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So we are now winding down the very last days of the month of Rajab. And one of the differences of opinion amongst the Ummah that we find Predominant is the 27th of Rajab and the issue of Israel Mi'raj taking place on the 27th and whether one should do some special, you know, Ibadat or Dhikr or Siam or coming together and discussing the incident of Israeli Raj or whether these types of issues are to be avoided. So that is one discussion. I have spoken about this in other lectures of mine today. Actually I'm the type of person, I like to. I'm very interested in the realities of how things happened. So I am interested in where did the notion come the 27th of Rajab is Istawul Mi'raj and how authentic is this date? And do we have other opinions as well? Because the fact of the matter is that the earliest books of Seerah don't mention this date. So where did this date come from? And what is the more probable or realistic date of Israel Mi'raj if it has other dates than this one. And so once we get to the initial question when did ISRA happen? Then we can get to the secondary question, should we do anything on that day? That's actually a secondary question. The initial question is Ram Miraj, which is of course, I mean nobody denies Israel Miraj. We all believe it happened. Anybody who denies it, denying the Quran, Surah al ISRA itself mentions Subhanallah Bi Abdihi. Right? And I recited Surah al Najm and in Surah an Najm, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala mentions that he saw Allah's major miracles. And Allah mentions Fikana Qaba Qosayni Awadna and Allah mentions that he went to Sidrat al Muntaha. So all of this is explicit. Two places in the Quran, Allah references Israel Mi'raj or, or to be more precise, ISRA is referenced in Surat al ISRA and Mi'raj is referenced in Surat al Najm. Right? So that's to be more precise. So everybody agrees it happened. The issue is when did it happen? So when you go back to the earliest and the most authoritative book of the Seerah, which book is that? Everybody should know? Please tell me. Sirat IBN Hisham. Right? And when this Sirah IBN Hisham, what is it based on? Everybody should know this too. Ibn Ishaq, when did Ibn Ishaq die? Because let's get academic, let's get real scientific, let's find out who is saying What. When did Ibn Ishaq die. What year? I'll tell you. 150. So Ibn Hisham, we don't have Ibn Ishaq's book. It was written too early. We have Ibn Hisham summary. So Ibn Hisham, even though he died 240, Ibn Hisham is basically taking Ibn Ishaq, who is one hundred and fifty hijra. Okay, let's open up Ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq very strangely does not have any date of Islan Mi'raj. Not a single date. He actually usually has dates for incidents. He's very good in this. When it comes to Israel Mi'raj, he does not have any date. It just mentions the chapter of Israel Mi'raj. However, very interesting. Where he puts this chapter indicates a rough idea. He puts this chapter before the deaths of Abu Talib and Khadijah, and this is not in accordance with how many people later on. Assume the ISRA takes place after the death of Abu Talibin Khadijah. In the Seerah of Ibn Ishaq, he places Israel Mi'raj a few chapters before the death of Abu Talib and Khadijah, and then the beginnings of the discussion of Hijrah, that happens afterwards. So Israel Mi'raj, according to this chronology, happened maybe four years, five years before the migration. He doesn't have a date, no month, no day, no year. Okay, now, recently, in the last five years, amazingly, we discovered not one, not two will the last 10 years, three very early books of Seerah. And these are now printed. When I did my long series of Seerah, these three books had not been printed. I didn't have access to them. So literally, in the last few years, three very early books of Sira have been discovered. Each one is only one manuscript, edited and printed. The first of them is the Maghazi of Musa Ibn Uqba, who died 141 earlier than Ibn Hisham. We discovered a partial manuscript. It is printed. You can buy it in Arabic. Maghazi of Musa bin Uqba. The second of them is just as you know, important, the seerah of Mama Ibn Rashid, who died 153 hijra. And the third of them is the seerah of Suleiman ibn Talkhan, who died 143 hijra. So three books all written roughly 140, 150 hijra. Excellent. You look up, you open, you find, lo and behold, each one of these three does not even mention Israel. And the reason being these are all treatises. They're not like big volumes, right? Each one is like you know, a book of this nature, even smaller some of them. And the goal was just to preserve a skeletal outline to mention some incidents. And for whatever reason, all three of them, they just did not mention Israel Mirage at all. So we don't have any new information from these new discovered books. However, when you look at other early books of history, you find other dates. So of the earliest books of Islamic history is the book of Ibn Sa'd. Ibn Sa'd wrote a book called the Generations, the chronological generations. It's called Tabaqaat. By Tabaqaat he means the first generation of Sahaba and then the sons of the Sahaba and then the Tabiun, and then the Taba. Tabiun. That's what he means by Tabaqaat. Right, Tabaqa. After Tabaqa. So he has Kitab at Tabaqat. And this book, it begins with a Seerah, but the most of the book is about later people, but it begins with an entire volume about the Seerah. And he is 230 hijra. So, so Ibn Sa'd in his Tabaqat he mentions two opinions about when Israel Mi'mraj took place. The first of them he said the 17th of Ramadan, not Rajab, the 17th of Ramadan, 18 months before the Hijra. So a year and a half before the Hijra. The Ramadan before the Hijra takes place is when Israel Mirage took place. And he then mentions, and some have said, and he mentions who says this? So both of these opinions he mentions an earlier authority. The second opinion mentions is the 17th of Rabi Al Awwal, one year before the Hijra, because the Hijrah takes place in Rabi Al Awwal. Right. So one year before the Hijra. And the second opinion, one and a half years before the Hijra, neither of them mentions which month Rajab. There's no mention of Rajab. So Ibn Sa'd mentions Ramadan and Rabi al Awwal a year and a half or year before the Hijra. The first reference I have found, and again I have done a partial research, obviously if somebody finds more, please benefit us because in the end of the day, research is never ending. I might have missed something out there. The first reference I have found about the month of Rajab, but without any number, is from another source, which is not considered to be the most reliable. It is a book of Tafseer and it is written by a scholar who has negative reviews, along with some positives, but mainly negative. The reason being this person was more known to be a storyteller than an academic. Pause here, footnote. In early Islam and in our times, the concept has always remained. You had categories of preachers. You had preachers who were very interested in authenticity, in making sure what they say is accurate, correct, referenced. And then you have preachers who want publicity. And when they want publicity, what generates publicity? Stories, drama. I mean, if I point out YouTube and what happens there, who has the Most popularity in YouTube? Is it Shukhan scholars or is it other categories of people? Right, and the same goes. So you have another category of people. They were called storytellers. They weren't the ulama like Abu Hanif, Abu Qhari? No, no, these were storytellers. And our person here, his name is Muqatir IBN Sulaiman. He was more known to be a storyteller than an academic. And in his book, which is a Tafsir, it's not a book of Sira, he has that the ISRA and Mi'raj took place in the Rajab of the year before the Hijra. The Rajab, he doesn't see 27 simply has in Rajab one year before the Hijra. This is the earliest reference I have found of the month of Rajab. Now, none of these, by the way, he does not mention any authority. At least Ibn Sa'd mentioned people ahead of him. Ibn Sa'd mentions authorities two generations before him. None of these authorities ever mentioned is a companion. No companion authentically has given us a date or a month or a year. The earliest we have is around 150200 Hijra scholars of those generations are presuming or attempting to extract, when did Israwal Mi'raj occur? And all of these reports suggest a timeline of a year and a half to a year before the Hijra. Now, when I gave my Sira lectures back in Memphis, that's what I had followed, Ibn Ishaq. And I just went on with it. But even when I gave those lectures, my mind had a cognitive dissonance. There was a contradiction and I didn't know what to do. But I just, I said, what can I do? I just quote Ibn Ishaq and I moved on. There was a problem that I had, but I didn't verbalize it back then. And that problem is there is an internal inconsistency with the time frame. There is a massive internal contradiction. And that internal contradiction goes back to Surat and Najm, which I recited right now. Now, what is the internal contradiction? Understand this point. There are two references to Israel. Mi'raj in the Quran we said this. Right? Surat al ISRA and Surat al Najm. Correct. Both of these surahs reference what happened. Correct. Look at Surat Najm which we recited. Right. Allah Azzawajal literally says he reached Sirdart al Muntaha. Allah literally says Allah literally says Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala says he's not telling a lie. He speaks the truth. He saw some major signs. So Allah is reinforcing. The Prophet was blessed with Mi'raj. He saw these things and he is speaking the truth. Now. This means Surah al Najm is referencing ISRA and Mi'raj. When was Surah al Najm revealed? We know from the Seerah. We know from Sahih Bukhari's hadith from an eyewitness. Ibn Abbas is an eyewitness and others are eyewitnesses. And this hadith is in Bukhari, which is highest level. The report goes that when Allah reveals Surat al Najmi, the Prophet recited the whole Surah like I recited right now, the whole Surah. He recited the whole Surah in front of the Quraish while he was in front of the Ka'abah. This is an iconic episode in the Seerah. In fact, Ibn Mas'ud said this is the first time the Prophet did Tilawah of a Surah in front of all of the Quraish. The this is a historic, monumental incident in the Seerah where in the voice of the Prophet and all of the Sanadid of quraish means the VIPs of the Quraish, the leaders of the Quraish, the nobility of the Quraish, all of the nobility of the Quraish. And where is this? In Mecca in front of the Ka'aba. Can you imagine this scene? Subhanallah. What an amazing scene to imagine. And by the way, Surat al Najm is a powerful surah. Go listen to any beautiful qareh. Go listen to a qareh. As the crescendo of the Surah builds up, as the Ayat builds up, as the momentum builds up, and then the very ending of it, literally there's a whole series of rhetorical question about describing Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Challenging the people who reject Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then at the end of the Surah Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala says what said then you had better do Sajdah to Allah and worship Allah. So hadith in Sahih Bukhari and the Ibn Abbas is seeing this and others are seeing this. They say the eyewitnesses tell us when the Prophet finished reciting the Surah, he immediately fell into Sajdah in front of the Kabbah. And everybody was so moved, they all fell into Sajdah behind him. Even the Kuffar of Quraish. Can you imagine the moment? And if you go read the translation and if you understand the power and the beauty and the eloquence and the balagh of this surah, one of the most powerful surahs in the Quran, Surah an Najm, right? And when he recited it, Allah says it's a Sajdah. We all have to do Sajdah. I just Sajdah right now. He fell into Sajdah because he has to do Sajdah. All of the Quraish fell into Sajdah. Ibn Abbas says, except for one of the elderly, evil people. When he saw everybody else, he was arrogant. He picked up some pebbles and he put it to his head and he goes, this is enough for me. You guys do Sajdah. He mocked it, basically. So one person didn't. But Abu Jahl, all of the Abu Lahab, they all did Sajdah. Abu Sufyan, they all did Sajdah. Now, what happened as a result of this news spread? And when news spreads, it becomes from this to this news spread that the Quraish have now accepted Islam. And where did this news reach Habasha? Abyssinia. And because of this rumor, the Muslims who had migrated to Abyssinia, what did they do? They came back. Now, when? So you understand the chronology here, right? You understand what's happening? Surat Najm has been revealed. Surah Najm. References Israel. Mi'raj, the Quraish do Sajdah. After Surah al Najm, the rumor spreads all the way to Habasha that, oh, the Quraish are all praying Jama'ah, you know, the Prophet, they're all Muslims now, and that Muslims of Habasha are not. They're living a difficult life, financially, socioeconomic. Can you imagine going to a foreign land and they don't speak the language and the weather and the cuisine and the people, and they are strangers and everything. So when this rumor reaches them, they're like Alhamdulillah, pack our bags, let's go back. And we all know this. Every book of Seerah mentions this. They came back only to discover it was a rumor. However, it caused good. Because what happened was that the Muslims of Makkah heard, okay, the cuisine might be I'm making this up. The cuisine might be bland, I'm making this up. The weather might be bad, but at least we're not being killed. So instead of 15 people, 112 people migrated to Abyssinia, right? So Allah has his way of doing things that when those people came back, everybody heard, oh, we can worship freely, Khalas, let's all go to Abyssinia right now. Question. When did this incident happen? Because this incident will demarcate what? When Surah Najm comes down and Surah Najm demarcates what Isran Mihraj? You guys following this? Right? Is everybody understanding this? Right? We're being academic, we're being very precise, scientific. We're trying to understand when did ISRA happen. And, and pretty much almost all the early historians mention that Surat al Najm came down. And I have here exactly straight from Al Waqdi, who is one of the earliest historians. Al Waqidi says they left Mecca in the month of Rajab, meaning the Muslims left Mecca in the month of Rajab, Faqamu in Habasha. They stayed in Habasha, Shaban and Ramadan. And then in the month of Ramadan, Surah al Najm was recited in front of the Ka'bah. And so they came back to Mecca in the month of Shawwal. Five, not Hijra, but five of the preaching. The fifth year of the preaching. Here we have explicit evidence. And by the way, even if Waqidi doesn't have an earlier authority, everything fits from other understandings. For sure, the Muslims of Abyssinia did not return one year before the Hijra. For sure, the Muslims, Abyssinia came somewhat middle of the Dawah, right? So there seems to be an indication that Israwan Mi'raj actually took place not one year before the Hijra, but but around five years into the Makkan Dawah. Now this solves the problem, but is there any evidence for it? And this is where again, after I gave my Seerah lectures, so I did a lot more. I'm always doing research. There is no end to research. We're all minor students of knowledge. Nobody should ever say, I have solved the problem. You always learn and study. And I've been doing research even on the Sierra to this day. I do research as well. And so I came across some new things that I hadn't had access to back then. And of those things is that one of the things that we find is that there is a famous scholar who was Andalusian. He had access to knowledge in Andalus, he had traveled around the world and he died in Egypt. His name is Ibn Sayyid Al Nas. Now he dies much later on 734Hijra, and he writes a book of history. Now in that book, he references earlier books that we no longer have. And unfortunately, he references a fact from a book where he doesn't quote us the long chain and we don't have that book anymore. What is the fact that is so interesting? He narrates that Ibn Shihab Al Zuhri. Pause here. Who is a Zuhri? A Zuhri is one of the most iconic facts figures in early Islam, one of the great scholars of early Islam. And he dies when 124 hijra. A zuhri. They even say he saw maybe some of the younger sahaba like Anas. And definitely he studied with the major Tabi'un az Zuhri, according to Ibn Sayyid. Dun Nas says, and listen to this. ISRA took place in the fifth year of the preaching of Islam, explicit from a Zuhri. Now, unfortunately, the reference that Ibn Sayyid Anas uses, we don't have that reference anymore because we have a lot of early books that are missing here. But we have an attribution to a zuhri that it was in the fifth year. And I also found another qadina, or supporting evidence, and that is in a very early book as well, written by one of the scholars of Hadith. His name is Ibn Abi Shayba. He is like of the generation of the teachers of Imam Al Bukhari. Ibn Abi Shayba has written many books of Hadith. He's written the Musanna. He dies 235 hijra. So he's the generation before Bukhari. And he has a book called Kitabul Maghazi, Book of Sira, right? Now listen to this. In this book, Kitabul Maghazi, which we have now, I have it now, and we have it in print. He doesn't have a date of Israan Mi'raj, but he places Israwal Mi'raj even before the conversion of Umar in his Sira. In his Maghazi, he has the beginning of the Da'wah. He has the persecution that the Quraish did. He has one or two other chapters. Then he has the chapter of Israel Mi'raj. And then he moves on to like the conversion of Umar and other stories. And. And then he moves on to the beginnings of the Hijra or whatnot. So in his book, the Israel Mi'raj incident takes place Once again around fifth, sixth year, because that's before the conversion of Umar. So we have another evidence that another early scholar put Israel Mi'raj much earlier on. And I also have another small, very small minor qareena, if you like, any supporting proof. And again, all of this is, listen, it's not a big deal if I'm right or wrong. Somebody says, how dare you have. It's no big deal. It's just a date about Islama Mi'raj. I mean, can calm down and have different opinions and I'm giving my evidence. If you don't like it, no big deal. But these are all minor evidences here, or some of them are pretty clear. Zuhri is explicit. One evidence that again also not just troubled me, it troubled many ulema of the past. And that's why they had to form an interesting opinion. And the issue is what else happened in Israel Mi'raj that affects all of us to this day? Salah. Salah. By unanimous consensus, the five daily Salawat was solidified when Israel Mi'raj. Now this represents a small ishqal. What's that? Ishqal. There are numerous references in the Makkansuras to salah. And these surahs were revealed way before one year before the Hijra. And this has led some people to surmise this is an opinion nobody of the Sahaba told us. It's just they try to say that, oh, before ISRA salah was obligatory, but generically we didn't know how, we didn't have timeframe. And after ISRA salah was obligated the way that we now know. Now, okay, that is an opinion. But if we were to make ISRA much earlier and make it basically because when did the dawah start being preached publicly? The third year. When did Islam start being preached publicly? The third year. And that's when persecution began. Fourth year, the Muslims migrated. Fifth year to Abyssinia. If we were to say two years after beginning the preaching, that is when Allah legislated Salah, it would actually solve a lot of other problems. And even from a Now this is a very weak evidence. I know it's a very weak evidence, but still it just doesn't make sense to me and to many other people that the salah would be delayed so long when we know it is so central to Islam, we know how important salah is. We all know this. It's a defining characteristic of Iman. And to claim that for ten and a half years there was no Salah, it just, it makes A lot more sense to bring ISRA back according to all these other evidences and say yes, Salah also was legislated in the fifth year. Everybody had to start praying then. So in reality to claim that Israel Mi'raj takes place now, what is the other evidence? So the other evidence, like I already told you, Ibn Sa'd has these reports and others, and there's a psychological evidence that is used. The psychological evidence, I also used it when I gave my Sierra lectures back in Memphis. I said the same thing. And that is Israel Mi'raj took place when the processor most needed it after three tragedies. Number one, the death of Abu Talib, two, the death of Khadija. And number three, Ta'if. And so ISRA was a boost to his psyche. And Iman, and that's a nice point, but first you have to prove that it happened at that time frame. If it didn't happen at that time frame, you cannot use this as an evidence. You get my point here. If we know it happened, then we can say, yes, these are three wisdoms, but we cannot use it as an evidence to establish the date. You understand my point here, right? So just because it sounds nice that it happened at this time frame, it doesn't mean it actually happened at this time frame. So the reality, Wallahu ta'ala Alam. And again, this is just an opinion. It really makes a lot more sense that Israwal Mi'raj took place much earlier on, in fact in the fifth year of the preaching of Islam. And the fact that some people say Khadija was not mentioned. Okay, she wasn't mentioned. Islam, Mi'raj, it doesn't mean anything, doesn't mean she was there, doesn't mean she was not there. It's just, okay, she was not mentioned. There's many other incidents of the early Islam where Khadija was alive and she's not mentioned in that incident. Her being mentioned or not being mentioned is neither here nor there. It's not an evidence either way. So in reality, if we were to take Israel Mi'raj in the fifth year of the Dawah of the preaching, it actually solves this internal inconsistency about Surat and Najm. And it actually makes sense from so many other perspectives. And we have two early authorities, Az Zuhri explicitly and Ibn Abi Shayba very implicitly, very clearly saying it took place middle Makkah, not late Makkah. And to conclude then, inshaallah, before I finish off, I wanted to also mention that one of the points of Israel Mi'raj the fact is that, well, the date that it happened is not really that important, whether it was this day or that day. But the main point of Istan mi'raj, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is being gifted a personal blessing. In the Hadith, in Sunnah al Tirmidhi and others, the Prophet would make dua to Allah ya Allah, show me Jannah an naar, show me what you are telling me is true in the Quran. There's literally an explicit narration like this in our books of Sunnah. And so one night Jibreel came and said, you Lord has responded to your dua, Come with me. And so he took him to the journey of Islan mi'raj, which indicates Israwal mi'raj was a personal gift to the Prophet. And Surat al Najm proves this point because Allah is praising the Prophet for having been gifted what nobody else has been gifted. And he saw what nobody saw. And his eyes did not flutter and he did not blink and he saw it all. And Allah blessed him to go to Sidrath al Muntaha. All of this shows the maqam of our Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam that he went even where Jibreel did not go. And it makes much more sense to me, given all these evidences, that ISRA actually takes place when the persecution begins and not when it's ending in Mecca when he needed it. Then for the very first time, the sahaba being killed. Some sahaba have been left forced to go to Abyssinia. And clearly the situation is getting very dire. Actually, even psychologically, it makes sense at that point in time for ISRA to happen in the end of the day. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best. It's just an academic opinion and the main point is to benefit from the story itself and to extract Fawaid. And this just one academic detail. Wallahu ta'ala alam wazakumullah khair salaam alaykum wanahi wa barakaju inn y.