Isra’ and Mi’raj Between the Islamic Narrative and the Zoroastrian Myth

Islamic websites compete year after year to come up with similarities between the Christian faith and earlier pagan religions.
I’ve grown accustomed to examining everything Muslims use to attack Christianity, and I always find that they accuse Christianity of things that actually exist in their own religion, as the proverb says: “Eat them for lunch before they eat us for dinner.”
Today, we will find out why Muslims fabricate lies about Christianity and which religion is, in fact, very similar to the pagan religions and practices. Together, we will uncover something hidden and deliberately obscured, something that is forbidden to discuss, which is the striking similarity, to the point of being identical, between Islam and Zoroastrianism, which preceded it by approximately 2000 years.
I began my research starting from the incident of “Isra’ and Mi’raj,” and I found out what I am about to show you today.
All Muslims believe that in the year 621 AD, the messenger of Islam, Muhammad, rode on the so-called “Buraq”. Of course, they do not know what the “Buraq” is exactly, and all they know is that it is a riding animal—perhaps a horse, a donkey, or another animal— but it is winged, and they consider it a sacred creature designated for transporting prophets from one place to another. Muslims also believe that Muhammad made a night journey from “Mecca” in Saudi Arabia to “Al-Aqsa”, which they believe refers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (Al Quds), where he prayed and led a group of prophets in prayer. Then he flew up, on the “Buraq”, to the seventh heaven where he met Allah, who gave him instructions, orders, and impositions for Muslims. Afterwards, that creature brought him back to Mecca.
Of course, there were, and still are, doubts about this matter even among the Muslims themselves, because the idea of a winged animal is a mythical and ancient superstition that had never been mentioned in any heavenly and divine book before, neither in the Torah nor in the Gospel.
The other matter, even though the Holy Bible mentions incidents of people being taken away to heaven, as happened with the prophet Elijah, that had happened in the presence of a witness, Elisha.
Likewise, the LORD Jesus Christ ascended to heaven upon the clouds, and that was in the presence of His disciples, apostles, the Marys, and by the accounts of dozens of people.
Whereas in the incident of Muhammad, the messenger of Islam, no one had witnessed it, nor had anyone seen him or the “Buraq” at all.
The third and the most important matter, which even some Muslim scholars also acknowledge, is that at the time of Muhammad, there was no such thing as “Al-Aqsa Mosque” in what they call today “Al-Quds”; as there were no Muslims in Israel (Palestine) to build Al-Aqsa Mosque. The term “Al-Aqsa” means “the farthest,” and since they believe that Muhammad ascended to the farthest point, they interpret it to mean he was taken to the farthest mosque. According to the research by the Al-Azhar Islamic scholar, Mustafa Rashed, he said: “At the time of Muhammad, Al-Aqsa Mosque had not yet been built; rather, it was constructed during the era of the Umayyads.” We all know that in the time of Jesus Christ, Solomon’s second temple was still standing, and Jesus Christ used to go there long before the Umayyads built what they later called “Al-Aqsa” on its ruins. The question is, how did Muhammad pray in a mosque that hadn’t even been built yet?
Upon asking the Muslim scholars in general how they can dispute with the Jews over a mosque that they did not build, while in fact, the Jews had built the Second Temple of Solomon, they cannot answer. There is no historical manuscript to support their claim that someone built the mosque before the birth of Muhammad; they have even gone so far as to say that it may have been built by the angels or by Adam.
The most important thing in the story of “Isra’ and Mi’raj” is that it is taken completely from the myth and legend of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism is an ancient Persian Iranian religion and an Asian theological philosophy. It was the official religion of the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires 3500 years ago, that is, two thousand years before the Mohammadan Islamic religion.
Islam derived many of its myths from Zoroastrianism, from the ruins of which Islam rose, including the story of “Isra’ and Mi’raj”. We find exactly the same story in Zoroastrianism: a nighttime journey to heaven, documented in an ancient Pahlavi book called “Arda Viraf” (“Pahlavi” means it goes back to the Pahlavi language, which spread about a thousand years before Islam.)
The Zoroastrian story describes the journey of a prophet called “Arda Viraf”, whose soul ascended to heaven under the guidance of an angel named “Sraosha”. Arda Viraf moved from a virtuous and holy city to another, and eventually reached the throne of “Ahura Mazda”, the great god of the universe in Zoroastrianism, who showed Arda Viraf the heaven and the happiness of its inhabitants, then ordered him to return to the earth to tell people of everything he had seen and heard.
Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god, had commanded the prophet Arda to deliver to his followers the instructions, impositions, and commandments about prayer, ablution, etc., and to tell them that these were the orders of their god, Ahura Mazda; exactly as the Islamic story later recounts about Muhammad.

Here are the similarities, to the point of being identical, between the Islamic story of Muhammad and the Zoroastrian story of Arda:
1. The two stories took place on a night journey.
2. Muhammad and Arda moved from one holy city to another, then to heaven, where each one of them met his god before returning to earth.
3. Both of them brought orders from their gods from heaven; therefore, Muhammad commanded his followers to pray five times a day as Allah ordered, and also Arda ordered the Zoroastrians to pray five times a day as Ahura Mazda commanded.
4. On his journey to the sixth heaven, Muhammad saw the “Sidrat tree” or the “Sidr tree” (lote tree), just as Arda saw a tree in the middle of paradise, whose name was (Haoma).
This similarity between Islam and Zoroastrianism is not limited to the story of “Isra’ and Mi’raj”, but there are rather many other things in common, for example:
– The direction of prayer (Al-Qibla): Both religions determine their direction of prayer according to celestial signs, such as the sun or the moon.
– Ablution: Which is the obligation to wash the face and limbs before prayer. The Zoroastrians still perform ablution before praying, and they both pray five times a day.
– Carrying out the duties: That is the “Sunnah” for Muslims. For the Zoroastrians, that is called “Yasana”, and they cannot violate these duties at all in Zoroastrianism.
– The “mihrab” or the niche: It is found in every mosque. They believe that they cannot pray facing just any wall, and there must be a niche which is a symbol of Mecca, thus they pray in front of it. Likewise, the Zoroastrians, for whom fire is the destination, cannot pray toward just any wall as they must have a specific direction to face.
– The headscarf and veil: Which Allah commanded the Muslims to wear, were also previously commanded by Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.
– The Original Language in Prayer: Both religions require that prayers be performed in the original language in which their book was revealed:
We all know that during the prayer, Muslims cannot recite the Quran using translated languages, thus, you find the non-Arab Muslim parroting the verses without understanding or at least pronouncing them correctly. Their main concern is to pray and recite in the Arabic language, in which they believe that the Quran was revealed. The same is true in Zoroastrianism, the Zoroastrians cannot recite prayers in any other language. So when they pray, they must specifically recite “the Avesta” (the Abestāg) in their original language as they believe it is the language in which the Avesta was revealed. This language is known as Avestan.
– The two religions call for the unification of god: Because there were many gods in Iran (Persia), they needed to unify them. Likewise, Quraysh believed in many pagan gods, so they united them under the name of Allah Akbar (Allah the Greatest one).
This is a dangerous thing because it leads to the worship of another ancient pagan deity (I invite you to watch the episode “Why Do Christians Reject Monotheism?” with Maggie Khozam: Christians Are Not Monotheists.) The one God does not need to be unified. The danger of the belief in the unification of gods lies in the fact that, in doing so, you are combining the anti-God with God Himself under the term “monotheism.”
Here is the story of the Isra’ and Mi’raj between the Zoroastrian and Islamic narratives:
Both narratives are strikingly similar, to the point of being identical. However, researchers tend to find the Zoroastrian version more credible than the Muhammadan one for several reasons:
1- It is said that Arda ascended by the spirit only, which is more believable and comprehensible today. It could be somewhat logical because in psychology some people believe in the so-called “astral projection”, (I also invite you to watch the episode about astral projection with Maggie Khozam), where, in the spiritual realm, a person can be taken from one place to another to visit a material or spiritual world or even another country, then return to this world. As for Muhammad and the idea of him traveling in the flesh on a winged beast, breaking and shattering the laws of gravity, then coming back again, this is hard to believe. For this reason, the researchers tended to believe the Zoroastrian version of the story.
2- The second and most important matter is that the Zoroastrian story preceded the Islamic one by 2000 years; thus, it is impossible that Zoroastrianism took the story of the Isra’ and Mi’raj from Islam.
3- The third and most important reason is what happened with Muhammad, as he had narrated to his people regarding the imposition of prayer. There are similarities between the two stories, as Ahura Mazda ordered Arda that the Zoroastrians should pray to him five times, likewise, Muhammad asked Muslims to pray five times a day. The difference, however, is that Muhammad’s story, as he narrated when he came back, has aroused the curiosity of many. According to what was stated in al-Bukhari from Malik bin Sasa’a, who said:
Muhammad ascended to heaven and spoke with Allah, who commanded that Muslims should pray for him fifty times a day. As Muhammad descended back to Earth, he met Prophet Moses, who asked him: “What did Allah command you?” Muhammad replied that Allah ordered him that his followers must pray fifty times a day. Moses said to him: “Your people will not be able to do so. I have tried before you, and the Children of Israel tried and failed.” Therefore, Moses asked Muhammad to go back to Allah and appeal for a reduction. Thus, and according to the Islamic story which Muslims believe, Muhammad went back to Allah and requested for a reduction of the times of prayer, so Allah responded and reduced the number to 40, then 30, then 20, and time after time Muhammad came down and saw Moses who would inquire about the number then ask Muhammad to go back to Allah and appeal for further reduction. So, Muhammad spent his time going back and forth between Moses and Allah, as if he were engaged in a bazaar-like negotiation to reduce the number of prayers required of Muslims per day. Muhammad continued going up and down until the number was reduced to five prayers. When Moses saw him again, he asked him: “How many prayers are they now?” Muhammad replied: “Five.” Moses said: “They will not be able to bear it.” Muhammad replied that he would feel shy to go back and ask again.
The story of the bazaar bargaining of Prayers between Muhammad, Moses, and Allah provoked many people to ridicule Islam, as it contradicts what the god of Muslims said in the Quran: “Allah burdens no soul beyond its capacity.”
So how could Allah not know the capacity within the souls of his servants, and whether they can pray fifty times or not?
And are Moses and Muhammad more merciful toward humanity than Allah himself, that they would intercede with him to reduce the number of impositions?!
Some also wondered: “Doesn’t Allah know exactly how many impositions he wants?!” While others asked: “Why did Allah decide the number of his impositions the same as that of the Zoroastrians’ god, Ahura Mazda?!”
In the end, let’s go back to the beginning. Now we can understand why Muslims insist on fabricating stories and similarities between Christianity and Zoroastrianism, or any other pagan religion.
The answer: to hide and blind people from this truth, which is the striking similarity, almost identical, between Islam and Zoroastrianism.

It is for this reason that the Zoroastrians were eradicated in many Islamic invasions; it was an attempt to obscure the truth that the Muslims’ impositions are nothing but ancient pagan ones. Today, there are only a few Zoroastrians left; nothing more than a few thousand.

As for the Ascension of the LORD Jesus Christ to heaven, it is quite different. The LORD Jesus ascended with a glorified body after the resurrection, a body that does not resemble our bodies, and does not need food, drink, or a beast to ride. Moreover, the LORD Jesus Christ did not and does not take any orders, neither from Moses nor anyone else, because He said: “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father,” all that is in heaven and that is on earth.
We believe, as He has promised us, that just as He ascended in the presence of eyewitnesses, He will return, and we will all see Him in the same way He ascended upon the clouds. He will return not to give us orders, but as a Judge of the earth and all who are in it, all mankind, to judge the living and the dead.
We believe that He will return soon, and we are waiting for Him, to judge and to rule, to revive and perish all those who did not believe in Him as a LORD and God, but believed in other strange gods.
He who has wisdom, let him understand: The LORD Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

May / 20 / 2025