Belief in angels? The second principle of Iman may seem out
of place in a society that envisions chubby cherubs delivering valentines, or the winged fairy-God-mothers of Disney movies.
Yet despite our modern tendencies to dismiss, trivialize, fantasize or commercialize angels, our collective fascination with
them is alive and well, as last week’s article on Angel Therapy in the Standard Freeholder clearly demonstrated.
New Age concepts of angels are similar to ancient belief systems that attribute
divine power and supernatural abilities to these heavenly creatures. Although Islam also accepts the divine nature of angels,
it strongly cautions against considering them as powers independent of God, and it discourages the unwise practice of trying
to access their energies outside of God’s larger moral and spiritual order, an order within which angels participate
as God’s servants.
Made of Allah’s light, angels are described in Islam as genderless
beings who engage in praising Allah, in implementing divine decrees and in helping maintain the harmonious functioning of
the universe. Having no free will, they are incapable of disobedience to God.
Angels are involved in the natural cycles of the earth. For example, the
Quran describes the water cycle both in perfect scientific detail and in connection to the activities of angels who bring
rain; it sees no contradiction between scientific explanations and the concept of angelic spiritual principles operating underneath
the cause-and-effect material world. Angels have the task of delivering the souls of unborn children into their mothers’
wombs (after the third month of pregnancy), protecting infants, and taking the souls of the dying out of their bodies.
According to Islam, every human being has two angels, one on each shoulder,
whose task is to write down our words and actions, in our ongoing record of deeds. Angels take our prayers to heaven and confer
blessing and protection from the Divine. Superior angels have special functions, such as Angel Gabriel (Jibraaeel) who brings
down revelations, including the Quran, and who delivered the soul of Jesus (peace be upon him) into his mother’s blessed
womb, without the act of human procreation.
As human beings tend to deify whatever is closest in view, Islam prohibits
the material representation of angels, either in pictures or statues, to prevent them from becoming objects of worship. Instead,
belief in angels is rooted within the larger, monotheistic belief in One God, whose Power encompasses and supports the entire
creation.
God, as the Creator, has set the universe in balance and maintains it according
to His divine pattern. Angels have an important role within this pattern, not only in helping to maintain the routine balance–the
laws of nature–but also as the agency God uses to interrupt the normal flow of nature: through unexpected miracles
(that science can never fully account for), or through the crushing blows of nature, which in Islamic cosmology, signal an
important warning for human society that it has violated God’s deeper laws of moral and spiritual truth.
Angels,
as a metaphysical reality, are forces of good, incapable of doing evil. Yet this does not mean that they can be invoked to
provide us with unconditional comfort, or to meet our demands. As part of God’s larger moral reality, they help to support,
protect, and guide us onto the right path, and warn us when we have strayed. Will we experience their presence as a source
of blessing, support, protection, or warning? Or ultimately punishment? The answer to this question is inescapably linked
to the moral choices we make in our own lives.
Barbara (Masumah) Helms
(Courtesy
of the Standard Freeholder, published under the title “Angels are Spirits of Purpose,” Sept.
16, 2006)
