that its ears kept moving. It is called al-Burāq and is the mount on which the prophets are carried. It sets its hoof down as far as its gaze reaches. I was carried on it from the Sacred Mosque toward the Farthest Mosque.’” Al-Khallāl said, “He went on to relate the hadith.”

This, then, is the sum of what al-Khallāl related. His purpose was to affirm the Night Journey and its reality, and to establish that anyone who diminishes its significance by saying that it was a dream, thereby placing it in the same category as ordinary people’s dreams, is a misguided Jahmī.

Al-Khallāl next mentioned the Prophet’s saying (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), “I saw my Lord.” He cited the hadiths about seeing Allah, but did not include among them the previously mentioned hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās concerning Allah’s words:

“We made the vision We showed you only a trial for mankind.”

Al-Khallāl thereby indicated that this hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās was not intended to refer specifically to Muhammad’s seeing his Lord, but rather to what he saw on the night of the Ascension without further qualification. Such unqualified wording may encompass Muhammad’s seeing his Lord, but there is a difference between what the wording allows for and what it actually indicates.