Angel

Angel (Gk., angelos, ‘messenger’). An intermediary between heaven and earth. In the early religious imagination of the Jews, the connection between heaven and earth was thought to be literal, as in the attempt to build a tower of Babel (Genesis 11. 1–9). For that reason, Jacob had a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder between heaven and earth (Genesis 28. 12). It was only later (perhaps under Persian influence) that they developed their own means of propulsion with wings. There are various references to angels (Heb., malakhim, ‘messengers’) in the Bible. Later reflection named many (e.g. Gabriel, Michael, Metatron, Raphael, Raziel, Uriel): they carry prayers to God, they teach Torah to each embryo in the womb, and they accompany Jewish fathers as they walk home on the evening of Sabbath.

Jewish angelology was taken over by early Christianity. Catholic teaching includes few pronouncements on angels, but enjoins a cult similar to that of the saints. In Christianity, the notion of fallen angels is developed further. These refuse to return or acknowledge the sovereignty and love of God: they are not destroyed but have a limited scope of subversive activity.

In Islam, angels (Arab., malāʾika, pl., of malak) are ‘messengers with wings’ (Qurʾān 35. 1, the sūra of angels). They were created before humans, and protested to Allāh at his plan to create human beings (2. 30–3), though they agreed to bow down to Adam (2. 34), except for Iblīs (see DEVIL).

The angel of revelation is Jibrīl (Gabriel), who ‘brings down (the revelation) to your heart, by Allah's permission' (2. 97), and he is mentioned together with Mikāʾīl (2. 98). The angel of death (32. 11) is not named, but tradition calls him ʿIzrāʾil, while the angel who will announce the Day of Judgement is Isrāfīl. Two angels, Munkar and Nakīr, question people, on their first night in the grave, about Muḥammad: if they answer that he is rasūl Allāh, the messenger of God, they are left in peace until Yaum al-Qiyama, the day of Resurrection. For others, there ensues the ‘punishment in the tomb’.