ISLAM & SPIRITUALISM: What are Angels ???

It is universally known, based on these sources, that God created the angels to carry out His orders and transmit the messages that pertain to human beings. Angels are honored, subtle beings created from light who serve their Lord. They exemplify the qualities of perfection, obedience, and dedication. They can take any form they like at any time and place. They carry unlimited miraculous powers through which they can reach anyone in the blink of an eye to help and to heal, to serve and to console, to love and to be loved.

Angels take any form they wish in the physical world. As crystal water takes the form of the cup in which it is poured, angels can take the form of any creation which they visit. They do not retain their full original form of light when they are sent to human beings: "Say: If there were in the earth angels walking secure, We had sent down for them from heaven an angel [without change] as messenger" (17:95). Angels can come as birds, as human beings, or as a form of light like a rainbow adorning the sky. They have a mind and a heart, but no will and no desire other than to serve and obey God. They are never too proud to obey Him.

Angels worship day and night without fatigue. They do not need to sleep, as their eyes never tire. They know no heedlessness. Their attention never wavers. Their food is glorification of God, their drink is to sanctify and to magnify Him. Their intimacy is in calling their Lord through hymning and singing His praise. Their enjoyment is to serve Him. They are devoid of any and all physiological restraints. They suffer no mood-changes.

Angels inhabit Paradise and the seven heavens. They worship more than human beings because they came before them and they have greater and more powerful faculties than they. They are more pious than human beings because they are innocent and unable to fall into mistakes or wrongdoings. They never ask forgiveness for themselves but always for human beings. This shows us how much they care for us and to what extent God created them to look after us. God made them our guardians because a guardian is more perfect than the one he guards.

Angels are more knowledgeable than human beings. The teacher, again, is better than the student. Their knowledge is of two kinds: intellectual and traditional. "Intellectual" means here: "of the essence of reality" or "of the heart." "Traditional" means: "revealed and translated down from above."

Intellectual knowledge is a must, such as knowledge about God and His attributes. It is impossible for angels, the prophets, and pious people to fail to possess it. They have no excuse in failing to know it. The knowledge that is not obligatory is the way in which God has created the wonders of creation, such as knowledge of the Throne, of the Pen, of Paradise, Hell and Heavens. In addition there is the knowledge of the different kinds of angels, human beings, the inhabitants of the earth on the ground, under the ground, in the air, and under the sea. In the latter kind of knowledge angels are undoubtedly more versed than human beings. This is because they were created long before them: angels accompanied the entire process of creation of the universes as well as that of human beings. They are also more familiar with that knowledge because of their God-given vision and hearing. But such knowledge is only attainable to those who have purified their heart and vision among human beings.

As for traditional knowledge, it is the prophetic knowledge that cannot be known by human beings without benefit of revelation. Only angels are able to bring that kind of knowledge to them. They were indeed the intermediary between God and human beings in that respect. Furthermore, it is possible that they are the continuous intermediaries of the events of the Last Day, after having been those of past and present events up to the Last Prophet, Muhammad, Peace be upon him. They are knowledgeable in the traditions that particularly regard them and with which God has entrusted them. That is the reason why angels are far more knowledgeable than human beings and carry six kinds of perfect attributes:

They are messengers from the divine presence;

are noble in God's sight;

They have been empowered by God with a power rendering them capable of pure obedience;

are well-regarded and firmly established in the Divine Presence;

They are obeyed in the earthly world;

are trustworthy in receiving, keeping, and delivering the revelation.

The perfect state of human beings can no doubt never be achieved until the angelic power is linked with it. By God's permission, angels monopolize that angelic power which enlightens any human individual that connects with it. The perfection of human beings, therefore, depends on the capacity to annihilate the human soul in the crucible of the angels. The conclusion of this process is described in the Koranic verse: "Thou soul in complete rest and satisfaction! Return unto thy Lord, accepted and accepting! Enter thou among my servants (angels), and enter thou my Garden!" (89:27-30)

According to that verse, God causes the spirit of human beings to enter the throng of the angels first, then Paradise. A condition of entering Paradise is to receive angelic greetings and revelation, at which time one enters it as a spirit endowed with angelic attributes. God then makes of such spirits messengers for His continuous creations; they are granted the happiness of living in Paradise and enjoying the sight of their Lord. God made the greetings of angels necessary for human beings when their spirits enter into the angelic power. This is to elevate them to a higher state and produce for them a great happiness. Therefore, without the heavenly input of angels, the spirit of human beings cannot reach everlasting happiness.

The contribution of the angels to human happiness is derived from their perfection. Angels are free from any kind of anger, illusion, imagination, or delusion. This characteristic gives them the power to be in the divine presence and under God's divine light. It is because of these shortcomings that human beings are prevented from being in the divine presence. Because perfection resides only in the state of reaching the divine presence, only angels can properly be said to have the attribute of perfection among created beings.

The spiritual dimensions of angels have different aspects. The angel is a sublime luminescence. His knowledge is perfect and complete because he knows the secret of the unseen and is acquainted with the hidden secrets of creation. His knowledge is real, active, and continuous. The action of the angel is genuine because angels are committed to serve and their commitment is perfectly carried through.

Angels inhabit the seven moving planets, the polestar, and all the fixed stars of every o ther galaxy. Orbits are like their bodies whose hearts are the planets. The movements of these planets in their orbits is the principle of the changes on this planet earth. The movements of angels in this universe has an influence on the states of human beings on this earth. From the movements of these angels, by God's order, the connection is made between the movements of galaxies. The transmission of signals even millions of light-years away from us affect the states of human nature. The heavenly world thus always holds sway over the earthly world.

Everything is created in hierarchies and everything is connected to what is above it. Human beings always look up, not down. The desire for betterment is built into them at both the material and the spiritual levels. Everything in creation always looks up to that model. The principle of the heavenly influences is founded upon this: the effect of the upward on the downward and the aspiration of the downward to the upward.

God created the sun from the angelic light. It allows this world to see everything of the material objects that were previously wrapped in darkness. Without that light of the sun nothing can be seen. The result of the creation of light is the formation of day and night. Yet the sun is always shining day and night and its light never extinguished. Because the earth turns on its axis the changes are felt between the two states. The earth makes the sunlight appear to be extinguished. Similarly, angelic power always shines upon the earth. But the revolution of human beings around their desires create a day and a night in their heart: one side shines and the other is in darkness.

Since the moon has no light of its own, it takes its light from the sun. The latter always shines and reflects on the moon like a mirror so that it appears like a shining body. In the same way human beings, though they are inscribed by an angelic power, darken themselves through the oppression of their ego. Never theless, they are in a position to be always shining, and shining far more radiantly than the moon.

The moon possesses nothing of the light of the sun by itself; it only reflects at best. The main power belongs to the sun. Similarly, God has placed and organized in every orbit of the heavens, skies, galaxies, planets, and Paradises a creation differing from one orbit to ano ther. They act like mirrors that reflect the light of the angels from the divine presence. These celestial phenomena extend that angelic light, mirror-like, for the benefit of human beings and other creations. That light is "made subject" (musakhkhara) to whatever is needed by creation. That light is the source of the angelic power, the very angelic power itself. Indeed, it is the substance of goodness and benefits every place of creation.

As the angels move in the divine presence, their lights move in and upon the orbits which God created to be governed by them. Angelic powers affect the movements and contents of these orbits. Since these orbits reflect angelic lights upon earth, we see how human beings can in turn be affected by the movements of orbits in their lives. Angelic lights also affect feelings, moods, manners, and actions.

The elements and qualities of human beings and other created objects on earth vary according to their respective distances from the sources of angelic power. Hence we find differences between human beings, even though their bodies are similar. This is because they differ in respect to their connections with angels. The differences are not really in bodies but in the human beings' spiritual attributes and characteristics.

Human beings carry from childhood ei ther the characteristics of goodness and holiness, or those of evil and wrongdoing. That is a very real picture of the spiritual "dress" of human beings and their hierarchies: one receives an angelic power while the other does not. This is what makes one better than the other, just as diamonds excel emeralds, which are better than sapphire, which is better than rubies. All these are rare jewels but they vary in exellence. For all these jewels are more precious than gold. Gold is more precious than silver and silver is more precious than iron. The latter ends up as scrap while the others are always kept as valuable elements.

Light is better than darkness. The transparent is better than the opaque. The subtle is better than the dense. The enlightened person is better than the one in darkness. The beautiful is better than the ugly. The one calling to goodness is better than the one calling to evil. The shy, courageous, generous, patient one is better than the one who carries hatred, enmity, darkness, evil, greed, and stinginess. All the above-mentioned characteristics depend on the nearness or farness of their respective bearers to the sources of angelic power.

Therefore, in this world the human spirit is a sign pointing dimly to the perfection of the higher world. It is like the light of the candle in relation to the light of the sun, or a small drop in relation to the ocean. Angelic light is the means of visibility of light on earth, both material and spiritual. We know about the sun from its rays. Similarly, we know about God from the creations of the heavens and the earth, the perception of which is brought about by the shining of angelic light upon them and their expression through revelation by that light. There is no darkness for us deeper than the non-existence of angelic light. There is no light of God more expressive for us than the angelic light. The appearance of each single thing is the result of this light, just as the existence of each thing proceeds from its existence. In this way God preserves creation through the light of the angels.

Another way to describe the way the human spirit signifies the heavenly world is through the analogy of the solar eclipse. If a portion of the sun is eclipsed you can see the sun in a cupful of water. The veil of the eclipse is the angelic light. It makes possible the appearance of the source of light. Human beings are themselves like a veil or eclipse of the angelic light. That is, they eclipse the angelic light which eclipses the light of God. Thus you can see the attributes of the Creator through His wonderful creations. This is the meaning of the Prophet's saying: "Think of the creations of God. Do not think of His essence."

The spirits of human beings can be described as atoms inside the heavenly world and their bodies as the houses of their spirits. Now, the house has a state and the inhabitant of the house has a state distinct from the first state. It is clear to us that the inhabitant is more honorable than the house, for the greatness of the house depends on its inhabitant.

These human spirits are an actual part of the angelic spirits. That is why the condition of entry into Paradise for the soul of a dying person is that it be accepted into the angelic realm first, as we have said. That is also why the human spirit is qualified to receive transmission from the angelic powers, as the satellite dish is made to receive transmission from the main station.

To the extent that these individuals are connected to the angelic powers, they become undoubtedly more and more important to other human beings on earth. However, human bodies remain a compound of many different elements mixed together. The bodies of angels, on the other hand, are only made of light from the divine presence. It is important to know that this difference never goes away in the material world. That is why the angels prefer to support the spirits of the bodies of prophets. For the prophetic spirits have elevated their bodily receptacles to the point where they acquire all manners of gnosis and spiritual states. These in turn enable them to become beacons of light spreading heavenly gifts and carrying God's message to His creation. All these relations between angels and prophets, saints and pious people, obtain by God's will and His permission.

Angels are honored because of their knowledge and status as inhabitants of Paradise and recipients of God's satisfaction. They always look at their Lord and seeing nothing but their Lord. As we said previously, the inhabitant is more important than the body it inhabits. This is evident in the fact that the Prophets are more precious than their mothers, although they inhabited their mothers' wombs. The status goes to the prophets, not to their mothers, because of the prophets' greater connection to the angelic powers. As an illustration we may say that the spirit of Jesus is better than his mother's body, and similarly that the spirit of the Messenger of God (Muhammad) is better than his mother's body.

When God created creation, He said: "Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, the Beneficent; with Whom none can converse. On the day when the angels and the Spirit stand arrayed, they speak not, saving him whom the Beneficent alloweth and who speaketh right." (78:37-38) God shows in these words that the angels are from among His greatest creations. They stand second to him and they are His messengers of revelation sent to His prophets. He has honored them by letting them reveal the astounding knowledge in two ways: spiritually and phenomenally. He reveals it spiritually by letting prophets bring such knowledge in heavenly books and thereby guide others to the faith and honorable manners characteristic of the servants of God. He reveals it phenomenally by inspiring the hearts of humankind to investigate and discover the visible world and accumulate empirical data. Hence, they achieve the most sophisticated technology that can possibly be reached by them in every given century.

This opens another window into understanding the role of angels among human beings. Scientists are actually using the energies that radiate from the angels on this earth to build up technological knowledge. By use of angelic energy they achieve a perfect mode of living: educating, helping, and healing those in need.

Spiritual people use the angelic power as a path of discovery for different purposes. They use this power in the knowledge that it is special grant from God. He gives them a sacred and noble trust that has the potential to govern countless bodies other than their own. This ability is defined as " the angelic power in them." These spiritual people are known in Islamic spirituality as abdal: "changed ones." They can move from one place to another in the blink of an eye. They can live at one and the same time in the first and the second place. They can live in many other places as well and yet maintainn the same appearance as their original self. This is called ubiquity. Famous abdal in sufi history are al-Junayd, Abd al-Qadir Jilani, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Muhyiddin ibn Arabi, Mansur al-Hallaj.

Sufi scholar-saints such as these, also known as knower-saints or gnostics (`arif, pl. `arifun), have confirmed that there is another world between that of human bodies on earth and that of angels, and have called that world the imaginal world. This imaginal world is more subtle than the earthly world and yet denser than the angelic world. This characteristic of the imaginal world allows the abdal to travel within that dimension in the way that we have mentioned.

The method used by these spiritual people can be described as a self-riddance of the trappings of gravity. Everything yearns for its origin and the body yearns for earth which is pulled by gravity. The spirit, however, yearns to the heavenly realm which pulls upwards. These abdal were capable of balancing the opposite elements earth/heaven, or upward/downward, within themselves in such a way that the element earth which once dominated over the other is now dominated by the other and follows it.

The intellect dominates the conscience to the extent that some have said that the conscience is in the prison of the mind. If the intellect is of the destructive type, that person will use knowledge and self-discovery to hurt instead of to heal. Laser beams can be used for destruction as well as healing, but they are the same rays in either case. If that intellect does not balance properly between right and wrong, then it will be using the knowledge it acquires in an inappropriate way. If, however, the conscience dominates and plays a greater role, it will at one point dominate over the mind and ensure that it is controlled by the yearning to do good. That is best for himself and for humanity at large, for that person will be constantly motivated to use his knowledge to help and to serve others.

This is the case in the body that imprisons the spirit: the person who can balance the two poles within will be qualified as a wise one. Further down the road, if that person can progress more in the heavenly direction, he can use his spirit to dominate the body and acquire those powers that cut through the fetters of gravity. This enables him to use the spirit to move the mass of the body, not only his own but those of others as well. For such a spirit, when it connects with its angelic power, will become a form of energy and light. These entities can move mass at higher speeds than the mind can conceive.

This is how these pious people known as saints or abdal were known to appear at any critical time and any place that they liked. Thus, they help people and teach them. The ubiquitous appearances of one's person in many places are like reflected images of the same one body through the mirror of an angelic power. This mirror produces thous ands upon thousands of pictures at the same time, except that those pictures are every bit as real as the original which is being reflected.

God will create an angel called al-Natiq, " the Uttering Angel,"out of His own dhikr (remembrance) of Himself for every one of these types of realized people. That angel is instructed to inhabit the heart of the pious servant of God. His duty is to continuously inform that servant of his duties and obligations in each twenty-four hour cycle, besides the known duties of worship. This link of information establishes a further possibility for the saint of reaching other human beings through the power of his heart.

Furthermore, God will enable him to hear the minutest cell in his body. The angel speaks to him and explains why God created it, what physical purpose it serves in the body, what can poison it, and what can heal it. Moreover, it will inform him how to heal himself from any disorder of his body, and enable him to heal others through his acquired angelic energy.

The saint's angelic power thus enables him to converse freely with every cell in his body as if he were speaking to another person sitting in the same room. This ability will open for him the understanding that the human body to which is joined an angelic power is greater and even less fathomable than this entire universe. Indeed, each cell is a world unto itself. It is inhabited by all kinds of infinitesimally small spiritual laborers. Their function is to run the life support system of that cell. A factory needs all kinds of instruments and machines, labor and managers to keep it alive and protect it from any kind of error and destruction. In the same way, scientifically speaking, the cell has its own defense system against any invader from outside: that protection is produced by the tiny angelic staff whom God created for that purpose.

As the saint becomes more and more perceptive in his inner hearing and speaking, he will concentrate his entire power. He then places it in his heart exclusively of any other focal point. This process can be compared to the concentration of light which does not burn if scattered over the paper, but burns if reassembled into one ray under a magnifying glass. At that time the saint will be able to send that gathered angelic light out of his heart in order to reach any human being on this earth and any heavenly being above.

The continuous build-up of this angelic power in the saint's heart allows him to witness heavenly sights and acquire heavenly knowledge. This continues until the day comes when an indescribable light appears in the horizon of his heart. This light expands the heart to an infinitesimal degree. It removes from it all the remaining veils that up to this point prevented it from reaching the realities of the heavenly world. Meanwhile, God orders the angels, each one in his state, duty, and position, to inform that pious individual of three things: the reason of his creation, his position in the divine scheme, and his duty within creation. Every single one of these angels will thereupon adorn that pious person. They will endow him with a kind of gift. At a certain point, he will himself become "dilated" which, in the language of mystics, means that he will be clad in a subtle body of light, the same light that characterizes angelic beings. That body is not visibly transparent to other human beings. Nevertheless, they can feel the light that emanates from the saint's body and be attracted to him as a magnet attracts other elements.

When people are attracted to this Knower-saint, however, he must not show that he is different from others and pretend to be higher than them. He must be an instrument of this angelic power. Being proud puts him in the same category as Satan. Although the latter possesed an angelic power he fell from heaven because of pride and that power was taken away from him. The saint must only use angelic power in a constructive way, for the happiness and benefit of human beings. He must do so without asking for anything in return from those he helps. Angels never ask anything for themselves, rather, they always ask for the sake of human beings.

Children have not been involved in the low desires that strip the heart of its angelic power. In fact, they are at the rank of saints although they themselves are unaware of it, much less their parents and relatives. The child that declares that he has visions and sights is telling the truth; whereas the parent who hears the child's accounts sifts them through the grid of the mind and does not consider them factual. "I heard music," "an angel came to me," "people came and disappeared," "they brought me gifts," are frequent utterances of children who blurt out these statements as the event occurs. The child cannot control himself, however, the saint keeps all these events hidden from others.

An intermediary state of knowledge exists between that of children and knower-saints which may be called a "premature sainthood." In that state many people experience visitations and sights and sounds which may be few and far in-between, or on the contrary frequent. These happenings seem discontinous and even perhaps incoherent, like someone being addressed in a foreign language and struggling to underst and. The reason is that those experiencing them have not achieved the state of purity that permits them to converse fluently with their angelic power. Like children, they cannot help revealing these experiences as soon as they occur or shortly thereafter in ways that may or may not make sense to them or to others.

The happiness that these retellers of angelic visitations feel in telling others of their experiences is like the happiness of a child who receive candy. A child will become happy with its candy and forget about a diamond. Nevertheless the goal remains the diamond. It is important for persons to always re-direct themselves towards that goal: the continous connection of their heart with angelic power at every moment of their life.

Each human spirit evolves from the point when it was present and testified before God on the Day of promises, to the reality of earthly life then to the life of the grave then to eternal life. This evolution consists in changes from one image to another. The garment the spirit takes in the fourth month of its life in the womb is kept until death. Another dress is put on in the grave, which also deteriorates. Finally, the spirit puts on the body of the hereafter. This body changes to an angelic body at the time it enters among the angels, as we have already mentioned in relation to the Koranic verse "Enter thou My servants."

That angelic body will keep on changing, continuously and forever, from one excellent dress to one even more excellent, according to God's infinite creation of the levels of Paradise. Each dress of paradise, when worn, opens a new level. When one sees this new level, he desires to attain it. He puts on this new garment by divine permission. And a resurrection from one level of Paradise to the next continues ad infinitum. This astonishing phenomenon shows the great extent of God's power of creation.

In every period of evolution from one dress to another prior to Paradise the individual can understand his surroundings and in what state he is. He will be living in that very state and experiencing it but he cannot understand the other states. A person is virtually imprisoned in the state he is in and cannot see any other state. On the other hand, the individual who reaches the full state of sainthood can understand everything from beginning to end. That is what differentiates the ordinary individual from the saint. A saint has already acquired the subtle body of light which enables him to see the past, present and future in one brief moment. Indeed, he can attain the knowledge of the souls from the moment they stood in the divine presence to the day they came to this world, entered the grave, were resurrected and stood before God again, and entered Paradise. This reality is expressed in the following prophetic tradition in which one of the Companions of the Prophet was asked by the latter to give those present a glimpse of his angelic vision:

Harith ibn La`man said: "Once I went to the Prophet and he asked me in what state I spent the day. I replied : "As a true believer." Then the Prophet asked me the state of my faith. I replied: "I see the throne of God and the people of Paradise helping each other, and the people of hell lamenting in hell. I see in front of me eight heavens and seven hells as clear as idol-worshipers see their idols. I can recognize each individual just like a miller can recognize wheat from barley. That is, who is to go to paradise, and who is to be found in hell. In front of me people are like fish and ants. Shall I stay silent or continue?" The Prophet told me to stop and say no more." [Abu Hanifah, "al-Fiqh al-Akbar"].

One of these accomplished saints in more recent times said:

"The angel continued:

'Your master can hear and see the image of every created object in this universe. In this universe, there is nothing but these created reflections. They represent angels, human beings, and every element, living and non-living; and all of them are praising their Lord. All creation, except human beings who did not reach the state of angelic vision, are given a knowledge that enable them to hear each other's praising and hymning in whatever orbit of space or existence they move. Everyone praises his Lord with his own attributes and in the words of his own language. God gives everyone the understanding of the other's language but not the permission to use it. He has to use his own language.'"

"I interrupted the angel:
- 'Even the inanimate elements can underst and the praising of others?'
- 'Yes, even they can underst and. A stone is inanimate to human eyes but it is a living and praising creation. Haven't you heard of those who heard the stones praising God in the presence of the Prophet and his Companion-saints?'"

"He continued:
'We angels have been created out of divine light, and we have been greatly honored! Yet we both admire and pity you, human beings, because you have been created in God's image. Haven't you heard the saying of the Prophet: 'God created Adam after his likeness'? We understand this to mean that human beings have been elevated to a rank where He honored them by allowing them to reflect His image. This honor has raised human beings to a very high level. That is why God said in the Holy Koran: 'Verily We have honored human beings, and We have carried them over the earth and over the sea' (17:70). These two bodies, earth and the ocean, here represent the external knowledge and the internal."

"Such honoring of human beings is chiefly represented by their face, and the head is the true center of gravity of human beings. For you cannot say that the perfect place denoted by the word 'likeness,' in God's creation of human beings, consists in this or that limb of the body, as they are all the same from one person to another. But every one has a different face and there lies God's likeness. That is why the Prophet scolded the man who struck another on the face and forbade the striking of the face of human beings, even in battle."

"When God wants to manifest Himself, He looks at His creation. His first attention goes to human beings because they resemble him. Those who resemble Him the most among them, are the saints; hence the Prophet said of them: 'They remind you of God.' We angels may speak to prophets alone, except for saints."

"We also pity you because human beings are unwilling to open themselves to attract the angelic power by which they reach the state of heavenly knowledge that is their inheritance. That makes us appear in your human form in varying shapes and degrees of light, in different places and to different ages of human life, to remind you that you have been honored with an angelic power and a divine likeness. Keep the likeness! Use the angelic power! It shall elevate you to that luminous station without which God said: 'Verily, those for whom God did not appoint light, they will never inherit light!' (24:40) and He said: 'Light upon light!' (24:35) declaring that the light of the heart's vision must be connected with the light of angelic power, ensuring success and guidance to all human beings. That light shall then appear over the entire human realm like a rising sun and a rising moon over all of creation, without ever setting. The light of this power, at that time, will make every individual like a moon, that is, a heavenly body that will reflect the original light for the rest of creation. By this light, this world will be preserved, the love of nature will rule the earth, and everyone will live in peace and love, swimming in the ocean of angelic beauty and harmony."

The angel spoke this, then he gave me the angelic greeting of peace and left.

source: ww.islam786.org/a

ISLAM & SPIRITUALISM

What are Angels ???

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