'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful'

Tafsir of Surah Al-Isra

This surah is Meccan except for three verses: His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "And indeed, they were about to mislead you" [Al-Isra: 73], and His saying: "And indeed, they were about to provoke you" [Al-Isra: 76], which were revealed when the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, received the delegation of Thaqif, and when the Jews said: "This is not the land of the Prophets," and His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "And say, My Lord, admit me with a good entrance" [Al-Isra: 80], and His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "Indeed, those who were given knowledge before it" [Al-Isra: 107], the verse. Ibn Mas'ud said: In Al-Baqarah and Al-Kahf: "Indeed, they are from the ancient, the first, and they are from my lineage," meaning that they are from the ancient of his earnings.

His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

"Glorified is He who took His Servant by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haram to Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing" (Al-Isra: 1)

The wording of the verse implies that Allah, exalted and majestic is He, took His Servant by night, and He is Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him. The interpreters said: (p-434) Its meaning is: He took His Servant by night, and it appears that "took" is transitive with a hamzah to a deleted object, its estimation being: The angels took His Servant, and that is because it is inappropriate to ascribe "took" - which means "to travel" - to Allah, exalted and majestic is He, as it is an action that implies movement, like walking, running, bringing, and transferring, so it is not appropriate to ascribe anything of this to Him while we find a substitute. So if the Shari'ah explicitly states something of this nature, like His saying, exalted is He, in the hadith: "I came to Him running, and I came to Him hurriedly," that is understood with interpretation in the manner that absolves from the occurrence of events. And "took" - in this verse - is clear as we have mentioned, and does not require a figurative interpretation in such wording, for it is more fitting for the movement than "I came to Him" and "Then Allah brought their building" [An-Nahl: 26]. It is possible that "took" means: "traveled" with a deleted addition, like His saying, exalted is He: "Allah took away their light" [Al-Baqarah: 17]. And the Isra' has occurred in all collections of hadith, and it has been narrated from the Companions in every region of Islam, so it is of the mutawatir in this regard. Al-Naqqash mentioned that twenty Companions narrated it, and the majority of the Companions narrated it, and most scholars received from them that the Isra' was with his person, blessings and peace be upon him, and that he rode Al-Buraq from Mecca and reached Al-Aqsa and prayed in it. And Hudhayfah and others narrated that the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, did not dismount from Al-Buraq in Al-Aqsa nor enter it - Hudhayfah said: If he had prayed in it, prayer would have been prescribed upon you there - and that he rode Al-Buraq from Mecca and did not dismount from it (p-435) until he returned to his house except in his ascension to the heavens. And Aisha and Muawiyah said: He was taken with the person of the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, and his person did not leave his bed, and it was merely a vision in which he saw the realities from his Lord, exalted and majestic is He. Al-Hasan and Ibn Ishaq permitted it.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

The narration is lengthy in [the books of] al-Bukhari and Muslim and others. Therefore, we have summarized its text in this book. Riding the Buraq, according to these people, is among what was seen in sleep. Ibn al-Musayyib and Abu Salamah ibn Abd al-Rahman said in the book of al-Tabari: The Buraq is the creature of Ibrahim that he used to visit the Sacred House upon.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: They mean: it comes from its day and returns, and that is from its dwelling in the Levant. The correct view is what the majority has gone to, and if it were a dream, it would not have been possible for Quraysh to slander, nor would Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, have been preferred for his affirmation, nor would Umm Hani' have said to him: Do not tell the people about this lest they deny you, in addition to other evidences.

He supported the saying of Aisha with the saying of Allah, glorified and exalted is He: "And We did not make the vision which We showed you except as a trial for the people" [Al-Isra: 60].

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This can also support the other saying; because it is said for a vision of the eye: vision. He also argued that in some of the narrations: "So I awoke while I was in the Sacred Mosque," and this can imply a return from the Isra to sleep. The saying of Aisha was objected to because she was young and did not witness nor narrate from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him. As for Muawiyah, he was a disbeliever at that time, not witnessing the situation, young, and did not narrate from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him.

And His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "Subhan" is a source that is not firmly established; because it does not conform to the rules of grammatical inflection, and the definite article does not apply to it. And if it were to come from it: فعل (fa'ala), and "سبح" (subha) means: he said: "Subhan Allah," so "سبح" is not used except as an indication to "سبحان," and it does not inflect because it has two additional endings, and it is a proper noun. Its addition does not increase its definition. This is all the view of Sibawayh regarding it. And a group said: Its accusative case is for calling, as if he said: O Subhan, the One who made the Isra.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This is weak, and its meaning is: glorification of Allah. "And Talhah ibn Ubayd Allah al-Fayyad, one of the ten, narrated that he said to the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him: What is the meaning of 'Subhan Allah'? He said: 'It is glorification of Allah from all evil.'" And the operative in it, according to the view of Sibawayh, is the verb which is from its meaning, not from its wording, as it draws from its wording: فعل (fa'ala), and that is like: "The man sat cross-legged and wrapped himself in the deafness," so the estimation with him is: I glorify Allah with glorification, so "Subhan" took the place of your saying: glorification.

And a group of the interpreters said: "أسْرى" (asra) is an intransitive verb, and it is here transitive with a preposition. You say: The man traveled and went if he traveled at night. And I have mentioned what appears in the wording regarding the creed. And Hudhayfah and Ibn Mas'ud read: "Asra bi'abdihi min al-layl min al-masjid al-haram."

And His saying, glorified and exalted is He: ﴿from the Sacred Mosque﴾. Anas ibn Malik said: He meant the mosque surrounding the Kaaba itself. Al-Tabari preferred this and said: It is that which is known when this name is mentioned. Al-Hasan ibn Abi al-Hasan narrated from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, that he said: "While I was by the House, between the sleeping and the awake." And Abd ibn Humayd al-Kushi mentioned in his tafsir from Sufyan al-Thawri that he said: The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, was taken on the Night Journey from the Shib of Abu Talib. And a group said: "The Sacred Mosque" is all of Mecca, and they relied on His saying, glorified and exalted is He: ﴿You will surely enter the Sacred Mosque﴾ [Al-Fath: 27]. The great aim here is indeed Mecca. Some of this group narrated from Umm Hani that she said: The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, was on the Night of Isra in my house. And it was narrated from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, that he said: "The roof of my house was raised," and this aligns with the words of Umm Hani, may Allah be pleased with her.

And the Isra took place, according to what Muqatil said, a year before the Hijrah, and this was also said by Qatadah. It was said: a year and a half, as narrated by Urwah from Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. And this occurred in Rajab, and it was said: on the night of the seventeenth of Rabi' al-Awwal. The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, was fifty-one years old, nine months, and twenty days, and it is confirmed that this was after the splitting of the document. It was said: the pledge of Aqabah. It is found in the two Sahihs from Sharik ibn Abi Namr, and they are in this meaning, for he narrated the hadith of Isra and said in it: "And that was before the revelation to him." There is no disagreement among the narrators that this and they are from Sharik.

And "the farthest mosque" is the mosque of Bayt al-Maqdis, and it was called "the farthest" because at that time it was the farthest of the virtuous houses of Allah from the Kaaba. It is possible that by "the farthest" he means the distant, without preference between it and others, and the aim is to show the amazement in the Isra to this distance in a night.

And the blessings around it are from two aspects: one of them is the prophethood, the laws, and the messengers who were in that region and in its surroundings and valleys. The other is the blessings from the trees, waters, and the beneficial land that Allah has specially granted to the Levant. It was narrated from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, that he said: "Indeed, Allah has blessed what is between Al-Ariš and the Euphrates, and has honored Palestine with sanctity."

And His saying, glorified and exalted is He: ﴿to show him of Our signs﴾ means: to show Muhammad with his own eyes Our signs in the heavens, the angels, Paradise, the Lote tree, and other wonders that he saw that night. It is possible that He means: to show Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, to the people as a sign, meaning: the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, would be a sign that Allah makes such a thing for humanity, and the vision - in this case - is the vision of the heart.

There is no disagreement that in this Isra, the five daily prayers were made obligatory upon this nation. And His saying, 'Indeed, He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing,' is a warning from Allah, glorified and exalted is He, to the disbelievers for their denial of Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, regarding the matter of the Isra. It is a subtle and eloquent indication of that, meaning: He is All-Hearing of what you say, All-Seeing of your actions.