soul of prophet has ascended to heavens.
3. The word: ABD (slave), which has originated from OBOODIAT (servant of the Lord) reflects that due to the fact that prophet was a pure servant of God, he was honored of being ascended. Indeed, ascent did not raise prophet (p.b.u.h.); but his being pure servant of God caused his ascent.
Oboudiat (being slave of the Lord) is the peak of humility and being surrendered to God and helps man attained so that he is a manifestation of dignity and enormity of God, so that he will under the shadow of his being a servant of God, fulfill the acts such as possession of the world of conception.
Imam Sadegh (p.b.u.h.) prescribed: “Slavery of the Lord is a jewel inside of which divinity has been concealed.” Like a black and cold iron which is molten in the furnace and is ablaze. That is the same iron, but it is fired so that it looks like the fire; while the heat and bright are not intrinsic, but are the rays of fire having reflected on it to change it like this.
4. In this verse, Masjed Alaghsa has been introduced as the first part of ascent of prophet (p.b.u.h.) which shows the importance and sacredness of this place; while before the second year of Hijrat, it was the first prayer direction of the Muslims.
5. God bestowed bounty all over Masjed Alaghsa, both the materialistic bounty which is for the nice whether of the region and spiritually, because this land has been during the history a center of activities of the prophets and a club of monotheism and worship of God. Further, existence of the sacred graves of the divine prophets has added to spiritual dignity of this land.
6. Prophet (p.b.u.h.) saw the sacred of creation and its great phenomena and increased his knowledge and science and watched the effects of unlimited enormity of God.
Anyway, this great divine voyage was performed so that prophet (p.b.u.h.) would return to the earth by the hands full of spiritual bounty to fulfill his mission in purification and optimization. As the word SOBHAN (praise and glory) in the beginning of the aforesaid verse mentions that ascent is one of the signs of God’s being pure and immaculate of any defect and fault.
RESOURCES:
- Practical Tradition of the family of Prophet (peace be upon them) by Seyed Kazem Arfa
- A look at the Life of Prophet of Islam (p.b.u.h.) by Mohammad Mohammadi Eshtehardi
- An Image of Prophet’s Descent by Mohammad Mohammadi Eshtehardi, pages: 37 to 53