Harut and Marut: Good Angels or Really Bad?

Harut and Marut in Their Forever Well (1703)

Do you think black magic is good?  In the Quran, two angels, Hārūt and Mārūt, used to teach black magic, to people in Babylon. They would teach magic spells intended to break up peoples' marriages.  The angels learned this magic from devils:

They followed what the devils used to recite in the reign of Sulaimān (Solomon); and it was not Sulaimān who became an infidel, but the devils did become infidels, teaching people magic, and what had been sent down to the two angels, Hārūt and Mārūt, in Babylon. And these two did not teach anyone without first having said (to him), “We are but a trial, so do not go infidel.” Then, they used to learn from them that with which they could cause separation between a man and his wife. But they were not to bring harm through it to anyone without the will of Allah. They used to learn what harmed them and did no good to them; and they certainly knew that he who buys it has no share in the Hereafter. And, indeed, vile is the thing for which they sold themselves away. If only they knew!

Quran 2:102, Usmani 

According to the Quran, these beings were angels [1]. Angels in Islam are beings who act in total obedience to Allah. They have no free will:

O you who believe, save yourselves and your families from a fire, the fuel of which is human beings and stones, appointed on which are angels, stern and severe, who do not disobey Allah in what He orders them, and do whatever they are ordered to do. Quran 66:6

Of the type of magic, Tafsir al Qurtubi says that, “People learned from the angels how to separate a man and his wife”.  The teaching of black magic was apparently meant to be a "test":

… They taught not any man without them saying by way of counsel ‘We are but a temptation a trial from God for people so that He may test them when they are taught it whoever learns it is a disbeliever but whoever renounces it he is a believer; do not disbelieve’ by learning it; if this person refused and insisted on learning it they would teach him. 

Tafsif al-Jalalayn on Quran 2:102

This Quran story has serious problems with it. In Islam, sorcery is serious sin.  Tafsir Ibn Kathir on 2:102 says that learning magic is kufr (unbelief), citing this authentic hadith that Abu Bakr Al-Bazzar recorded from `Abdullah:

Whoever came to a soothsayer or a sorcerer and believed in what he said, will have disbelieved in what Allah revealed to Muhammad.

Sahih al-Bukhari 6857, Book 86, Hadith 79 classes sorcery as one of the “seven great destructive sins”.  Practicing magic was punished with death:

Yahya related to me from Malik from Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Sad ibn Zurara that he had heard that Hafsa, the wife of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, killed one of her slave-girls who had used sorcery against her. She was a mudabbara. Hafsa gave the order, and she was killed. …

Book 43, Hadith 14 

The two angels were leading people into disbelief by tempting them into using black magic.  By learning black magic, people would become unbelievers. This is a bad look for Allah’s angels.

Ibn Kathir tries to cover for the Quran here. It claim that the angels didn't actually teach the magic.  The angels instead instructed prospective magicians to go to a separate place where the magic was being taught, by Satan.  But the Quran does not say this. 

It makes no sense for good angels to teach black magic. Is it good to teach others how to sin, how to do evil, how to disobey God? (For all sin is disobedience to God.) Is it good to teach someone how to rob a bank? No.

Hārūt and Mārūt's "test" was leading people astray. These angels were not good. They were at best "fallen angels". Another word for such creatures is demons. The Quran's angels are demons.

In the true scriptures, angels bring blessings and peace. When the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, he said, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." (Luke 1:30). To Mary, this angel says:

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 1:31-33

The angels revealed the Son of God, the one who would reign forever, even one who would "save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).

Muslim friends, come something better. In the true scriptures, it is written that "there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:10). Come to a God whose angels do not lead people astray. Come to a God whose angels rejoice when sinner turn to Him. Come to Jesus.

[1] In commentary Tafsif al Jalalayn of Quran 2:102, one account claims that these were merely men, but another account say they were angels. Tafsir al Qurtubi specifically says the claim that the sorcerers refer to "two kings" is weak. 

King Solomon: A Likely Story?

King Solomon and his Djinn

Let me tell you for a moment a story about my grandfather:

My grandfather had a field of workers.  One thing that grandpa loved to do was lean on his staff and watch over his workers as they worked in the field.  Sadly, one day while grandpa was leaning on his staff, he died.  

Grandpa died in an unlikely way.  Instead of falling over, he died fixed in a standing position leaning on his staff.  Because of this unlikely pose, his workers failed to notice that he died.  Days passed.  Grandpa’s body started to decompose and smell bad.  Yet nobody noticed.  Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months.  Still, nobody noticed.

Seeing grandpa still leaning on his staff, his workers kept working in the field.  Day and night, they kept working.  Frantically so.  No one would even take a break.  It was a torment for the workers.  

One day, a termite started eating through his staff.  Finally, after a year of grandpa’s dead corpse being propped up by his staff, the staff broke and the corpse fell to the ground.  

Grandpa's workers immediately noticed that grandpa was gone.  They could finally stop working and end their painful torment.  Had only they learned of his passing earlier, they would certainly have not suffered like this.

What do you think of this story?  I have to tell you something. This is not actually a story about my grandfather. This is a story about King Solomon.  The workers aren’t ordinary workers. They are djinn (i.e. genies). Solomon had apparently enslaved them, having had forced them to do his bidding using the magical ring that he wore.  

This story is in the Quran:

Then, when We decreed (Solomon's) death, nothing showed them of his death except a little work of the earth, which kept (slowly) gnawing at his staff: so when he fell down, the Jinns saw plainly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have tarried in the humiliating Penalty (of their Task). Quran 34:14, Yusuf Ali

The Islamic commentary of Tafsir Jalalayn on Quran 34:14 supplies the details to the story:

And when We decreed for him, for Solomon, death, in other words, [when] he died — he remained supported against his staff an entire year, while the jinn continued to toil in hard labour as was customary, unaware of his death, until [finally] when a termite ate through his staff, he fell to the ground [and was seen to be] dead — nothing indicated to them that he had died except a termite (al-ard is the verbal noun from uridat al-khashaba, passive verbal form, in other words, ‘it [the piece of wood] was eaten away by a termite [al-arada]’) that gnawed away at his staff (read minsa’atahu or minsātahu, replacing the hamza with an alif, meaning a ‘staff’, so called because [when describing it one would say] yunsa’u bihā, to mean it is used to repel or drive away [creatures]’). And when he fell down, dead, the jinn realised, it became apparent to them, that (an, is softened, in other words, annahum) had they known the Unseen — comprising what was hidden from them in the way of Solomon being dead — they would not have continued in the humiliating chastisement, [in] that hard labour of theirs, [in which they continued] as they supposed him to be alive, ... Tafsir al-Jalalayn on 34:14

These details are corroborated by Islamic commentary of Tafsir Ibn Kathir on 34:14.

Could you really believe that, for about a year, no-one noticed that Solomon had died standing? None of his family members or servants or Solomon's officials? No-one in Solomon's kingdom noticed? Do you think that no one approached King Solomon to speak with him? If the Quran were the words of God, do you think it would contain such a folk tale?

This story is not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible has nothing to do with magic rings, magic staffs, armies of birds, angels who teaching black magic, or talking ants. All of these made it into the Quran, though. Please Muslim friends, come to the Bible. Come and read about what is real. The real Jesus, of whom it is said:

Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68