Pre-Dante Divine Comedy: The Night Journey - Shab -Meraj of Apostle Muhammad
By
Rashid Samnakay, New Age Islam
19 February
2023
Muhammad, while in Makkah, was lying in bed one
night when the Angel Gabriel/Jibrail
came and saddled him on Burraq, a white horse with human Female face and
huge wings and flew him first to Jerusalem and then ascended to the seventh
Heaven where he led all the previous Apostles in prayers, thus establishing his
Seniority over all of them, and then ascended to the seventh Heaven and he was
presented to Rabbil- A'lameen, the Creator of the Universe in the Throne
Room.
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The genuine
Poets have visions far beyond us normal Human Beings. They can venture
further than the Cosmos in their trans -
Sitaaron Say Aagey Jahan Or Bhi Hain - There are universes beyond the
stars ... and come back to tell us their
encounters in the magical worlds of Paradise and Purgatory, Hell and Heaven!
Ghalib,
when he was alive played a poetic
truancy.
He journeyed
there and back but said nothing more, except ... Hum Ko Ma'lum Hai Jannat
Kee Hqiqat , Lekin ... We know the reality of Paradise but ... and left us
in a limbo, guessing.
Dante
Alighieri (14th century, Italy ) in his Divine Comedy; whether he took or not some ideas from the equally famous
comedy (of errors?) of Muhammad's Night Journey some seven centuries before, as
given in religious Muslim mythology, is questionable!
The
mythological Meraj is supposed to have its credentials from Quran Surah
Isra/Bani Israel 17-1.
The story
goes:
Muhammad, while in Makkah, was lying in bed one
night when the Angel Gabriel/Jibrail
came and saddled him on Burraq, a white horse with human Female face and
huge wings and flew him first to Jerusalem and then ascended to the seventh
Heaven where he led all the previous Apostles in prayers, thus establishing his
Seniority over all of them, and then ascended to the seventh Heaven and he was
presented to Rabbil- A'lameen, the Creator of the Universe in the Throne
Room.
He was then
given a Cook's tour of the Nether world.
Ignoring
the other details, few interesting encounters of this journey are interesting
to be mentioned.
-While
visiting Hell, he saw that majority of the inhabitants of Hell were Females!
-He was
Gifted FIFTY prayers a day for his followers' religious duty! On the ADVICE of
the previous Apostles that he met there, he made nine trips in all back and
forth to beg the Lord Creator to reduce
the number as his followers would find it hard to comply with the order.
Finally accepting Five only, no doubt compelled by his modesty and embarrassment
to plead for more reduction.
So here we
have some pertinent questions in the context of the Book Quran:
God said
that He had not differentiated between any of the Apostles. So how come that
ONE among hundreds of thousands was given the privilege of being PRESENTED in
the Throne Room to the Mighty Creator?
Apostle
Uncle Moses had pleaded with the Lord to reveal himself to him, and when Moses
was shown only a flash of the Mighty, the poor fellow passed out! Yet Muhammed,
a similar creature visited the Creator number of times?!
One of the
many attributes of God is that He is All Knowledgeable... Of the obvious and
hidden. Then how come He did not know that His Creatures, the humans would not
be able to comply with fifty prayers a day? And what kind of gift is that that
would put His Creatures in hardship.
"We
whish Ease for you and not hardship" He had said in the Book. Would this Gift of fifty prayers not have been a
" White Elephant?"
Ah? The
Hell (Dante’s Inferno) full of Females!! Not withstanding other arguments, is
this report not suggesting that God is vindictive and sexist? " All
actions regardless of who performs... Will be rewarded justly/equitably"!
How so then is Hell full of Females? Does this god have to be first established
as cruel to be then dubbed as most Benevolent, Kind, Just and Forgiving etc.?
When imagination
run amok , a simple Human story of endeavours of escaping to Madinah because of
death threat by Makkans (17-1 logically argued by GM Perwaze) turns out to be a
comedy of errors that thankfully spawns other literary master pieces like the
Divine Comedy that we cherish as Human literary master flights of imagination,
sometimes containing good spiritual guidance but often entertaining religious
comedy.
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A
regular contributor to New Age Islam, Rashid Samnakay is an Indian-origin
Engineer (Retd.) based in Australia for over forty years.
URL: https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/dante-divine-comedy-meraj-apostle-muhammad/d/129141
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