The Angels

The second thing Muslims believe - and the one nobody explains.

Wings. Robes. A figure on a Christmas card. Most people arrive at Islam carrying a picture of angels they never chose, and it gets in the way of what the Qur'an actually says.

What it says is stranger, and far more interesting. Beings made of light, who do not eat, sleep, or disobey. Two who write down every word you speak, under rules weighted heavily in your favour. Guardians who change shift at dawn. One who returns the prayer you make for someone else, and asks that the same be given to you.

The Angels is a short, plain introduction to what Muslims believe about the angels - written for the reader in their first year, and for anyone returning to the basics properly. It says which beliefs come from the Qur'an, which from authenticated hadith, and which are folklore that has attached itself to the faith.

No Arabic required. No prior reading assumed.

Second edition, revised and reset. Book Nineteen of The New Muslim Companion - a series of twenty books for the new Muslim, the returning Muslim, and the curious reader: plain English, no Arabic assumed, honest about where scholars differ.