The first is the Isra, or the night journey of the Prophet. According to accounts, the winged creature Buraq, brought by the angel Gabriel, carried Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem.
The Night Journey and Ascension of the Prophet
One night, while the Prophet was sleeping, the Archangel Gabriel came and led him on a journey. Mounted on the heavenly steed Buraq, Muhammad traveled from the Ka'ba in Mecca to the "Farthest Mosque," which Muslims believe to be the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
On September 24, 622, the prophet Muhammad completes his Hegira, or “flight,” from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. In Medina, Muhammad set about building the followers of his religion—Islam—into an organized community and Arabian power.
In Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, the structure of the Dome of the Rock, built several decades after Muhammad's death, marks the place from which Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven.
Isrāʾ, in Islam, the Prophet Muhammad's night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. As alluded to in the Qurʾān (17:1), a journey was made by a servant of God, in a single night, from the “sacred place of worship” (al-masjid al-ḥarām) to the “further place of worship” (al-masjid al-aqṣā).
Sacred Scripture teaches that Enoch and Elijah were assumed into heaven while still alive and not experiencing physical death.
According to the Quran, Jerusalem was also the last place the Prophet Muhammad visited before he ascended to the heavens and talked to God in the seventh century. Before that, he was flown from Mecca to Jerusalem overnight by a mythical creature.
In 622 the local rulers of Mecca forced Muhammad and his small band of followers to leave the city. Muhammad accepted an invitation to settle in the oasis of Yathrib, located some eleven days (280 miles) north by camel, for the oasis had been nearly torn apart by wars between the clans, of which many were Jewish.
Three months later on June 8, 632 he died there, after a brief illness. He is buried in the mosque in Medina. Within a hundred years Muhammad's teaching and way of life had spread from the remote corners of Arabia as far east as Indo-China and as far west as Morocco, France and Spain.
The foundation for Jerusalem's Islamization was laid by the Muslim conquest of the Levant, and began shortly after the city was besieged and captured in 638 CE by the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Rashidun caliph.
Then the Prophet met Idris (Adris) in the fourth stage, and after that Harun (Aaron) in the fifth stage who was described as the most beautiful man that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) encountered. In the sixth stage, he met Musa (Moses) who is described to be distinctive from other prophets.
In the first heaven was found Adam. Gabriel told the Prophet Muhammad: "This is your father Adam." Adam greeted the Prophet Muhammad. Then they passed to the second heaven where there were two driving rivers. Gabriel explained that these were the headwaters of the Nile and the Euphrates.
For the Christian, the Holy Land is birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth and the site of his ministry; for the Moslem, Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock marks the spot from which the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven.
In Christianity, the last prophet of the Old Covenant before the arrival of Jesus is John the Baptist (cf. Luke 16:16).
I-Masjid al-Nabawi, the Mosque of the Prophet, is Muhammad's buria lsite. Located in the city of Medina, is considered the second holiest site in the Muslim world after the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن عوف) ( c. 581–654) was one of the companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. One of the wealthiest among the companions, he is known for being one of the ten to whom Paradise was promised according to Sunni Muslims.
The people of Mecca felt Muhammad's teachings were bad for their city; if people rejected the gods and goddesses of the Kaaba, they would not flock to Mecca, and this would be bad for the economy of the city. Muhammad was driven out of Mecca.
Muhammad is born as a member of the tribe of Quraysh and the clan of Hāshim. His hometown of Mecca houses an ancient and famous pilgrimage sanctuary, the Kaʿbah. Although founded by Abraham, worship there has over time become dominated by polytheism and idolatry.
The Islamic history of Jerusalem begins with the conquest of the city by Caliph Umar in 635 (or 638). Umar had been one of the prophet Muhammad's closest companions and served as his second successor (khalifa) after Abu Bakr.
The British controlled the city and surrounding region until Israel became an independent state in 1948. Jerusalem was divided during the first 20 years of Israel's existence. Israel controlled the Western portions of it, while Jordan controlled East Jerusalem.
In 925 BCE, the region was invaded by Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonk I of the Third Intermediate Period, who is possibly the same as Shishak, the first Pharaoh mentioned in the Bible who captured and pillaged Jerusalem.
Because the Bible records Elijah as being taken to the heavens while still alive, he became a candidate for one who would one day return to proclaim the coming of the messiah. A second biblical figure that is said to never have died is Melchizedek, the ethereal priest-king of Salem.
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is known in the Qur'an as Khatam-un-Nabiyeen, which translates as 'seal of the prophets'. This is generally taken to mean that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the last prophet, and no more shall come after him.
Miʿrāj, in Islam, the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad into heaven. In this tradition, Muhammad is prepared for his meeting with God by the archangels Jibrīl (Gabriel) and Mīkāl (Michael) one evening while he is asleep in the Kaʿbah, the sacred shrine of Mecca.