believers, that the angels were sent to help them in their struggle against the unbelievers, as in these verses: “When you sought the aid of your Lord, so He answered you: I will assist you with a thousand10 of the angels” (8:9); “Does it not suffice you that your Lord should help you with three thousand11 angels sent down” (3:124); while yet on a third field of battle the Muslims were promised the help of five thousand angels (3:125). The Holy Qur’ān itself explains why the angels were sent: “And Allāh made it only a good news for you and that your hearts might be at ease thereby” (3:126; 8:10). It was through the strengthening of the believers’ hearts that the angels worked (8:12).12 These angelic hosts were sent when the Muslims had to fight in defence against heavy odds, 300 against a thousand, 700 against three thousand, and 1,500 against 15,000. And on all three fields the Muslims were victorious and the unbelievers had to go back without attaining their objective.13 The strengthening of hearts through the angels is, therefore, a solid fact of history.

Angels as intermediaries in carrying out Divine punishment

Closely allied with this strengthening of the believers is the third function of the angels—that of executing Divine punishment against the wicked, because in the contest between the righteous and the wicked the punishment of the latter and the help of the former are identical. Often would those who sought to extirpate the truth by physical force say that if there were a God Whose messenger the Holy Prophet was, and if there were angels who could help his cause, why did they not come? “Why have not angels been sent down to us, or why do we not see our Lord?” (25:21). “They wait for naught but that Allāh should come to them in the shadows of the clouds with angels, and the matter has already been decided” (2:210). “Await they ought—but that the angels should come to them or that thy Lord’s command should come to pass” (16:33). “They wait not aught but that the angels should come to them or that thy Lord should come, or that some of the signs of thy Lord should come” (6:158).

To these demands, the Holy Qur’ān replies in the following words: “And on the day when the heaven bursts asunder with clouds, and the angels are sent down, as they are sent. The Kingdom on that day

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