CHAPTER 3
ANGELS

Angels are immaterial beings

The Arabic word for angel is malak, of which the plural form is malā’i-ka.1 The Holy Qur’ān speaks of the creation of man from dust and of the creation of jinn from fire, but it does not speak of the origin of angels. There is, however, a report from ‘Ā’ishah, according to which the Holy Prophet said that the jinn are created from fire (nār), and that the angels are created from light (nūr) (M. 52:22). This shows that the angels are immaterial beings, and further, that the jinn and the angels are two different classes of beings, and that it is a mistake to consider them as belonging to one class. In the Holy Qur’ān angels are spoken of as “messengers (rusul) flying on wings”2 (35:1). Their descriptions as rusul3 has reference to their spiritual function of bearing Divine messages. Sacred history, indeed, represents angels as possessing wings, but so far as the Holy Qur’ān is concerned, it would be a grievous mistake to confuse the (janāḥ) wing of an angel with the fore-limb of a bird which fits it for flight. The wing is a symbol of the power which enables those immaterial beings to execute their functions with all speed; and in Arabic, the word janāḥ is used in a variety of senses. In birds it is the wing; the two sides of a thing are called its janāḥain (two janāḥs); and in man, his hand is spoken of as his janāḥ (R.). The word has further been used metaphorically in the Holy Qur’ān in several places, as in 15:88 and 26:215, where the “lowering of the janāḥ” stands for “being kind.” The Arabic proverb, huwa maqṣūṣ al-janāḥ (lit., he has his janāḥ — wing — clipped), really means, he lacks the power to do a thing (LL.), which also shows that janāḥ is used for power in Arabic. In the immaterial beings called angels who are created from light (nūr), and in whom therefore a material janāḥ cannot be thought of, it is simply the symbol of a power which is speedily brought into action.