The Buraq, Muhammad's heavenly steed, is usually painted with wings it was never given
In Islamic tradition the Buraq carried the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem and up through the seven heavens in a single night. The early texts never say it had wings like Pegasus, and they disagree over whether it was male or female. Artists nevertheless gave it wings and, very often, a human face.
The name is usually traced to the Arabic barq, lightning, a nod to the creature's speed, though one reference work links it instead to a Middle Persian word for a riding animal, and another scholar connects it with the morning star. The Quran itself mentions the Night Journey to the furthest mosque but no mythical mount; the Buraq comes from later tradition. That tradition dates the journey to 621 CE, ten years after Muhammad began his prophetic mission, and says the archangel Gabriel brought the creature to him while he rested at the Kaaba.
Hadith collections describe a white animal larger than a donkey but smaller than a mule, able to set each hoof down at the farthest point it could see. One account adds long ears and legs that lengthened going uphill or down, and even gives it wings on its thighs to strengthen its stride. In another story it bucks when Muhammad tries to mount, until Gabriel shames it so thoroughly that it breaks into a sweat and stands still. After praying in Jerusalem, Muhammad is said to have ridden it to the heavens, meeting earlier prophets from Adam to Abraham.
The creature's look owes much to interpretation. The texts speak of a beautiful face, which Near Eastern and Persian painters took to mean a human one, a style that spread to the Deccan in India. Ibn Sa'd has Gabriel address the Buraq as female, and many artists gave it a woman's head. Ibn Ishaq relates that it also ferried Abraham each morning from Canaan to visit Hagar and Ishmael in Mecca, returning him by evening.
Muslims call Jerusalem's Western Wall the Buraq Wall, since tradition holds the steed was tethered nearby, and the small al-Buraq Mosque stands just inside the wall. The name lives on widely: Burak is a common boy's name in Turkey and Pakistan, and Al Boraq is Morocco's 323-kilometre high-speed line between Casablanca and Tangier, the first such railway in Africa.
Source: Buraq
