Angels in Islam
Unlike the Hebrew word, however, the term is used exclusively for heavenly spirits of the divine world, as opposed to human messengers.
[16] The Quran describes angels in the context of earlier Middle Eastern cultural traditions, both monotheistic and polytheistic belief-systems.
[28][29] Several angels in the Quran function as personified meteorological phenomena, and may root in polytheistic animistic beliefs.
Protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones, overseen by formidable and severe angels, who never disobey whatever Allah orders—always doing as commanded.
[42] Ibn Taimiyya rejects any ambiguity on the nature of Iblis and portrays him as a satanic jinni in contrast to the obedient angels.
[37]: 548 [53] Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) describes these angels, in his Musnad, as boasting of their obedience, so God sends them down to earth, where they commit sins.
[5] Angels play an important role in Muslim everyday life by protecting the believers from evil influences and recording the deeds of humans.
They have different duties, including their praise of God, interacting with humans in ordinary life, defending against devils (shayāṭīn) and carrying on natural phenomena.
[70] Angels believed to be engaged in human affairs are closely related to Islamic purity and modesty rituals.
Many hadiths, including Muwatta Imam Malik from one of the Kutub al-Sittah, talk about angels being repelled by humans' state of impurity.
[71]: 323 It is argued that if driven away by ritual impurity, the Kiraman Katibin, who record people's actions,[71]: 325 and the guardian angel,[71]: 327 will not perform their tasks assigned to the individual.
Accordingly, Muhammad intercedes for the angels first, then for (other) prophets, saints, believers, animals, plants and inanimate objects last, this explaining the hierarchy of beings in general Muslim thought.
[78] Some authors have suggested that some individual angels in the microcosmos represent specific human faculties on a macrocosmic level.
[82] According to a common belief, if a Sufi can not find a sheikh to teach him, he will be taught by the angel Khidr.
[86] Muslim philosophers, such as al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, drew from Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism a hierarchy of causal effects.
God created the divine Intellect known from Aristotelian cosmology[87][88] and the writings of Plotinus, identified with an angel (usually Gabriel).
[94] Although Mutazilites and Asharites agree upon that everything in the world is bound to matter, including angels and demons, they disagree on the nature of their bodies: While for the Mutazilites angels were luminous, the Asharites maintained that their bodies are airy and could condence in order to interact with the physical world (i.e. becoming visible, fighting in battle, destroying a city, etc.
)[95] The influential Sunni Muslim author al-Ghazali (c. 1058–19 December 1111) reconciled the Islamic Neo-Platonist with traditional Sufi interpretations.
[96][97] He divides human nature into four domains, each representing another type of creature: animals, beasts, devils and angels.
[98][99][100] The spiritual components are related to the mental domain (malakut), the plane in which symbols take on form, angels and devils advise the human hearth (qalb).
[105] Like orthodox Muslims, Alevis believe that Muhammad undertook the heavenly journey guided by the angel Gabriel (Turkish: Cebrâil), mentioned in the Quran (Surah 17), as evident from the miraçlama, a form of poetry (deyiş) remniscient of Anatolian folk songs.
[106] Alevis affirm the Quranic message that angels were ordered to bow down before Adam, and for that reason, believe that humans inherent a special status.
[111] Islamic Modernist scholars such as Muhammad Asad and Ghulam Ahmed Parwez have suggested a metaphorical reinterpretation of the concept of angels.
[112] Orthodox forms of Islam, on the other hand, emphasizes a literal interpretation of angels, as recently affirmed by a fatwa from al-Azhar University.
[113] Wahhabism and Salafism, also considers metaphorical interpretation as a form of unbelief or illicit innovation (bidʿah), brought by secularism and positivism, as stated by Muhammad ibn al-Uthaymin.
[7] In contrast to traditional orthodox accounts, many Salafis, such as members of the Muslim Brotherhood Sayyid Qutb and Umar Sulaiman al-Ashqar, differ by also disregarding material previously well-accepted in Islamic tradition, such as the story of Harut and Marut (qiṣṣat Hārūt wa-Mārūt) or the name the Angel of Death (ʿAzrāʾīl).
[114] Islam has no standard hierarchical organization that parallels the division into different "choirs" or spheres hypothesized and drafted by early medieval Christian theologians, but generally distinguishes between the angels in heaven (karubiyin) fully absorbed in the ma'rifa (knowledge) of God and the messengers (rasūl) who carry out divine decrees between heaven and earth.
[120] The 13th century book Ajā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt (The Wonders of Creation) by Zakariya al-Qazwini describes Islamic angelology, and is often illustrated with many images of angels.
The angels are typically depicted with bright, vivid colors, giving them unusual liveliness and other-worldly translucence.
An undated manuscript of The Wonders of Creation from the Bavarian State Library in Munich includes depictions of angels both alone and alongside humans and animals.
