Hijrah - Part 2

[Guest guest]

('Hijrah' - migration, especially the Muslims' migrations to Medina. [Muhammad

Prophet For Our Time Glossary pg. 216].)

 

 

Hijrah - Part 2

 

(p.92) Muhammad's horizons were beginning to expand. He had been certain that he

had been sent simply as a " warner " (nadhir) to his own tribe and that Islam was

only for the people of Mecca. (p.93) But now he was beginning to look further

afield to the People of the Book, who had received earlier revelations. Despite

the confidence that this gave him, he was now desperate. Once the kafirun had

learned of his attempt to find support in Ta'if, his position would be even more

precarious, so before entering Mecca, he sent word to three clan chiefs, asking

for their patronage. Two refused, but the third--Mu'tim, chief of Nawfal, who

had been one of those who had campaigned to end the boycott--promised to protect

Muhammad, and he was now able to return home.

 

But this could not be a long-term solution. Somehow Muhammad had to win over the

Quraysh. In 619, he began to preach to the pilgrims and merchants who attended

the trade fairs that culminated in the hajj [the pilgrimage to Mecca]. Perhaps,

like Abu Bakr, he would find a Bedouin protector, and if the Qurayshan

establishment saw that he was respected by their Bedouin confederates, they

might learn to accommodate him. But the Bedouin pilgrims were hostile and

insulting. The last thing they wanted was a religion that preached submission

and humility. Muhammad must have felt that he had come to the end of his

resources. He was still grieving for Khadijah; his position in Mecca was

desperately precarious; and after preaching for seven years, he had made no real

headway. Yet at this low point of his career, he had the greatest personal

mystical experience of his life.

 

He had been visiting one of his cousins who lived near the Haram [sanctuary

surrounding the Kabah], so he decided to spend the night in prayer beside the

Kabah, as he loved to do. (p.94) Eventually he went to sleep for a while in the

enclosed area to the northwest of the shrine, which housed the tombs of Ishmael

and Hagar. Then, it seemed to him that he was awakened by Gabriel and conveyed

miraculously to Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews and Christians--an

experience that may have been recorded by this oblique verse of the Qur'an:

 

Limitless in His glory is He who transported His servant by night from the

Inviolable House of Worship ('al masjid al-haram') to the Remote House of

Worship ('al-masjid al-aqsa')--the environs of which We had blessed--so that We

might show him some of Our symbols ('ayat'). [4]

 

Jerusalem is not mentioned by name, but later tradition associated the " Remote

House " with the holy city of the People of the Book, the Jews and the

Christians. According to the historian Tabari, Muhammad told his companions that

he had once been taken by the angels Gabriel and Michael to meet his " fathers " :

Adam (in the first heaven) and Abraham (in the seventh), and that he also saw

his " brothers " : Jesus, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Joseph. [5] The Qur'an also

claimed that Muhammad had a vision beside the " lote tree " which marked the limit

of human knowledge:

 

He saw it descending another time

at the lote tree of the furthest limit

There was the garden of sanctuary

When something came down over the lote tree enfolding

His gaze did not turn aside nor go too far

He had seen the sight of his lord, great signs (ayat) [6]

 

[break Quote]

 

The above Qur'anic verse has recorded Prophet Muhammad's witnessing of the

" great signs (ayat) " in relation to something descending at another

time--whereby something comes down over the lote tree in the garden of sanctuary

and is enfolding it. Though the exact details of what Prophet Muhammad saw are

not recorded here, he seems to be describing the opening of the Primordial

Sahasrara which has happened in our time and which happening Shri Mataji

describes:

 

" As soon as the Sahasrara was opened the whole atmosphere was filled with

tremendous Chaitanya. And there was tremendous Light in the sky. And the whole

thing came on the Earth - as if a torrential rain or a waterfall - with such

tremendous force, as if I was unaware and got stupefied. The happening was so

tremendous and so unexpected that I was stunned and totally silent at the

grandeur.

 

I saw the Primordial Kundalini rising like a big furnace, and the furnace was

very silent but a burning appearance it had, as if you heat up metal, and it had

many colors. In the same way, the Kundalini showed up as a furnace, like a

tunnel, as you see these plants you have here for coal burning that create

electricity. And it stretched like a telescope and came out one after another,

Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Just like that.

 

And the Deities came and sat on their seats, golden seats, and then they lifted

the whole of the head like a big dome and opened it, and then this torrential

rain complete drenched Me. I started seeing all that and got lost in the Joy. It

was like an artist seeing his own creation, and I felt the Joy of great

fulfillment.

 

After coming out of this beautiful experience I looked around and saw human

beings so blind and I became absolutely silent, and desired that I should get

the cups to fill the Nectar... "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Opening Of The Primordial Sahasrara

Sahasrara Puja, Paris, France - May 5, 1982

 

http://www.adishakti.org/kingdom_of_god.htm

 

 

[Resume Quote]:

 

The Qur'an is reticent about this vision. He saw only God's signs and

symbols--not God himself, and later mystics emphasized the paradox of this

transcendent insight, in which Muhammad both saw and did not see the divine

essence.

 

Later Muslims began to piece together these fragmentary references to create a

coherent narrative. Influenced perhaps by the stories told by Jewish mystics of

their ascent through the seven heavens to the throne of God, they imagined their

prophet making a similar spiritual flight. The first account of this " night

journey " ('isra) is found in the eighth-century biography by Ibn Ishaq. In this

extended story, Gabriel lifted the Prophet onto a heavenly steed and together

they flew through the night to Jerusalem, where they alighted on the site of the

ancient Jewish Temple, the " Remote House " of the Qur'an. There they were greeted

by Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all the great prophets of the past, who welcomed

Muhammad into their fellowship and invited him to preach to them. Afterwards the

prophets all prayed together. Then a ladder was brought and Muhammad and Gabriel

climbed to the first of the seven heavens and began their ascent to the divine

throne. At each stage, Muhammad met and conversed with some of the greatest of

the prophets. Adam presided over the first heaven, where Muhammad was shown a

vision of Hell; Jesus and John the Baptist were in the second heaven; Joseph in

the third; Enoch in the fourth; Moses and Aaron in the fifth and sixth, and

finally Muhammad met Abraham in the seventh, on the threshold of the divine

realm.

 

(p.96) Most writers leave the final vision of God in reverent obscurity, because

it was literally ineffable, lying beyond the reach of speech. Muhammad had to

abandon ordinary human concepts, going beyond the lote tree, the boundary of

mundane knowledge. Even Gabriel could not accompany him on this last stage of

his journey. He had to leave everybody and--the later mystics insisted--even

himself behind to lose himself in God. The story of the night journey and the

heavenly ascent is an event that--in some sense--happened once, but which also

happens all the time. It represented a perfect act of islam, a self-surrender

that was also a return to the source of being. The story became the paradigm of

Muslim spirituality, outlining the path that all human beings must take, away

from their preconceptions, their prejudices, and the limitations of egotism.

 

The vision did not result in a Qur'anic revelation; it was a personal experience

for the Prophet himself. But placed as it is by the early biographers at this

particular moment of Muhammad's life, it is a wonderful commentary on the deeper

subtext of these external events. Muhammad was being compelled by circumstances

over which he had little control to leave Mecca and everything that was dear and

familiar to him--at least for a while. He had to move beyond his original

expectations, and transcend the received ideas of his time. In the traditional

Arabian ode, the poet usually began with a dhikr, (*) a " remembrance " of his

lost beloved, who was travelling with her tribe further and further away from

him. (p.97) In the next section, the bard embarked on a " night journey, "

breaking out of his nostalgic reverie, and setting off alone across the steppes

on his camel--a fearful trek during which he had to confront his own mortality.

Finally, the poet was reunited with his tribe. In the final section of the ode,

he proudly boasted of the heroic values of his people, their prowess in battle,

and their ceaseless war against all strangers who threatened their survival. [7]

In Muhammad's night journey, these old muruwah values [bedouin chivalric code]

were reversed. Instead of returning to his tribe, the prophet travelled far away

from it to Jerusalem; instead of asserting his tribal identity with the arrogant

chauvinism of jahiliyyah, Muhammad surrendered his ego. Instead of rejoicing in

fighting and warfare, Muhammad's journey celebrated harmony, transcendence of

the blood group, and integration with the rest of humanity.

 

(*) dhikr--Reminder, remembrance (Glossary, p.216).

 

Muhammad (Prophet For Our Time)

Chapter 3, 'Hijrah', p. 92-97

Karen Armstrong

Harper Perennial - London, New York, Toronto and Sydney

ISBN-13 978-0-00-723248-2

ISBN-10 0-00-723248-9

 

Notes:

 

[1] Muhammad ibn Ishaq, 'Sirat Rasul Allah', 278, in A. Guillaume, trans. and

ed., 'The Life of Muhammad' (London, 1955), 169-70.

 

[2] Ibid., 280, in Guillaume, 'Life of Muhammad', 193.

 

[3] Qur'an 46:29-32, 72:1, in Muhammad Asad, trans. and ed., 'The Message of the

Qur'an' (Gibraltar, 1980). This is Asad's explanation of this incident, given in

the textual notes that accompany this passage, which he admits is tentative.

 

[4] Qur'an 17:1, Asad translation.

 

[5] Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari, 'Ta'rikh ar Rasul wa'l Muluk', 2210, Muhammad

A. Bamyeh, 'The Social Origins of Islam: Mind, Economy, Discourse' (Minneapolis,

1999), 144-45.

 

[6] Qur'an 53:15-18 in Michael Sells, trans. and ed., 'Approaching the Qur'an;

The Early Revelations' (Ashland, OR, 1999).

 

[7] Sells, ibid., xvii-xviii.