What are Angels

"And We indeed created you, then We fashioned you, then We said to the angels: Make submission to Adam (or mankind)."
(The Holy Quran 7:11)

Angels

What are angels?

Angels are 'spiritual', non-material beings who put God's commands and laws into action in this world. They have no 'will' of their own, unlike man, and are intermediaries between God and the world.



What do angels look like?

As angels are not physical beings, they cannot be seen by man's eye. So this question does not arise. However, Prophets of God and other righteous persons can 'see' angels on occasions, but it is with their spiritual (or mind's) eyes, in dreams and visions.



What functions do angels perform?

These are of two kinds: their functions in the physical world, and their functions in the spiritual development of man. In the physical world, the working of nature is governed by laws, as science has shown by discovering many of these laws. Islam teaches that these laws have been devised by God, and the angels - the obeying functionaries of God - put them into action. On the spiritual side, the angels communicate God's revelation to the Prophets and other righteous ones, bring comfort and strength to the hearts of true believers, and inspire noble thoughts in the minds of all persons. They do this, of course, by acting through the spiritual senses of human beings, not their physical senses like the eyes or ears.



Why are angels necessary to bring God's messages to man?

Just as light is needed as a medium for our eyes to see things, and air is needed to carry sound to our ears, similarly an agency is required to activate our spiritual senses. The angels are that agency. They bring God's messages to the 'inner' eyes and ears of righteous people, and also cast good and noble thoughts into the 'hearts' of all people. But it is only the righteous who, because of their highly­developed spiritual senses, may be able to perceive the working of angels.



Is there any other important point Islam tells us about angels?

A most important point disclosed in the Holy Quran is that mankind has been given by God the ability to acquire knowledge of all things in the universe. The Quran further tells us that the angels, who put God's laws into action in the world, submit to man because of his great knowledge. In other words, man can use his knowledge of the laws of nature to control the world. So the Holy Quran disclosed many centuries ago that man can make the greatest progress in science and technology, because the angels, the agencies who automatically put God's laws into action in the running of the world, all submit to man.



Is there a key significance of belief in angels?

As stated earlier, every belief in Islam requires a Muslim to do something practical and positive, and belief in angels means that we should follow our good impulses and reject the bad ones. The Holy Quran also says that there exist 'devils' which put low, selfish thoughts in man's mind. However, even though they exist, the Quran does not require a Muslim to 'believe' in the devils, but in fact to disbelieve in them. This shows that in Islam 'belief' does not just mean believing in the heart but also acting in accordance with the belief.

Jinn

What are jinn?

The jinn mentioned in the Holy Quran are certainly not the genii of fairy tales or what people usually imagine them to be. This word indicates "something hidden from view", and is used in the Quran with several different meanings referring to people or beings who are remote and not seen.

It is applied to leaders, as contrasted with the ordinary public, and to people of foreign lands. For instance, the Quran says:

"O assembly of jinn and men, did there not come to you messengers from among you. . ." (6:131).

As messengers from God only came to human beings, the jinn here are also humans, and the address "jinn and men" is to the leaders and the ordinary people. Similarly, the Quran twice mentions some jinn as accepting its teachings (46:29; 72:1). In the first case, a tribe of Jews is meant, and in the second some Christians are meant, being called jinn because of their remoteness.

The word jinn is also used for a type of invisible, non-physical creation who stir up the lower desires in a person's mind. This is in contrast to the angels who draw a person's mind to the doing of good.

So the jinn (of the second kind) and the angels pull a person's mind in opposite directions?

Yes, if you are talking about jinn in the second sense mentioned above. The Holy Prophet has said that each human being has a jinn and an angel associated with him (or her). He was asked whether it was the same with him as well. The Holy Prophet replied: "It is the same with me, but Allah has helped me against my jinn, so that he has submitted to God, and does not tell me to do anything but good." So the angels and the jinn represent the opposite forces pulling a man to good and bad, respectively. If you overcome the urge to do wrong, then it changes into an urge to do good.
 

And just like angels, these jinn are not physical beings, and therefore cannot be seen or heard with the physical senses of man.
 

It is said that the devil was an angel who disobeyed God by refusing to submit to Adam. Is this true?

Angels have no will of their own, so the question of an angel disobeying God does not arise. The devil is described in one place in the Quran clearly as "one of the jinn" (18:50), so he could not be one of the angels.

Briefly, what the Quran tells us is that God gave knowledge of all things to Adam, and then all the angels submitted to Adam, but the devil refused to do so and misled Adam and his wife. The meaning is that man, because of the knowledge that he possesses, can bring nature under his control, but he cannot control himself from wrong-doing. Therefore God sends revelation to enable man to resist the promptings of the devil.

 

What does the Quran mean when it says that God created jinn from fire?

This refers to those human beings who rebel against God and goodness, following the prompting of the jinn. Due to their rebellious and arrogant nature, and due to the fact that their hearts burn with the fire of evil desires, greed and envy, they are described as having been created from fire. Similarly, man is described as having been created from "dust" because true human nature is humble and submissive to God.

 

So the jinn mentioned in the Quran are quite different from how they are generally imagined to be?

That is right. The Holy Quran and the Hadith do not support the popular picture of jinn as creatures who perform super-human feats, who can appear in human form and interfere in people's affairs, or who can "possess" human beings and affect them with diseases. None of these ideas is accepted by Islamic teachings.