Isra’ & Mi’raj – The Night Sky

Upon returning from the Sidaratul Muntaha, Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. encountered Prophet Musa a.s. In the tradition, it was described that Prophet Musa a.s told our beloved Prophet Muhammad s.a.w that the commandment could perhaps be too heavy for his people to follow. Understanding this, our beloved Prophet Muhammad s.a.w kept returning to Allah, The Most Merciful for a lesser number of obligatory prayers for his people. Our Prophet s.a.w is full of love and care for his followers, and this feeling was bestowed to him by Allah s.w.t. Eventually, the number of compulsory prayers were reduced to five. Upon being given that by Allah s.w.t, Rasulullah s.a.w did not wish to continue asking for more and from then, the practice of five daily prayers was established. 

Today, Muslims pray to Allah s.w.t. five times daily, from across the globe, from mosques to houses and many places where prayers can be observed. After all, for Muslims, the earth is where we prostrate, and whenever we prostate that is the ‘masjid’ for us.

As told in the holy Quran, Mikraj is a journey of Muhammad to Sidratul Muntaha, at which he received the command of Allah to perform prayers during the day and night. Initially, the call for prayers was set to as many as 50 times per day, however, the Prophet solicited the order to be reduced to five times a day as it is today.

In conclusion, even though the event of Israk Mikraj is absolutely unimaginable and beyond our ability to visualize, all believers holding the faith to Allah SWT must be convinced with the event without any doubts. That’s because surely only Allah SWT knows everything in His power. What needs to be seeded in the heart is our belief towards Him and that we are required to be in a state of belief by performing daily prayers five times a day to prove our faith to Him.