The existence of angels have long been debated.  But in different scriptures of different religions, angels have always been mentioned.  They are commonly identified to be messengers of God.  Their existence has been first recorded ever since the Greek and Mesopotamian civilizations.  These winged creatures were later on, were no longer messengers.  The become protectors and guardians of humans. Angels have been perceived, described and named in different ways in different religions. But even so, they seen to be unified in one thought.  That angels existed to enrich the spirituality and lives of people.

Christian

For Christian belief, angles have been created by God before creating the universe and mankind.  They are messengers that act on matters that are very important for spirituality, like the annunciation of Mary and the resurrection of Christ. They serve as guardians, protectors and helpers of God.

Angels would frequently appear as human beings.  Unlike to what is commonly known, angels are not cute babies with wings.  According to the Bible, angels during the annunciation of Mary were described by the shepherds as adults.  While, on the Christ’s tomb, the women met two men and informed them of the resurrection of Christ.  They are often bathed with light that make it difficult to look at them directly and define their exact features.

There are also some Christian traditions citing that we are assigned with our angels on a specific ritual, like baptism.  But theologians quite agree that the dead and their spirits do not necessarily become angels.  There are some who believed that those who died and lived a righteous life would become angels in the afterlife, but there are nothing mentioned in the Bible about this.

Islam

Muslims also believed in angels. Actually they have archangels that they believed in:  Archangel Gabriel who delivered the message of the Qu’ran to Muhammad, Archangel Michael who is said responsible for rain, thunder and rewards to good people on Earth, Archangel Raphael who’s responsibility is to announce the arrival of Judgement Day, and the Angel of Death who separates the body and the soul on the time of death.

Latter Day Saints (Mormons)

Latter-Day Saints accept that angels are for real.  They are here to be a messenger and at the same time make sure that the work of the Lord is followed and implemented on Earth.  Angels are prominently mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants which play a major role in the construction of Mormon belief.

Latter-day Saints believed that angels are actually participating in daily tasks.  They are not only supernatural beings who appear from time to time, but they exist along with the people.

Hindu

Hindus take what cannot be seen as a very serious and important matter.  They would believe that every tree or river crossing is a home for spirits.  In India, they have what we would call deva or devata, they are referred to as the “shining one” of locals. Hindi scriptures would say that there are about 33 million devas in existence.

For Hindu, the Divinity and the spirituality behind these angels are more important that the angels themselves.  They would believe that devas are only manifestations of a higher and supreme being.

Judaism

The same in Christians, Hebrew describes angels to be the messengers of God.  Not only are they messengers but also the implementer of God’s will.  All angels owe their existence to God since they were created by God.

Their appearance is not necessarily like a human being. They can assume likeness to humans, but otherwise they are still divine.  They also believed that angels can sit, walk, speak Hebrew and fly.  Hebrew Bible frequently mentions the angels in its books.

 

Faithful Messengers of Different Faiths

There’s a lot of angel imagery hanging around in out modern world. Angels on greeting cards, commercials, movies, and television shows. Some of them are really hokey and reaching for it, but some are actually pretty good depictions of them. There are some depictions that actually push the limits of what some consider as appropriate, Supernatural’s rather uncaring Castiel for one. There’s actually some pretty good reasons from departing from what most people see as angels being Micheal Langdon-like figures of cheap salvation.

Let’s be pretty clear: angels aren’t exactly unique to the Christian faith. Christianity is based on Judaism and it also shares roots Islam. Angels have been mentioned in the Bible’s Old Testament and the Hebrew Faith is pretty much based on the Old Testament, with the prophet Daniel having the honor of being the person who has the most dealings with them; although they were briefly mentioned in the stories of Jacob and Lot.

Elohim is what the Jews called angels and they’re actually what early Christians based their belief in angels on. Popular angels Gabriel, Raphael and Michael have their roots in Jewish literature. It’s pretty safe to say that the early Christians, the core group of which were converted Jews, co-opted quite a bit of this imagery into their own beliefs.

Christianity, the faith most associated with angels, has angels a-pleny. Some theologians believe that some were actually made up out of the blue to correspond with a particular idea or theme, but nonetheless, most Christians still believe in them. The New Testament pretty much has a whole army of them marching through – announcing Christ’s birth to Mary, Joseph, and random shepherds, angels at Christ’s tomb on his resurrection and various other tales where they helped apostles escape imprisonment.

Christianity, with its large and early dominance, also has the honor of having a multitude of depictions of angels ranging from mosaics to stained-glass to sculpture. Even today’s modern icons of angels are pretty much Christian-based – who can forget Micheal Langdon’s classic Highway to Heaven and the more recent Touched by an Angel starring Roma Downey.

Not to be outdone, Islam has its own share of angelic beings – they are a cousin faith to Christianity after all and actually have a surprising similarity in angelic beliefs. One of the six basic beliefs in Islam is the belief in angels or Malaekah, which pretty much means if you don’t believe in them then your faith isn’t exactly up to snuff. We can see also see the appearance of the popular trio of angels: Gabriel as Jibril, Michael as Mikaaiyl, and Raphael as Israfil. However, angels in Islam are viewed pretty differently – all angels have no free will and were created expressly to serve God.

Zoroastrianism and the Bahá’í faith also share a belief in angels, although Zoroastrianism’s belief probably developed around the same time as that of Judaism’s. The ancient faith had a dozen angel-like figures who were representatives of Mazda, the Supreme God, though they were more like his limbs rather than his creations.

Bahá’í is a fairly new religion and combines several belief systems into one, emphasizing that all faiths had a similar underlying component: the love of God. It’s no wonder that it managed to gain angel figures – though these are people who have been totally embraced by God that they have overcome their human frailties and now are more spirit than human.

As you can see, angels aren’t just a Christian monopoly. They can be seen in all faiths and sizes. So you’ll always be sure that an angel’s got your back.

 

Allah’s Servants: Angels in Islam

It maybe surprising to some but the idea of angels isn’t exactly unique to the Christian religious tradition. That wouldn’t surprise religious scholars, of course. They know that Islam and Judaism share the same roots and those roots have some pretty noticeable appearances by angels. Islam’s angels, however, are significantly different from their Christian and Jewish cousins.

Islamic angelic tradition is pretty sparse. This is because, unlike Christian and Jewish religious scholars, Islamic theologians do not consider the study of angels as an important topic. In their opinion, if the Qu’ran does not directly talk about a particular subject, there’s no need to study it. Of course, there’s a hierarchy, but they are of the belief that it’s none of their business. Why worry about something that’s not broken after all? Besides, angels have no free will – they do everything that God commands, their supernatural powers focused on their goal.

There are, of course, several angels named in Islamic tradition, each accorded their duties by God. Some of them are actually quite familiar. Jibril is Gabriel, transliterated to Arabic, of course. His job is to be God’s voice to his prophets. He was the one who delivered the Qu’ran in its entirety to the prophet Muhammad and this has made him a pretty honored angel. Another familiar angel is Mikaaiyl or Michael as we know him.

Instead of being Heaven’s general, in Islam, he is the angel of mercy, dispenser of rain, a very big thing when you’re living in the desert. He’s also in charge of the just reward of virtuous people, a long way from the demon slayer of Christian tradition. The name Israfil sounds unfamiliar, but just take out that initial “is” and you get Raphael. He’s got the dubious honor of blowing his trumpet that ends the world on Judgement Day.

Of course, there are some original angels among the bunch named in the Qu’ran and in the Hadith, the oral stories about Muhammad. Probably the most famous is Malak al Maut, the Angel of  Death, though popular tradition calls him Azrael, which is strange considering he isn’t even named in the Qu’ran. His job, if it wasn’t obvious enough from his title, is pretty much to take the souls of people at death to be judged. Other angels mentioned in the Qu’ran are Maalik, the guardian of Hell, and Ridwan, the keeper of Heaven. Note that Maalik is not a fallen angel. Islamic tradition states that angels cannot fall because since they do not have free will, they cannot rebel. Maalik’s there because Allah wants him to make sure that no one escapes. He stays there with nineteen other angels to make sure that sinners receive their well-deserved punishment. Kiraamun and Kaatibeen double-team to record all the good and bad deeds a person has done, while another pair, Munkar and Nakir interview them in the afterlife about it.

As is typical of angel imagery, most Islamic sources describe angels by their wings, though some of them can be overkill. Two to four wings is the usual count, but Gabriel and Michael are said to have thousands of wings sprouting from their back, signifying their power and position. Some aren’t even human in appearance – 70 thousand headed angels are said to sing praises to Allah in Heaven.

All in all, you can see how different Islam views its angels. It’s like looking at a weird fun house mirror – there’s a certain familiarity that we can almost recognize, but there’s a telling difference in the way we see things.