Abdur Raheem Green – Belief in the Angel

			What I want to discuss in today's episode is another pillar of the Muslim belief and that is the
belief in angels. Now, the first thing I would like to mention that I think is very important is
there is a difference between what Muslims believe about angels, and what is traditionally believed
in respect to angels in Christian, and Jewish belief. Now, we can see from the belief and the
stories
		

			within Judaism and Christianity, which is generally referred to as Muslims, as the Israeli artists
really art, our traditions from the people of the book, Al Qaeda, which refers to Jews and
Christians,
		

			that Muslims actually the Prophet Mohammed did allow us to refer to them and to benefit from them.
However, the Quran, for us is the criterion. The Quran distinguishes between what is true, and what
is false from those beliefs. Now,
		

			within Judaism within Christianity, the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, is generally considered
to be that Satan, or the devil was actually an angel. And so there is the concept that angels, like
human beings have a choice or an ability to believe or disbelieve in God. And we do not accept that
what God has taught us in the Quran, and through his final messenger Muhammad, is that the angels
are beings, they are made of light human beings, our essential
		

			component, or what we have been created from is clay, the jinn who are a type of spirits be there
they are made from smokeless fire, and angels are beings of light. And they do not have the ability
to disobey Allah, they do not have the ability to disobey God. Angels are beings that fulfill the
command of God, they do have some form of intellect, they are able to question they have an ability
to think. And we can see that from the story mentioned in the Quran of the fall of Adam and Eve,
when God or Allah is creating Adam. He's telling the angels I am going to create a creature that
will be succeeding one after the other generation after the generation on the earth. So the angels
		

			asked and the question, are you going to create something that will shed blood and make mischeif
while we celebrate your praises, and we glorify Your name? And God said to them, I know what you
don't know. So this shows that the angels have some type of intellect, they have some ability to
process information, and they have the ability to question and to think. So although Yes, they
execute the command of God, and they are utterly and totally obedient to God, that God has given
them some type of form of independent thinking as well. And there are many, many other examples that
we could give of that.
		

			There are many, many, many angels. In fact, there are so many angels, that in one narration, the
prophet Mohammed mentioned, that above the Kaaba, now in in Mecca, there is the sacred mosque,
Masjid al Haram. And within the sacred mosque, there is a small, while not that small, but there is
a rectangular cube like building which is called the Kaaba. I'm sure you all must have seen pictures
of it. This is considered to be the first place that was ever built the first place that was ever
built to worship the Creator of the heavens and the earth. And it is said by the prophet Mohammed,
may God's peace and blessings be upon him, that above this earthly power
		

			There is a heavenly Kaaba as well, there is a heavenly Aqaba. And around this heavenly Aqaba, angels
come and they come into it, and they go round it. There are so many angels. But once an angel has
entered into this place and gone round the heavenly Aqaba and leave, they will never return. And
this keeps on going. This is how many
		

			hundreds and 1000s of millions billions I don't know how many angels there are. So the angels are
numerous, and they perform many tasks. The most important or the head of the angels is Gabriel
Gabriel is the traditionally what we call an archangel in English. Gabriel is the chief of the
angels he is the greatest of the angels. And Gabriel is responsible or gibreel, we call him in
Arabic. jabril is also a real hero kudos, which means the Holy Spirit. So the angel Gabriel and the
Holy Spirit are in fact one and the same. And it is very important then to note that the Holy Spirit
is not some part of God, the Holy Spirit, the angel Gabriel, they are one in the same
		

			is a creature of God, a creation of God, a finite limited needy being, and the angels.
		

			They, as we need air and food, they need to remember God and praise God. So what sustains them, what
gives them sustenance is the remembrance of God just as we are sustained by air and we are sustained
by food, the angels are sustained through their remembrance and obedience to God. So the chief of
these angels is Gabriel. Gabriel performs many functions. But the most important function of the
angel Gabriel is that he is the one who brings the revelation He is the one who has bought down the
Torah, and the support and the Injeel. And of course, the Quran, which is the final revelation to
Prophet Mohammed, as I said, gibreel, performance and many, many other functions. And we find within
		

			the Islamic tradition,
		

			many discussions and many mentions of the angel Gabriel,
		

			there are other angels that perform important functions which are worth mentioning, every single one
of us has two angels that write down the deeds. One Angel writes down our good deeds. And another
angel on the angel on the right, writes down our good deeds, and the angel on the left writes down
our evil deeds. This belief in the angels is something that should help to create within the
believer, a constant awareness that whatever they do, and whatever they say, is being accounted for
and being written and being recorded by the angels and this books of deeds, these books of deeds
will be presented on the Day of Judgment. We also have a guardian angel in the sense that what is
		

			called a guardian angel, but
		

			it is an angel that helps to protect us that also advises us and encourages us towards good also to
mention, by the way, that everybody also has an evil jinn. Now agenda, as I said, is a different
type of spiritual being, and the devil or Satan is a jinn. Now, the devil was with the angels, but
he was not one of them. his actual essence, as a creature was different. And the devil did have the
choice to obey or disobey God because jinn have the choice to obey or disobey. So every one of us
anyway has an evil jinn and this evil gem prompts us towards evil, and every one of us has a good
Angel, or all angels are good, that encourages, encourages us towards good.
		

			Other angels that are worth mentioning is the angel of death, there is an angel of death whose
responsibility is to take the souls of people when they die. There is also an angel, and this angel
right now, as the Prophet Muhammad said, Is this is the angel who will blow the trumpet and this
trumpet will bring about the end of this world and this
		

			universe. And as the Prophet Mohammed said, The angel has raised the trumpet to his lips, and he is
waiting for the command from God, to blow that trumpet, which is to remind us of the imminence of
the end of this world and this universe. So these are just some of the things that Muslims believe
about angels. And these are some of the angels that I have mentioned. There are others, many, many
others, for example, the angels who got the gates of *, the angels who will greet the people,
when they enter Paradise, there are angels of mountains, angels of rivers, angels, of clouds, angels
of thunder, angels of lightning, there are angels, all of these angels, what do they do? They help
		

			to direct the creation of Allah according to the plan of Allah. So just to summarize, this very
important belief about angels. Ultimately,
		

			every believer knows that they are not alone in this universe, as people who have dedicated their
life to remembering Allah rather, as believers we are surrounded with creatures who are constantly
remembering the Creator of the heavens and the earth.