In classical Islamic tradition, the Mi‘raj is an extraordinary event: the Prophet, peace be upon him, ascends through the heavens and reaches direct Divine proximity. In Sufi hermeneutics, however, the Mi‘raj is not a historical spectacle but an archetype of our inner journey, a pattern through which every human being can understand their own maturation and movement toward God. Three great Sufi thinkers; Ibn ‘Arabi, Fariduddin Attar, and Jalaluddin Rumi, understand the Mi‘raj primarily as an ontological and ethical event in which the encounter between the finite human being and the infinite Love, the Light of all Lights, takes place.
Ibn ‘Arabi interprets the Mi‘raj through his metaphysics of wahdat al-wujud (the Unity of Being). For him, Mi‘raj is not a departure from the world, but a movement through different levels of Divine self-disclosure. In his Futuhat al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations), he writes that the Prophet’s Mi‘raj was unique because it involved both body and spirit, yet that every believer has their own inner Mi‘raj, a journey of consciousness from captivity to form toward recognition of the Divine presence in all things.
Sidrat al-Muntaha, the boundary to which the Prophet ascends, represents for Ibn ‘Arabi the limit of discursive knowledge. Here reason ends and direct knowing (ma‘rifa) begins. God is not encountered through concepts, but through a transformation of perception. In this sense, Mi‘raj is a process in which the ego (nafs) is not destroyed but illuminated, becoming a mirror of Divine reality.
Fariduddin Attar, author of The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-Tayr), sees Mi‘raj through the dynamics of annihilation (fana) and return (baqa). In his symbolism, the birds who seek the Simurgh pass through seven valleys, corresponding to the seven heavens of the Mi‘raj. Each valley represents the loss of an illusion about the self: the valley of seeking, the valley of love, the valley of knowledge, the valley of separation, the valley of unity, the valley of bewilderment, and finally the valley of self-annihilation (fana).
Like the Prophet on the Mi‘raj, the traveler must lose all identities in order to arrive at the truth of the self. Attar thus teaches: “You do not reach God by ascending, but by ceasing to be the one who thinks he is ascending.” Mi‘raj is therefore the night in which power dissolves into humility.
Jalaluddin Rumi understands Mi‘raj through cosmic love. The Prophet does not go to God to gain something, but because love itself is movement. In the Masnavi, Rumi writes:
“Your body is a donkey, your soul its rider. If you do not know where you are going, even the Mi‘raj will not help you.”
Rumi warns that external ascension without inner transformation is an illusion. The true Mi‘raj happens when the heart becomes wide enough to hold both God and humanity. That is why the Prophet returns from the Mi‘raj, because Love does not remain in ecstasy but returns to the world to heal, teach, and draw people closer to one another and to God.
Mi‘raj as Return
Mi‘raj is therefore not an escape from the world, but a return to the world with a transformed vision. It does not teach us how to leave people, but how to be with them without violence, without domination, without illusion about the self, which is the most difficult task of all.
The Night Journey (Isra) begins in Mecca and leads to Jerusalem. For Sufis, this symbolizes the movement from the center of identity to the place of wounded holiness. Jerusalem is the place where revelations, empires, armies, and prayers collide, just as the human heart is where fear and hope, power and vulnerability, ego and love collide. Isra is thus a journey through our inner Jerusalems, the parts of us occupied by fear.
When the heavenly steed Buraq carries the Prophet through the seven heavens, Sufis interpret these as states of consciousness:
the heaven of the body.
the heaven of desire.
the heaven of fear,
the heaven of reason.
the heaven of intuition,
the heaven of love.
the heaven of surrender
At each level the Prophet meets other prophets, but in Sufi interpretation these are his own matured spiritual aspects. When he reaches Sidrat al-Muntaha, where even the angels cannot go, it means that knowledge, power, and form cannot go further, but Love can.
The most radical message of the Mi‘raj, as Sufis tell us, is the return. The Prophet did not remain in Divine proximity, he returned. Likewise, the true Sufi is not the one who goes to God, but the one who returns to people with a transformed heart. That is why the first command that comes from the Mi‘raj is not an esoteric secret but prayer (salat), not as a mere ritual, but as a daily Mi‘raj of body and consciousness. Every prayer is a small attempt to escape the tyranny of time and return to presence.
Poem: The Night When the Heart Ascends
O Beloved,
if the heavens are too far for our tired feet,
lift our gaze
so that at least the sky in our eyes
may begin its Mi‘raj.
If the world is too heavy
for our fragile shoulders,
remove from us hatred
like dust from the soul,
so that we may once again feel
how beautiful it is to love.
We do not ask for Buraq’s wings,
but for the silence
in which Your Beautiful Names
can be reflected.
Make our hearts
not temples of stone
but nests
where Your mercy
is not afraid to land.
Come,
not as a judge,
but as a dream
that drives away fear.
Wrap Yourself in our prayer
like light in a candle,
like breath in the chest,
like love that does not ask
whether it is deserved.
For only a heart
that dares to be soft and vulnerable
knows
what the true Mi‘raj
looks like.
