Notes
1. Majma'ul Bayan Surah Bani Isra'il, 17:1, vol. III, page 395.
2. For understanding fully the meaning of 'Sidratul Muntaha' refer to books of exegeses.
3. Some narrators have quoted thus: "I dropped the remainder". Possibly the difference between the two versions is due to the action having been repeated.
4. For further details the readers are advised to refer to the chapters on 'Ascension' of Biharul Anwar, vol. XVIII, pp 282 - 410 and of Tafsir-i Burhan, vol. II, pp. 390 - 404.
5. Majma'ul Bayan, vol. III, page 395.
6. Seerah-i Ibn Hisham, vol. II, page 27.
7. For further information regarding the time when wuzu, prayers and call to prayers were made obligatory please refer to Furu'-i Kafi, vol. I, p. 135.
8. The great Shi'ah jurist, the late Shaykh Tabrasi, has stated in Tafsir-i Majma'ul Bayan that all Shi'ah scholars are unanimous that the 'Me'raj' was physical, vol. III, page 395.
9. Wasa'il, Book of Fasting, chapter-prohibition of fasting.
10. Barzakhi body is like the body with which man performs all deeds in a dream.
11. The pamphlet entitled 'Qatifiyah' is one of his 92 pamphlets which were published collectively in 1273 with the name of "Jawame'ul Kalim". The text of his remarks is as under: "In the event of ascension as the body goes above it abandons the elements connected with every one of the spheres at that very place and moves on. For example, it leaves the element of air in the sphere of air and that of fire in the sphere of fire. And at the time of its return it regains all that it had abandoned". Hence, at the time of 'Me'raj', the Prophet abandoned everyone of the four elements of his body (in the past the basic elements were considered to be four) in their respective spheres and went for me'raj with a body which was devoid of these elements. Such a body cannot be an elemental body and can be nothing else than 'barzakhi' (according to his terminology a 'Herculian' body). In the book entitled 'Sharh-i Ziarat (pages 28 - 29) the Shaykh states that the nine skies are not capable of rending and conciliation.
12. After artificial moons had been sent in the space, a twenty seven year-old Russian named Major Gagarin first commenced his journey into space in a space ship on Wednesday, 12th April 1961. He was the first human being to undertake such a journey. His spaceship went 302 kilometers above the earth and he travelled round the earth for one hour and thirty minutes. Thereafter spaceships were sent into space by America as well as by the Soviet Union. Eventually Apollo-12 with all its occupants landed on the moon and it was for the first time that man set his foot on it. This schedule has been put to test a number of times thereafter and has been usually successful. All these activities go to show that landing of man on the surface of the spheres is possible. And the thing which man does by scientific methods is done by his Creator by means of His Great Will.