Ahmad—may Allah have mercy on him—on whether one should say that Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, saw his Lord with his own eyes; or that he saw Him with the eye of his heart; or simply that he saw Him, without specifying either his own eyes or the eye of his heart. Three positions have been transmitted from him.

Likewise, the hadith transmitted by the scholars in which he said:

“I saw my Lord in such-and-such a form,”

is narrated through Ibn ‘Abbās, Umm al-Tufayl, and others. It includes the words:

“He placed His hand between my shoulders until I felt the coolness of His fingertips upon my chest.”

This did not occur on the night of the Ascension; rather, the event related in this hadith occurred in Medina. The hadith states:

“The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, slept through the dawn prayer, then came out to them and said, ‘I saw such-and-such.’”

It is narrated by those who prayed behind him only in Medina, such as Umm al-Tufayl and others. The Ascension, however, began in Mecca, by the unanimous agreement of the scholars and according to the explicit text of the Quran and the mass-transmitted Sunnah. As Allah Most High says:

“Glory be to Him who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque.”

It is therefore clear that this hadith describes a dream seen in Medina, as many of its narrations explicitly explain: “It was a dream.” Although the dreams of prophets are revelation, this was not a waking vision on the night of the Ascension.

The Muslims have unanimously agreed that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not see his Lord with his own eyes on earth, and that Allah did not descend to earth for him. No hadith has ever been transmitted from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stating that “Allah descended to earth for him.” Rather, the authentic hadiths state that “Allah draws near on the evening of ‘Arafah”; and in another narration, “to the lowest heaven every night, when there remains