Malfuzat - Volume IX — Page 493
UNDATED 493 and visions. A vision is superior to a dream. The person seeing a vision knows that they are in another realm, yet they also hear others. The honoured Sufis accept that the Friends of Allah are granted a spiritual body, in fact, at times others also wit- ness it. And all Sufis also accept that Divine revelation has not ceased, rather man can attain prophethood as a reflection [of the Prophet s as ], but in their weakness, they call this the revela- tion of the heart. Remember well that it was not this physical body that expe- rienced the Mi‘r a j, rather it was another body. With this other body man meets the dead, and its illustration to some extent is also found in dreams that the physical body of a person is lying on the bed, yet they have eyes to see and feet to walk. And dreams have been called the ‘sister of death’ as from this some understanding is gained of the next world. When َ ثُم َّ اسْتَیْقَظ َ ثُم َّ اسْتَیْقَظ is written in a book like [ S a hih al- ] Bukh a r i , and it was also the belief of Hadrat Ayesha S iddiqah ra then who are we to present something contrary without reason? It appears that the Companions ra also carried the same belief that the Mi‘r a j of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, was not with this temporal body, rather it was another spiritual body; otherwise, they would have spoken up against Hadrat Ayesha S iddiqah ra. 1 1. Al- H akam, vol. 11, no. 39, p. 5–6, dated 31 October 1907