al-Isrāʾ 17:1

Subḥāna'lladhī asrā bi-ʿabdihi laylan mina'l-masjidi'l-ḥarāmi ila'l-masjidi'l-aqṣa'lladhī bāraknā ḥawlahu li-nuriyahu min āyātinā, innahū huwa'l-samīʿu'l-baṣīr

"He who made His servant travel by night, from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We might show him some of Our signs — how exalted is He! Truly He is the Hearing, the Seeing."

Per the method (Method), a boundary has to be drawn in this verse before anything else, because this is one of the verses in the Qurʾān that carries the heaviest load of transmitted report.

What the verse says in its own wording is the following, and all of it can be verified from the text:

What the verse does not say must be recorded just as carefully: the verse says nothing of an ascent to heaven, does not use the word miʿrāj, does not state how the journey took place (in the body, or in sleep), does not say how many stages there were, and does not name who was met.

This matter was treated in detail in al-Najm, and this record was entered there: that sūra does not use the word "miʿrāj" and speaks of no journey; al-Isrāʾ 17/1 speaks of a journeying by night but says nothing of the Lote Tree, while al-Najm speaks of the Lote Tree but says nothing of a journeying. And it was noted there that the joining of the two sūras is done by way of the transmitted reports. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it here.

The position taken in this commentary is this: it is reported that the classical sources hold a large body of transmitted material about this night, and that these reports differ from one another both in substance and in detail. I do not go into their details, because the verse does not. I treat the frame the verse itself gives.

The root: to travel by night, to journey by night. Arabic uses other verbs for travel by day; the night is already in the core of this root.

• Sarā / asrā — he journeyed by night, he travelled by night.
• Surān — a journey by night.
• The same root occurs at 26/52 (treated in al-Shuʿarāʾ) in the command given to Moses (Mūsā): an asri bi-ʿibādī — "lead My servants forth by night."

And there is a point of word order here that the lexicographers dwell on: the verb already means "to make travel by night", and yet the verse adds لَيْلًا (laylan — by night) as well.

I record this as an observation, and its support is that the word comes indefinite: laylan is indefinite, and in Arabic the indefinite can convey smallness and partitivity. From this the lexicographers draw the sense "during a part of the night" — that is, the span is not held long but shortened. If information already inside the verb is repeated, the repetition must be doing some work; the work here is to put weight on the span of time. This is an observation about the language, not a ruling.

The one made to travel is named not by his name but by an attribute: ʿabd — servant.

The centrality of the word ʿabd was treated in Maryam, and two verses were tabulated there: at 19/30 the first word of Jesus (ʿĪsā) was innī ʿabdu'llāh, and at 19/93 the same word was applied to everyone without exception (in kullu man fi's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi illā āti'l-raḥmāni ʿabdā). I rely on that treatment and do not analyse the root again.

The difference of the usage here must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: in Maryam the word ʿabd came as an answer to a claim — against the one who said "al-Raḥmān has taken a child". Here it comes in the sentence that recounts the most extraordinary event of all.

That is: while recounting the greatest privilege a human being can recount, the sūra names the one privileged a servant. And this is the very structure recorded at 25/1 in al-Furqān: there too the Book was sent down upon a servant (ʿalā ʿabdihi), and immediately afterwards the ordinariness of that servant was made the subject of objection.

Three sūras attach three separate gifts to the same attribute. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

The root was analysed in detail at 67/1 in al-Mulk (the camel's kneeling down, settling in a place and staying fixed; baraka — lasting and increasing good, not "abundance") and was treated at 25/1 in al-Furqān under the form tabāraka. I do not repeat it here.

What is peculiar to the usage here must be recorded, and this is an observation about the structure: the verse speaks of blessing not for the mosque itself but for its surroundings — bāraknā ḥawlahu.

I give this as my own reading, and its support is the particle ḥawla: the blessing is attached not to a point but to a region. If the record at al-Mulk 67/1 is recalled — that blessing is permanence and increase — then a place whose surroundings are blessed is a place that gives something to its surroundings.

And the same expression is used of this region elsewhere in the Qurʾān as well (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/71, 21/81; at al-Aʿrāf 7/137 the phrase bāraknā fīhā occurs). The common point: the blessing is attached not to the soil itself but to what spreads out from it.

That the verse closes with two names is worth recording: al-Samīʿ and al-Baṣīr — the Hearing and the Seeing.

I record this as an observation, and its support is the sentence's own verb: the verse had said li-nuriyahu (so that We might show him). At the close it is stated that the one who shows is the Seeing. The act of showing thus comes from the one to whom seeing belongs.

And that the two names begin with hearing can be recorded as well: across the sūra (45-47, 90-93) what those addressed say will be reported one by one. The name samīʿ in the first verse states from the outset that those sentences are heard. I give this as my own reading; its support is the sūra's own structure.