BURAQ – البُراق
Literally: Lightning.
A mount in Jannah. Buraq carried Muhammad (asm) from Mecca to Jerusalem and to the samâwât during his Isra and Mi’raj journey.
What is the haqiqah of the mi’râj?
The Answer: It consists of the journeying of the person of Ahmad (asm) through the degrees of perfection. That is, by showing to that special ‘abd the works of rubûbiyyah that He displays in a level of the samâ each of which is an arena for the center of disposal and an ‘arsh of rubûbiyyah within the spheres of creation, arrangement and rule that He formed in the sovereignty of His rubûbiyyah through the various names and titles He makes manifest in the arrangement of creatures, in order to make that ‘abd both embrace all human perfections, and make him a place on where all Ilahî manifestations manifest, a spectator of all the levels of the universe, the herald of the sovereignty of rubûbiyyah, the proclaimer of the things pleasing Allah and the solver of the enigma of the universe, He mounted him on Burâq, made him view the samâwât like a flash, traverse all levels and observe the rubûbiyyah of Allah from mansion to mansion like the moon, and from sphere to sphere, and showed him each of the prophets, his brothers, whose abodes are in the samâwât of those spheres, He raised him to the station of Qab Qawsayn and honoured him with His Word and Ru’yat through His Ahadiyyah.
The Thirty-First Word-Second Principle
The Second Addendum to the Twenty-Fourth Letter
[This is about the Mi’raj of the Prophet]
بِاسْمِهِ وَاِنْ مِنْ شَيْءٍ اِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ
بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
وَلَقَدْ رَآهُ نَزْلَةً اُخْرَى عِنْدَ سِدْرَةِ الْمُنْتَهَى عِنْدَهَا جَنَّةُ الْمَاْوَى اِذْ يَغْشَى السِّدْرَةَ مَا يَغْشَى مَا زَاغَ الْبَصَرُ وَمَا طَغَى لَقَدْ رَاَى مِنْ آيَاتِ رَبِّهِ الْكُبْرَى1
[We shall explain in Five Points, the section on the Mi’raj in the 'Mevlid' of the Prophet.]
First Point: Sulayman Afandi, in the 'Mevlid' which he wrote, recounts a sad ‘ashq story about Buraq, brought from Jannah. Since he was one of the ahl al-walâyah and it is based on riwâyât, it must surely express a haqiqah in that respect.
The haqiqah must be this: the creatures of al-‘âlam al-baqâ are closely connected with the nûr of Rasûl Al-Akram ‘Alayhissalâtu wassalâm. For it is through the nûr which he brought that Jannah and the realm of the âkhirah will be inhabited by mankind and the jinn. If it had not been for him, eternal happiness would not have been, and man and jinn who are capable of benefiting from all the varieties of the creatures of Jannah, would not have dwelt in it; in one respect it would have remained empty, a wasteland.
As is explained in the Fourth Branch of the Twenty-Fourth Word, the ‘ashq legend of the nightingale toward rose; in order to proclaim the intense need that is seen at the degree of ‘ashq, which reaches the degree ‘ashq of the animal species for the caravans of plant species, which proceeding from the treasury of rahmah, bear the rizq of animals, a sort of nightingale has been chosen from every species as a Rabbânî orator. The foremost of these are the nightingale and the rose. The songs of them are a sort of welcoming in a manner of tasbîh and an applause before the most beautiful of plants.
Similarly, Jabrâil ‘Alayhissalâm, one of the malâikah, served with perfect love Muhammad the Arabian ‘Alayhissalâtu Wassalâm, who was the reason for the creation of the spheres, the means to the happiness of both worlds, and the beloved of Ar-Rabb of All ‘âlams, thus demonstrating the obedience and submission of the malâikah to Âdam ‘Alayhissalâm and the reason for theirs prostrating before him. So too the people of Jannah -and even some of its animals- felt a connection with that Being, and this was expressed by the Buraq’s feelings of ‘ashq, whom he mounted.” The Letters ( 358 )
1 (For, indeed, he saw him at a second descent; * Near the Sidrat al-Muntahâ * Near it is to the Jannah al-Ma’wa. * Behold, the Sidrat was shrouded in mystery unspeakable! * [His] eye did not waver, nor yet did it stray; * Truly did he see some of the most profound of his Rabb's âyahs.)