Jerusalem

Jerusalem is presented as a holy city and as a destination whose meaning can slip between physical place and spiritual abstraction. In Mahound’s account, it is the site of a miraculous night journey that he describes as evidence of revelation; in a later vision, the Imam orders Gibreel Farishta to fly him there, but the journey leaves the destination unresolved and makes Jerusalem seem as much an exalted goal as a point on a map.

The Holy City in Mahound’s Account

Mahound recalls being carried by Gibreel at night to Jerusalem, where he hovered above the holy city. He tells Gibreel that he returned and described it accurately, down to its details, presenting that precision as proof of the miracle. Yet the account also sits within Mahound’s anguish over those who continue to worship Lat, Manat, and Uzza despite the signs he believes they have witnessed.

Jerusalem is a stage in a larger account of ascent and divine instruction. Mahound describes being carried to the Throne, where Allah imposed forty prayers a day on the faithful. On the return journey, Moses urged him repeatedly to ask for a lighter burden; the obligation was eventually reduced to five prayers, and Mahound felt ashamed to plead for any further reduction. In his telling, the journey joins Jerusalem, the ascent, and the practical terms of religious life, while the disbelief of the city’s people remains a source of distress.

A Destination That Becomes an Idea

In a later visionary episode, the Imam’s lips do not move, but Bilal’s voice reaches Gibreel with the command that he must fly the Imam to Jerusalem. Gibreel objects that the Imam seems capable of moving by himself, but the old man leaps onto his shoulders, and Gibreel rises into the night carrying him. The command turns Jerusalem into an immediate destination, yet Gibreel does not know which way to go.

The narration makes that uncertainty explicit by treating Jerusalem as a slippery word: it may mean a place, but it may also mean a goal or an exaltation. The flight continues through a strange landscape beneath a moon that seems to heat and bubble; the travellers eventually see a sprawling city and a palace associated with the Empress. The passage does not establish that this is Jerusalem. Instead, the named destination opens onto a vision in which geographical arrival and imagined purpose are difficult to separate.

Narrative Significance

The two appearances give Jerusalem different but connected functions. In Mahound’s account, the city is described as a place he has seen and can report, and that descriptive accuracy is offered as evidence. In the Imam’s episode, the direction remains uncertain even as the journey becomes vivid: the destination is at once a location to be reached and an ideal invoked by the command to fly there.

This contrast makes Jerusalem a point where the novel’s treatment of revelation and vision becomes concrete. A claim about the holy city can be framed as verifiable description, while a later journey toward the same name loosens the boundary between place and aspiration. Jerusalem therefore matters not simply as a setting, but as a destination whose authority and meaning are shaped by the visions and voices that call it into view.