A031
Surah: 007 - Ayah: 031
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7:31
Praise of the Children of Adam: It is a great beauty of the children of Adam that whenever they do dhikr, munajat and ibadat, the illumination of the Divine light enters them, for alluding to this it is said: "O children of Adam, adorn yourselves (spiritually, khudh uzmatakum) at every Hbadat (masjid)" (7:31). That is, every salat, ibadat and giryah-u zari should be such that some light and zinat is created for your soul. The great honour bestowed on the children of Adam by God is mentioned in verse (17:70): "We have indeed honoured the children of Adam, and carried them in the land and the sea (corporeality and spirituality) and We provided them with good things (to eat) (i.e. We strengthened their souls with spiritual knowledge), and We have exalted them with a marked exaltedness over most of those whom We have created (including angels)".
It is necessary to eat and drink moderately in order to maintain taqwa, otherwise many diseases occur due to gluttony, such as polyphagia, which in turn, gives birth to many other diseases. Therefore, the wise Qur’an, in its unique way, says: “And eat and drink, but be not prodigal. Indeed, He (God) does not love the prodigals”. (7:31). Similarly, it is said in a noble hadith of the Prophet: “Man has filled no worse vessel than the stomach. A few morsels are enough for the son of Adam (to keep him alive). Nonetheless, if it is required to eat more than that, then he should fill one third of it with food, one third he should keep for water and one third for breathing”. (Tirmidhi, II, 50).
The wise Qur’an says: “He (God) does not love the extravagant” (7:31). The clear indication of this verse is that God loves and enriches those mu'mins who do not hesitate to spend their wealth in His path (2:261), with the everlasting wealth of His wisdom-filled love.
Bani Adam (Children of Adam)
It is said in verse (7:31): "O children of Adam, adorn yourselves at the time of every cibadat with your (inner and spiritual) ornament." The personal world of those mu'mins who have truly become the children of Adam blossoms with spiritual prosperity. Thus, during cibadat their heart is refreshed and illumined in different degrees, according to their struggle.
Masjid (Place of sajdah, mosque, place of worship, ibadat (worship))
The word masjid is used both in the sense of a place of ibadat (worship) as well as in the sense of aibadat as used in verse (7:31). Similarly, the masjidu'l-harhm in verse (17:1) is used in the sense of the sacred mosque (Kabah) as well as sacred ibadat, i.e. the ibadat of ism-i azam. Study the following verse carefully: "Purified be He Who carried His servant by night from the sacred masjid (sacred ibadat=first ism-i azam) to the farthest masjid (i.e. the final ism-i azam), around which We have kept every kind of blessing, so that We may show him of Our signs, i.e. the miracles of Our power."
Reality of Miraj (Ascent):
Question: Had the miraj of the Prophet taken place physically or in a spiritual state? Please also tell us why it became necessary for God to carry him to the masjid-i aqsa (Farthest Mosque)? Why were the miracles which were to be shown to him by God, not shown in the masjid-i haram (Sacred Mosque, i.e. Kabah), but were shown in masjid-i aqsa?
Answer: (a) Miraj is the name of the inner unveiling and the spiritual ascension, which is the result of zikr-u ibadat. Divine proximity and closeness is in an internal and spiritual way, not in a physical way. By the higher world (alam-i ulwi) is meant the world of spirituality, which is found in a non-spatial state.
(b) When God is not contained in the heaven and earth and is contained only in the heart of the faithful servant (bandah-yi mu’min), then after the preference of this throne of the heart, the question of any other throne cannot arise and all those verses in which there is the mention of God’s establishing equality on the throne (istawa ala’l-arsh), need ta’wil. From this it necessarily follows that in Islam, it was the Prophet who observed the miracles and wonders of the throne of the heart first and in the brightest light, and the miraj had taken place in this way.
Your second question is related to the verse, which is in the beginning of the chapter “The Children of Israil” (17) in which the carrying of the Prophet from the masjid-i haram to the masjid-i aqsa is mentioned. It should be known that according to the Qur'an, masjid has two meanings: one is the place of prostration, which means a mosque and a house of worship, and the other is zikr-e ibadat as mentioned in verse (7:31). Therefore, masjid-i haram means that sacred supreme Name (ism-i azam) which was given to the Prophet in the beginning, and masjid-i aqsa means that miraculous ism-i azam of spiritual height and farthest [spiritual] elevation which was given to him later on, i.e. at the time of spiritual miraj. In this sense, this zikr-i ilahi i.e. ism-i azam is called masjid-i aqsa, or the farthest mosque, in which were hidden abundant spiritual and luminous miracles.
In the tawili background of ism-i azam are hidden the ranks of Prophethood and Imamat. Thus in the depth of meaning (manawiyyat) all Ismaili ta'wils gather together and in which the wise find no contrariety. That is, the ta'wil of masjid-i haram, which is mentioned in Wajh-i din, does not differ fundamentally from this ta'wil (See Discourse 18, verse 28:57).
This verse has been referred 4 times.