The Isra’ Mi‘raj is the story of Muhammad’s nightly journey to Jerusalem and Heaven. It describes who Prophet Muhammad is and how he promised with God about five-time daily prayers, and also explains the rewards for the Muslims punishing the infidels. It has been translated into many Indonesian languages such as Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Maduranese, Acehnese, Bugis and so on. Some areas still have related ritual traditions.
　　According to Ricklefs, one of the oldest manuscripts of the Mi‘raj tale written in Java is the one composed in 1729-1730 by the order of Ratu Pakubuwono, wife of Sultan Pakubuwono I (1704?1719), for the Islamic protection of her grandson’s reign, when the Mataram Sultanate was falling into decline. The tale continued to be copied at the Javanese court even after division of the sultanate. So, we find various manuscripts of this tale containing versions written in different type of Javanese verse, such as Macapat, Tembang Tengahan and Tembang Gedhe. The Miraj tale has become one of the famous tales of Islamic literature in Javanese.
　　In the meanwhile, all over the Indonesian Archipelago, the 17 and 18th centuries saw the rise of indigenous Islamic scholars who were active in translating Arabic books into local languages, mainly Malay, for their fellow-Muslims in the Malay world. The translations were read widely, and the manuscripts were diligently copied by students of Islamic schools throughout the Archipelago. In the 19th century the demand of the Islamic textbooks called “kitab” increased in proportion to the number of the students of those schools. The technique of printing which had been introduced to the Islamic world in the 19th century spurred the business of publishing kitabs in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Kitabs first began to be published in Singapore and Bombay in the latter half of the 19th century. The Mi‘raj tale was among the kitabs published in Singapore and Bombay since 1870s. One Malay version was written by Daud Patani, and one Javanese version (in Arabic script) was written by Soleh Darat Semarang. From now on, the various versions were written in prose, not any more in verse.
　　At the turn of the 20th century, the number and variety of the published kitabs in Cairo were increasing every year and sustained a high number of copies thanks to the ardency of the Southeast Asian ulama and their students. The kitabs from Cairo were exported to Java, where Arab traders/fellow Arabs opened their bookshops. Different from previous versions, the printed versions of the Mi‘raj tale mentioned the title and author of original Arabic text, similar to other published Islamic textbooks. Thus, the Mi‘raj tale survived as one of the Islamic textbooks, whereas much classical Islamic literature disappeared when the manuscript tradition came to an end.