Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

by Karen Armstrong

But Muhammad’s Night Journey reverses this pattern. Instead of ending in a tribal reunion, the journey finishes in faraway Jerusalem, the holy city of Jews and Christians. Instead of glorifying hatred and war, it is a story of harmony and transcendence of the tribal group. One night, so the story goes, when Muhammad was sleeping beside the Kabah, he was awakened by Gabriel, the spirit of revelation, and miraculously conveyed to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There he was greeted by all the great prophets of the past, who invited him to preach to them before he began his ascent, like a Jewish mystic, through the seven heavens to the throne of God. The story falls reverently silent when Muhammad enters the divine presence, but it is clear that it was based on the surrender (islam) of the ego: “In awe, he lost his speech and lost himself—Muhammad did not know Muhammad here, saw not himself.”11