The Amazing Night Journey

The Amazing Night Journey is an Islamic animated video for children aged 4 to 9 that tells the story of the Isra and Mi'raj: how the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ travelled by night from Makkah to Jerusalem and up to the heavens, and why Muslims pray five times a day.

One night in Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ was woken by the angel Jibril, who had come to take him on a very important journey. Waiting by the door was a magnificent white creature called Al-Buraq, a name that comes from the Arabic word for lightning. They soared over sleeping lands, purple mountains and bare red deserts until they could see the rooftops of Jerusalem.

At the mosque of Al-Aqsa, the Prophet ﷺ prayed with the prophets, leading them all in prayer. Then Jibril took him higher and higher, up to the heavens, where he met Adam, Ibrahim, Musa and Isa (AS), who made him feel welcome. There Allah gave him a very important command for his people: fifty prayers every day. On the way back, the Prophet Musa (AS) told him that fifty prayers were too many, so the Prophet ﷺ went back to ask for fewer, until Allah commanded five prayers a day. He carried this command back to his people in Makkah.

That, the narrator explains, is why millions of Muslims all over the world stop what they are doing to remember Allah in prayer five times every day.

The video is narrated in English, over rich, textured pictures of night skies, the Kaaba and the mosque. It tells the same story as the Miraj interactive book of the same name and is a Miraj original. Its sound design uses only voices making dhikr of Allah and recordings of everyday sounds, so it is music-free.

• Surah Al-Isra 17:1: Allah took His servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa.
• Sahih al-Bukhari 349: The hadith of the Miraj, in which fifty prayers were made obligatory and then reduced to five after the Prophet ﷺ met Musa (AS).
• Sahih Muslim 162: The hadith of the Isra and Miraj, with Al-Buraq, the prayer in Jerusalem and the ascent through the heavens.