Here's the story: One night as Muhammad laid in bed with his most beloved nine year-old wife, Aisha, he heard knocking at the door. Opening the door he found the angel Gabriel "with seventy pairs of wings expanded from his sides, whiter than snow, and clearer than crystal, and the beast Buraq standing by him, which they say is the beast on which the prophets used to ride when they were carried from one place to another while executing a divine plan."; Muhammad described the beast to the Meccans as a winged creature with the face of a woman "with two wings on his thighs which lent strength to his legs. He was white as milk, smaller than a mule but bigger than a donkey and of such extraordinary swiftness that his flying from one place to another was as quick as lightning", therefore Muhammad named the beast Lightning (al-Buraq in Arabic). AS SOON AS MUHAMMAD OPENED THE DOOR, GABRIEL HUGGED HIM HELLO (LIKE HE DID AT THE CAVE AT HIRA?), GREETED HIM IN THE NAME OF GOD, AND SAID THAT HE WAS SENT TO BRING MUHAMMAD TO GOD (ALLAH) IN HEAVEN, "WHERE HE WOULD SEE STRANGE MYSTERIES WHICH WERE NOT ALLOWED TO BE SEEN BY ANY OTHER PERSON" THEN HE TOLD MUHAMMAD TO GET ON LIGHTNING. However Lightning was having none of that, "having lain long idle from the time of Christ until Muhammad - there having been no prophet in all that interval to employ him." Lightning had become uncontrollable and so skittish that he wouldn't stand still for Muhammad to get on him so eventually Muhammad was forced to bribe Lightning into behaving by promising the beast a place in paradise. After the promise of paradise, Lightning quieted down and let Muhammad get on his back. Gabriel took Lightning's reins in his hands and led the way. However, suddenly Lightning flew up to the stars carrying Muhammad through the night sky from Mecca to Jerusalem in the twinkling of an eye.
