I was reminded of them by Update #3 on Goodman Games' Dungeon Denizens Kickstarter, which takes about their top 10 Fiend Folio Monsters. I never looked into the origins of the Al-mi'raj, but today I read the TV Tropes page about them, which was interesting. I've run across them a few times in some of the ebooks I've read in the past few years, so I guess they're fairly popular.