Encounters during the Mi’raj: The People by the Rivers & Prayer at Bayt al-Ma’mur

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

During the night of the Mi’raj, the Prophet (s.a.w.), accompanied by Jibril (a.s.), ascended to the Seventh Heaven, and there, they met Ibrahim (a.s.).  With Ibrahim (a.s.) were sitting a company of people with pristine faces similar to the whiteness of a blank page, and next to them were people with something in their faces.  The latter stood and entered a river in which they bathed.  Then they came out having purified some of their hue.  Then they entered another river and bathed and came out having purified some more.  Then they entered a third river and bathed and purified themselves, and their hue became like that of their companions.  They came back and sat next to them. 

The Prophet (s.a.w.) asked, “O Jibril, who are those with white faces and those who had something in their hues, and what are these rivers in which they entered and bathed?” 

He replied, “The ones with white faces are a people who never tarnished their belief with injustice or disobedience; those with something in their hues are a people who would mix good deeds with bad ones, then they repented and Allah (s.w.t.) Relented towards them.  As for these rivers, then the first is Allah’s (s.w.t.) Mercy, the second His Favour and the third and their Lord Gave them a pure beverage to drink.” 

سُوۡرَةُ ٱلدَّهۡر / الإنسَان

... وَسَقَٮٰهُمۡ رَبُّہُمۡ شَرَابً۬ا طَهُورًا (٢١) 

… and their Lord will Give to them to drink of a wine pure and holy. (Surah al-Insan:21) 

Then the Prophet (s.a.w.) was told, “This is your place and the place of your ummah.”  He saw that his ummah were divided into two halves: one half were wearing clothes that seemed as white as a blank page, the other were wearing clothes that seemed the colour of ashes or dust.  He entered the Bayt al-Ma’mur and those who were wearing the white clothes entered with him.  Those that wore ash-coloured clothes were no longer able to see him, and yet they were in the best of states.  The Prophet (s.a.w.) prayed in the Bayt al-Ma’mur together with those of the believers that were with him. 

Every day, seventy thousand angels enter the Bayt al-Ma’mur, who shall never return to it until the Day of Resurrection.  This House is exactly superposed to the Ka’bah.  If one stone fell from it, it would fall on top of the Ka’bah.  The angels who have entered it never see it again. 

One version states that the presentation of the three vessels, the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) choice of the vessel of milk, and Jibril’s (a.s.) approval took place at this point. 

Imam Abu al-Qasim Sulayman ibn Ayyub ath-Thabarani (r.a.) cited this hadits, with a sound chain, “The night I was enraptured, I passed by the heavenly host, and lo and behold, Jibril was like the worn-out saddle-cloth on the camel’s back from fear of his Lord.”  One of Imam Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn ‘Amr al-Bazzar’s (r.a.) narrations stated, “like a saddle-blanket that clings to the ground.” 

Shaykh Muhammad al-Hasan ibn ‘Alawi al-Maliki (q.s.) said, “Of the same meaning is the hadits, ‘kun hilsan min ahlasi baytik’, ‘Be one of the saddle blankets of your house,’ that is: keep to it in times of dissension.”