Seeing Beyond Sight | A Qur’anic Lens on Isrāʾ and Miʿrāj

A brief context for readers:
The Night Journey (Isrāʾ) refers to an extraordinary event in which the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was taken from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night. The Ascension (Miʿrāj) refers to what followed—an experience in which he was shown signs of the unseen and elevated in rank and closeness to God. Classical accounts differ on the details, but the event has long been regarded as one of the most significant moments in Islamic history.

I’ve always felt a certain tension when it comes to the traditional narrative of the Night Journey (Isra) and the Ascension (Miraj).

Let’s be clear from the start: my faith is not bound by what the human mind happens to label “rational.” As a believer in the Qur’an, I accept the “impossible” without hesitation—when God Himself declares it. I believe the sea parted for Moses. I believe fire became cool and harmless for Abraham. I believe in the immaculate birth of Jesus. When the Qur’an defines something as a miracle, reason does not interrogate it; it submits. My belief is anchored in Revelation, not in the laws of physics.

But submission to Revelation is not the same as suspending thought altogether. When an argument does not come directly from the Qur’an—when it arrives through interpretation, narration, or inherited storytelling—it must pass through reason, because the Qur’an itself demands that we think. And it is precisely for this reason that the established understanding of the Miʿrāj gives me pause.

I do not struggle with miracles. I struggle with quietly shifting the Qur’an’s own language and categories in order to support a conclusion it never explicitly makes.

I initially thought about burying this post under a mountain of footnotes to "prove" I was right. But I’m not a scholar, and I’ll leave the deep-dive lectures to the professionals. I want to talk about the why. Why do we feel this desperate, almost frantic need to insist on a physical space-travel narrative when the Quran itself uses the word Ru’ya (Vision)?

"And We did not make the vision (Ru'ya) which We showed you except as a trial for the people..." (Quran 17:60)

The Quran is incredibly precise with its language. Whether it’s Abraham (as) seeing the sacrifice of his son, or Joseph (as) seeing the stars bow down, Ru'ya consistently describes a profound, spiritual witnessing—a moment where the soul perceives a reality that the eyes cannot. If the Word is this consistent everywhere else, why are we so eager to change the rules for this one event?

It feels like we’ve created this environment where if you don’t accept the most literal, cinematic interpretation possible, your "believer’s membership card" is suddenly up for review. Why does choosing a text-centered understanding feel like a threat to our faith? I think we’ve become so shackled to physical imagery that we’re afraid a spiritual vision might feel "lesser" or somehow hollow.

But searching for clarity isn’t the same as tearing down tradition. The details in the Hadith are vital pieces of our heritage, but they are often fragmented and highly contextual. When you actually look at the reports describing the Prophet’s ﷺ experience, the most authoritative accounts provide a very specific "start" and "end" to the event.

In Sahih Bukhari, the narration begins with the Prophet ﷺ describing himself as being "between sleep and wakefulness" and concludes with the striking finality: "...then he woke up while he was in the Sacred Mosque." - (No. 3887, 7517)

To me, that doesn't point toward a cosmic commute. It points toward a Ru’ya. It’s a divine lifting of the veil where the soul witnesses objective reality while the body remains static. This isn't a "dream" in the way we drift through our own subconscious; it is a miracle of perception where God allows the spirit to see what the eyes cannot.

In my mind, that’s a far more greater and profound miracle than simple transportation. It suggests that reality is infinitely deeper than the 3D world we touch. By obsessing over the "how" of the travel, we fall into the trap of blind following. We get so distracted by the physics of the flight that we completely miss the spiritual gravity of what was actually happening. The real "trial" wasn't about whether a man could fly through the clouds; it was about whether people could believe in a man who was seeing the Unseen right in front of them.

This perspective doesn't diminish the Miraj; it makes it part of our everyday lives. There is a beautiful tradition that says "Salah is the Miraj of the believer." If we insist the Prophet's ﷺ journey was purely a physical translocation, we lose that connection. But if the Miʿrāj is a spiritual ascension—the ultimate elevation of the human soul to the Divine Presence—then every time we stand in prayer, we are attempting a “mini-Miʿrāj” of our own. Our prayer is that same spiritual lift, reminding us that no matter where our bodies are, every prostration is a chance to rise above perceived reality and draw closer to Him.

At this point, everything else needs to be set aside—this opinion, that opinion, this narration, that narration—and the matter needs to be stated plainly:

the Qur’an says it was a ruʾyā.

Once that is established, the conversation should already be over.

But this is where things usually go sideways.

The moment you say this, someone responds, “Fine—but then explain this hadith. What about that report?” And suddenly you find yourself back where you started, as if the Qur’an merely introduced a discussion rather than settled it.

So I repeat: the Qur’an has already spoken. It says it was a ruʾyā. That cannot become one opinion among many. It cannot be placed alongside alternatives as though we’re choosing between equally valid options.

What follows is not really disagreement; it is a question of how we have come to understand our deen. The narrations are not dismissed—but they are understood in their proper place. The Qur’an is not to be understood in the light of narrations; narrations are to be read, interpreted, and reconciled in the light of what the Qur’an has already declared.

This is the discipline we have lost.

Instead of viewing traditional material through the lens of the Qur’an, we quietly reverse the process—forcing the Qur’an to accommodate conclusions drawn elsewhere. So people point to certain words and insist they settle the matter. Subḥāna—this must mean a display of raw power. ʿAbdihi—this must mean a fully physical event involving the body. And on the basis of these inferences, an entire framework is constructed—one that the Qur’an itself never explicitly lays out.

There are not really two opinions here. We can’t simply “agree to disagree,” because once you frame it that way, a more serious question emerges: who is actually being questioned? If the Qur’an states something clearly, and we insist on keeping alternative possibilities alive, then the disagreement is no longer between scholars or schools.

It becomes a disagreement with God.

My argument is simple: If the Quran calls this a Ru’ya, why do we insist it must be something else? If there is a more coherent reasoning that honors the language of the Revelation, I’ll change my position in a heartbeat. But for most of us, the answer to "Why do you believe this?" usually boils down to: "Because that is what I have always heard."

I know that voices like mine can be an annoyance, but I believe it is a necessary annoyance. We can’t afford to treat our beliefs like heirlooms to be accepted blindly. History shows us, again and again, where faiths have lost their way when inheritance replaced understanding.

Religion was never meant to be blind faith. It is a sincere and demanding search for truth—one that asks something of us in return. So let us not merely inherit belief. Let us cultivate a mind that questions with integrity, investigates with sincerity, and seeks truth with purpose.