“This metaphoric Qur’anic expression concerns God’s Messenger’s unparalleled nearness to God during his Ascension. From the viewpoint of Sufism, it denotes rising beyond the horizons of Divine Acts and Names and reaching the peak of Attributes or even going beyond it. Reaching the peak of Attributes is called Nearness relating to the Attributes, and going beyond it is Nearness related to the (Divine) Being Himself. However, we should point out that this nearness is our nearness to the Being Who is nearer to everything than itself, and is the feeling of self-annihilation in the lights of His Existence through freedom from duality in the state of spiritual pleasures. Travelers who experience this cannot see, know or feel anything other than Him, see what they see as His making them see, feel what they feel as His making them feel, hold what they hold by His making them hold, and obtain what they obtain by His making them obtain. With all the atoms of their bodies, they become eloquent voices speaking of Him.

This nearness is the fruit of ascension toward God. In the universal level it was represented by him whose existence is the ultimate cause for the creation of the universe, upon him be peace and blessings. Those performing spiritual travel under his guidance can have a share in it, each according to his or her rank. A traveler, the elements of whose bodily existence come from stone, dust, clay, air and water, enters the way of being perfected through belief, righteous deeds, sincerity and pursuing God’s good pleasure. Freed from imprisonment in the dungeon of corporeality and traveling on the horizons of life in heart and spirit, the traveler is saved from the loneliness and solitude that originate from being distant from God, and reaches the point of friendship with God. In other words, as the traveler was originated by God in the beginning, so finally he or she returns to Him. One’s being originated or sent to the world is a descent and called the arch of descent, and one’s returning to God through Him and acquiring nearness to Him is ascension and called the arch of ascension. Since the picture formed of these two (curved) arches resembles a circle formed of two archery bows facing each other, their meeting point at the top has been described as the distance between the strings of two bows (qab qawsayn) (53:9). It denotes that the Messenger reached as far as the line or boundary of the realm of mortality and contingency, which adjoins the (Divine) realm of eternity and absolute necessity.”¹⁾

“We can also view it as the projection onto an initiate's heart of the Messenger’s rank-he reached the highest point predestined for him, a point at which he became so close to God that there was left only the distance between the strings of two bows adjacent to each other or even less (53:9). Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi indicates this as follows:

A Sufi is an example of how one can be a child of time;

But as for a purified saintly scholar, he is free from both time and state.”²⁾

“We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (50:16), explains how God’s Messenger covered almost an infinite distance in his Ascension (Mi‘raj) and came back in an instant. In one respect, His Ascension is his journey of spiritual elevation in God’s way and his sainthood’s title or final rank.

Just as saints attain the rank of certainty of experiencing the truths of belief within a period of 40 days to 40 years, the Messenger’s (the king of saints) Ascension enabled him to attain the highest rank of experiencing the truths of belief within a period as short as 40 minutes. He ascended to the Divine Throne of Majesty, witnessed with the certainty of vision the truths of belief in God and the Hereafter, drew near to God to the distance of ‘two bows’ length, and experienced Paradise’s eternal happiness. This event enabled him to open a broad way for those seeking the rank of sainthood to follow in their spiritual journey.”³⁾

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