the prayer was then established; I led them in it, and when we had finished we departed and set off.” This ḥadith is judged fair (ḥasan) and singular.
If someone were to ask: “It has been authentically reported from Thābit and Sulaymān al-Taymī, on the authority of Anas ibn Mālik, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘On the night I was taken on the Night Journey I passed by Moses at the Red Dune; he was standing, praying inside his grave.’ It has likewise been soundly transmitted from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘I found myself among a company of prophets; there was Moses, praying,’ and he mentioned Abraham and Jesus, adding, ‘When the time for prayer arrived, I led them.’ In the narration of Ibn al-Musayyab he met them in Jerusalem. How can these reports be reconciled with the earlier account that he saw those prophets in the heavens and later returned to Moses?”
The answer is that they were made manifest to him, so he saw them on more than one occasion. He saw Moses along the way, standing in prayer in his grave; then he saw him in Jerusalem; then he saw him and the others in the sixth heaven, for they were raised up just as our Prophet—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon them all—was raised up. The prophets are alive with their Lord in a manner akin to the life granted to martyrs with their Lord. Their life is neither like that of the people of this world nor like that of the hereafter; it is a different mode altogether. It has been reported, for instance, that the martyrs’ souls are placed inside green birds that roam freely in Paradise and take refuge in lanterns hanging beneath the Throne. In this sense they are alive with their Lord, as He—exalted is He—has informed us, while their bodies remain in their graves. Such matters are beyond the reach of human intellect, yet faith in them is obligatory, as Allah says: “those who believe in the unseen” (Q 2:3).
Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allah informed us; he said: Abū Rūḥ ʿAbd al-Muʿizz ibn Muḥammad informed us in writing that Tamīm ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Jurjānī informed them, saying: He informed us