Обсуждение:Микаиль

Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān / Michael

An angelic being, Michael (Ar. Mīkāl; also Mīkaʾīl; Mīkāʾil; Mīkaʾil) is mentioned by name only once in the Qurʾān (Mīkāl, q 2:98) in a verse affirming belief in God's angels (including Gabriel; see angel;¶ gabriel ) and apostles (see messenger ) as a requirement of faith (q.v.) for the community of believers ( muʾminīn, see belief and unbelief; community and society in the qurʾān). The role of Michael, however, is elaborated in ḥadīth and qurʾānic interpretation (see ḥadīth and the qurʾān; exegesis of the qurʾān: classical and medieval). This angel, whose ontological status seems to be (along with Gabriel) higher than that of other angels, appears in several types of literature in the Islamic world: the traditional histories of Muḥammad and the prophets (see sīra and the qurʾān; prophets and prophethood) as well as cosmological, mystical and eschatological literature (see cosmology; eschatology; ṣūfism and the qurʾān).

Many versions of Muḥammad's night journey (al- isrāʾ) and ascension (q.v.) to the throne (al- miʿrāj, see throne of god ), based on q 17:1, describe Michael and Gabriel as appearing to Muḥammad, preparing him for his journey. Al-Ṭabarī's (d. 310/923) narrative has Gabriel asking Michael to bring a basin of water from Zamzam so that Gabriel can purify the Prophet's heart (q.v.; Tafsīr, ad q 17:1). Gabriel cuts open the Prophet's chest, washes his heart three times with the three (successive) basins of water brought by Michael, removing all malice and inserting the qualities of gentleness, knowledge (see knowledge and learning ), faith, certitude and submission. This sūra serves as a basis for the Islamic belief in the Prophet's protection from sin (see impeccability ). Michael also figures in versions of the “tales of the prophets” ( qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ) literature. In a story clearly meant as a teaching on the virtue of trust in God alone ( tawakkul, see trust and patience; fear; piety), Abraham (q.v.) refuses the aid of all the archangels, including Michael, who visited him when he was cast into the fire (q.v.) by Nimrod (q.v.).¶ Michael is also credited with giving aid to the faithful Muslims during the battle of Badr (q.v.).

The medieval cosmographer al-Qazwīnī (d. 682/1283) uses Qurʾān, ḥadīth and later anecdotes to describe fourteen kinds of angels (ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt in Damīrī, Ḥayāt, i, 94-107). According to al-Qazwīnī, Michael is charged with providing nourishment for bodies (see food and drink ) and knowledge for souls (see soul ). He stands at the “swelling sea” ( q 52:6) in the seventh heaven (see heaven and sky ) and, if he were to open his mouth, the heaven would fit within it like a mustard seed in the ocean. Al-Qazwīnī also quotes a ḥadīth in which Muḥammad declares that “every prophet has two viziers from the inhabitants of heaven and two from the inhabitants of earth; my two from heaven are Gabriel and Michael.”

Saʿīd al-Dīn Farghānī (d. ca. 700/ 1300) expands on Ibn ʿArabī's (d. 638/ 1240) discussion of angels in the Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, connecting the archangels to four fundamental attributes of God: life (q.v.), knowledge, will and power (see Murata, Angels; see also god and his attributes; power and impotence). Michael manifests will, having been placed in charge of distributing the formal and supra-formal sustenance upon which continued existence depends. This sustenance includes spiritual food, such as knowledge and understanding, imaginary food, such as position and honor, and sensory food, such as the bounties (see blessing; grace) of the earth (q.v.).

Eschatological literature includes Michael in a number of narratives. The Kitāb Aḥwāl al-qiyāma describes God commanding the stages of the final annihilation of the created order (see creation; apocalypse), affirming the qurʾānic assertion that all will perish but the face of God (q.v.; q 28:88; 55:26-7);¶ among the last to perish is Michael (along with the angel of death, Isrāfīl; see death and the dead ; for references to the Kitāb Aḥwāl al-qiyāma, see Smith and Haddad, Islamic understanding, 71, 81). Some narratives have Michael and Gabriel operating the balance, the mīzān, the principle of justice, upon which the good and bad deeds of individuals will be weighed (see good deeds; evil deeds; justice and injustice; weights and measures; instruments). Although mentioned only once in the Qurʾān, Michael's pairing with Gabriel provided the basis for his (exalted) status in later literature.

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Bibliography

Primary

al-Farghānī, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Muntahā l-madārik, 2 vols., Cairo 1876, i, 51-2, 67-71

Ibn al-ʿArabī, Muḥyī l-Dīn, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. A. ʿAfīfī, Beirut 1966, 50-1

id., al-Futūḥāt al-makkiya, 4 vols., Beirut 1968, ii, 61

Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ

Kitāb Aḥwāl al-qiyāma, Ger. trans. M. Wolff, Muhammedanische Eschatologie, Leipzig 1872 (The Kitāb is an adaptation of Imām ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Aḥmad al-Qāḍī's [prob. 11th cent.] Daqāʾiq al-akhbār fī dhikr al-janna wa-l-nār [Eng. trans. ʿĀ. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, The Islamic book of the dead, Norwich, UK 1977])

al-Qazwīnī, Zakariyyā, ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt, in Damīrī, Ḥayāt, Cairo 1954, i, 94-107

Suyūṭī, al-Ḥabāʾik fī akhbār al-malāʾik, ed. M. ʿĀshūr, Cairo 1990, 29-30

Ṭabarī, Tafsīr

Secondary

C. Glasse, The concise encyclopedia of Islam, San Francisco 1989

Horovitz, ku, 243

S. Murata, Angels, in S.H. Nasr (ed.), Islamic spirituality. Foundations, New York 1987, 324-44

J. Smith and Y. Haddad, The Islamic understanding of death and resurrection, Albany 1981

A.J. Wensinck, Mīkāl, in ei2, vii, 25

Cite this page

Webb, Gisela, “Michael”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Consulted online on 07 January 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQSIM_00281>

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