Frederick S. Colby - Böcker

The tales of the mi'raj describe the prophet Muhammad's journey through the heavens, his encounters with prophets and angels, and his visit to heaven and hell. The tales are among Islam's most popular, appearing in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature, and in later adaptations throughout the Muslim world. Often serving as narratives designed to promote the worldview of particular Muslim groups, the tales were also a means for communities to construct rules of normative behavior and ritual practices, and were used to assert the superiority of Islam over other religions. The essays in this collection discuss the formation of this narrative, the mi'raj as a missionary text, its various adaptations, its application to esoteric thought, and its use in performance and ritual.

Discusses the historical development of the well-loved story of the Prophet Muhammad's night journey to the divine realm and back again.This book provides an exhaustive examination of the historical development of a key story in the life of Muḥammad, the tale told of his journey to the divine realm and back. It shows how in the early centuries of the Islamic community, both Sunnī and Shī'ī Muslims appropriated this fascinating story and interpreted it to suit their own ends. In particular, the book traces the development of a critical and influential strand of this rich ascension literature ascribed to one of Muḥammad's famous companions, the scholar known as Ibn ʿAbbās. Frederick S. Colby demonstrates that this version of the tale originated in the early period and spread throughout the Islamic world, affecting how people from Spain to Afghanistan came to think about Muḥammad and his legacy. Colby also includes translations of richly textured ascension narratives that have never before appeared in English.

A survey of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian debates and mystical discussions about Muhammad's heavenly journey that took place in early medieval Spain.This book demonstrates how Muhammad's heavenly journey, as discussed throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the western Mediterranean, was the site both of polemical religious debates and of a rich and varied tradition of mystical commentary. Out of these fertile contexts sprang two very influential sets of ascension discourses: First, the growth of the "Perfect and Complete" version of the Islamic ascension tale that spread throughout the Muslim world; second, the complex and multidimensional mystical interpretations of Muhammad's journey by one of the most famous Sufis of all time, the "Grand Master" Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240 CE). This work surveys key sources of this Andalusi contemplative tradition and also includes a complete translation of one of its very earliest written texts, preserved in a unique fragmentary Arabic manuscript, making this important historical document accessible to scholars, students, and general audiences alike for the very first time.