34:40: "And on the day when He will gather them all together, He will say unto the angels: Did these worship you?"
43:53: "Why, then, have armlets of gold not been set upon him, or angels sent along with him?"
It is said that the word "angel" comes from the Latin "angelus," which is borrowed from the Greek "angelos." In Arabic the word is "malak" or "malaak," plural "malaa'ikat." The Arabic root verb "alaka," which means "to give a message," confirms the angel's etymological connection to the function of Messenger of God in the semitic languages.
The existence of angels is one of the pillars of belief in most religious traditions and that is the case in Islam also. God mentions the angels in the Holy Koran in more than ninety different places. They also occupy prominent places in the narrations of the Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon him, and the many accounts of saints and the pious men and women of the recent past and present. The following pages are an all-too-brief selection of some of the accounts and explanations that have reached us from those three sources.
The Koran says (2:285): "The Messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and so do the believers. Each one believeth in God and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. Grant us Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying." God thus orders every person to believe in His angels as an obligation parallel to that of believing in Himself, His Books, and His Messengers.
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