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Angels
Angels are mentioned in the Qurʿān both as individuals and as a group and appear to have been known to Muhammad’s listeners. They are described in the Qurʿān (35:1) as having two, three, or four wings, as having hands (6:93), and as not eating (25:7). They are sent as messengers from God, and may intercede with God, but only with his permission (53:25). Besides acting as messengers, individual angels have specific functions. Gabriel (Jibrīl) is the bringer of divine revelation to Muḥammad, while death is brought by an angel unnamed in the Qurʿān but known in post-Qurʿānic Islamic tradition as ʿIzrāʿīl. Mīkāʿīl is of the same rank as Gabriel. Joseph is thought to be an angel because of his beauty, and evidently some expected Noah to be an angel, implying that angels have human form.
The concept of angels and the names for them are paralleled in the larger Semitic tradition. The Arabic word for angel, malak, (pl. malāʿikah), appears to have been borrowed from Hebrew or Aramaic, possibly through Ethiopic, although Muslim philologists have assumed one of several Arabic roots (m-l-k, l-ʿ-k, ʿ-l-k). Names like Jibrīl, Mīkāʿīl, and Isrāfīl appear to be derived from the same linguistic source and adapted to the Arabic phonological system. The assimilation of angels into the Arabic language and the culture of northwestern Arabia seems to have occurred in the pre-Islamic period. By the time of the rise of Islam, Jews, Christians, and polytheists in the Arabic cultural sphere each had their own view of angels.
The Qurʿān does not describe systematically the classes of angels but gives enough information for commentators to be able to propound various theories. As well as messengers, angels are guardians over humans and keepers of the inventory of good and bad deeds (82:10–12), although the recording is also ascribed to God (21:94). The Qurʿān does not name the two angels, Munkar and Nakīr, who visit the dead in the grave and test the person for entry into paradise or hell. Some believe that these angels inflict punishment on those in the grave, making the period before the day of judgment a kind of purgatory. This was denied by the Muʿtazilīs and various rationalists, prompting a reaction among some traditionists that made belief in these angels an article of faith. The angel Mālik rules over hell (43:47), apparently commanding the Zabāniyah, nineteen angels who thrust people into torment (96:18, 74:30). According to tradition, angels are made of light but, in the view of some Qurʿān scholars, are not impeccable: Iblīs, who is sometimes ranked as an angel and sometimes as a jinn, rebelled when God commanded the angels to worship Adam. Scholastic traditions are careful to distinguish between satan (shayṭān), jinn, and angels. In Shīʿī traditions, the imams can see angels that surround and protect them and their families. In Ismāʿīlī traditions, each hierarchical order of the universe has an angel associated with it. Some modernist commentators have rejected the existence of angels as nonscientific, but most modern commentators accept the existence of angels as part of the physical universe created by God.
Angels
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Last Updated: 06/2021
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