💚💚💛Asalam u alaikum brothers and sisters, recently I've had an interest in the topic surrounding the Isra wal Miraj and specifically about the tree that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) saw, known as Sidrat al-Muntaha or The Miracle Tree.
وَاَتَیتُ سِدرَۃَ المُنتَھٰی فَغَشِیَتنِی ضَبابَۃ خَرَتُ لَھَا سَاجِداً وَھٰذِہِ الضّبابۃُ ھِیَ الظُّلَلُ مِنَ الغَمَامِ الَّتِی یَاتِی فِیھَا اللہُ وَیَتَجَلّٰی۔
'When I reached sidrat-ul-muntaha, I was overshadowed by something like the cloud and I fell prostrate for it. On the Day of Resurrection, there will be something like clouds overshadowing in which His Majestic Descent will manifest.'
فَكَشَفْنَا عَنكَ غِطَاءَكَ فَبَصَرُكَ الْيَوْمَ حَدِيدٌ
"You were heedless of this. Now We have removed your veil from you; so your sight today is sharp." [ 50:22]
وَاعلَمُوا اَنَّکُم لَن تَرَوا رَبَّکُم حَتّٰی تَمُوتُوا
"And know that you shall never see your Lord, until you die" (Fath-ul-Bari: vol 8/p. 493)
For context, the tree is described as a tree above or at the very furthest boundary of the 7th heaven. Its leaves were described by the Prophet (SAW) to be like "the ears of an elephant" and having large branches and fruits. There was also mentioned in an authentic
hadith that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) saw colors going up and down the tree itself and did not recognise those colours (clearly not normal colors of the dunya) and was "ever changing".
It's also known or implied that many things descend from the tree (anything that Allah wants to send down starts from the tree) and that 4 rivers emerge from it, 2 of them coming to the dunya being River Nile and Euphrates. All duas, good deeds, prayers and even souls are raised from the earth and then stop at the Sidrat al-Muntaha where they are sent down again. Beyond this tree is the Pen, the Throne and the One who is above the Throne; not even the angels (including Jibrael (AS)) and their knowledge can go beyond this point. Jibrael (AS) states that his wings would "burn" if he tried going beyond the tree (it's up to debate on the meaning of this as angels are made of light). In some narrations and hadith, it has been reported that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) saw "an angel on each leaf praising Allah" and that "under the shade of each leaf, there was a nation".
So basically, the tree is essentially a legendary structure at the extreme upper limits of creation itself from which many things come from (physical parts like the rivers in the dunya and heavens and miscellaneous stuff like blessings from Allah). It also seems to show other worldly characteristics (like colors that are impossible to comprehend for the human mind) and is also a physical and ethereal barrier for almost everything there is (physical beings like angels and even the concepts of good deeds and souls).
Jibrael (AS) physically not being able to go beyond it (causes his wings to burn) is interesting considering the power and size of his real form (not any of his human forms). True form Jibrael (AS) is not only stated to have 600 wings and casually cover the horizon but has also been stated to have his "feet on the earth and head in the 7th heaven" which would easily make him a universal level being and even greater based on the absurd sheer size of his true form and even then still not being able to pass the Miracle Tree. We also know about the abilities of Buraq was casually faster than the speed of light (potentially millions or even billions of times FTL) although instead of just pure speed it may have also been bending the fabric of space itself (as narrated that each step of the Buraq was as far as the eye can see).
Depending on the interpretation, considering the naked human eye can see the light of stars that are many lightyears away from us, the Buraq casually covered that distance "in the blink of an eye". Also note that the entire journey of Isra wal miraj was about 1 night, including the travelling between literal universes. Either Buraq had special abilities to warp space time to make distances shorter (like wormholes) or perhaps there was a protective barrier around the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to prevent harm of Inertia, friction and matter/time dilation and any other dangers involved in travelling at FTL speeds. If we assume that the Buraq had special abilities of warping space time and STILL this creature could not go beyond the Miracle Tree, it would not be absurd to conclude that anything going beyond the Tree would have to surpass the concepts of time and space itself.
Similar concepts of the Tree have been seen in other Abrahamic and pagan religions but one that caught my eye was the Yggdrasil from Norse Mythos showing certain similarities in the beliefs of the Yggdrasil and the Sidrat al-Muntaha. According to this mythos (in some, not all interpretations), the Yggdrasil, or World Tree, is a structure with branches and roots that reach out for an infinite length and that this tree holds up all of creation (in the Norse mythos these are all the 9 realms that are implied to be their own worlds or even entire universes that themselves are too big to fit on the roots of the tree and have to be held up by bigger branches instead) and the concepts of space, time, life, death etc. (sound familiar?)
There COULD be a similarity of beliefs/references between the branches of the Yggdrasil holding up the realms and the leaves of the Miracle Tree shading the nations (as both include different types of people from different places).
In a place where there are no trees for oxygen, no atmosphere for sound to travel, a barrier so impossible to go beyond that not even universal level beings can traverse it and a literal absence of SPACE-TIME itself (which could suffice as an explanation for Jibrael (AS) not being able to go beyond the tree, described as his wings would be caused to burn, due to the absence of anything supporting his existence causing complete erasure of his being which includes light) , it is evident that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was blessed with some kind of amp to allow him to surpass time and space to go beyond the tree as a gift from Allah to be given the various blessings like the last verses of Surah Baqarah, the Salah and reducing it to 5 times a day and the promise of Allah that those who believed in Allah and never did shirk would end up in Jannah one day. Also note that after the first time of going beyond the tree and returning to the heavens where he met with Musa (AS) and was told to reduce the number of Salahs (originally it was 50) as he has more experience with Bani Israel and knows that many people of the Ummah would not be able to complete the obligatory prayers, the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) started casually going beyond the point of the Tree back and forth at the minimum 5 times (potentially 9 times if the salah was reduced by 5 each time) and the only the reason the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) did not go back to reduce it further was because he was ashamed of asking any more.
The fact that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) (other than the throne and the Pen) was the only creation to have reached beyond that point not only shows he went beyond an extradimensional barrier but that the signs, rewards and promises that also resulted from this experience makes Isra wal Miraj the greatest miracle that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) has been given and maybe of all time and Allah knows best.
BAYAN= Sidrat al-Muntaha
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