Harut & Marut

Indeed, those who are near your Lord are not prevented by arrogance from His worship, and they exalt Him, and to Him they prostrate.

[AL-A’RAAF Ch.7:V.206]

          It is great to be here again to write another entry. It is only because of Allah wills. I hope that all Allah will bless all these works (all the entries) and hope that other people can have the benefits from the entries. Almost a month I did not write an entry because of few problems. Busy with ramadhan, then to celebrate eid day. Last week my laptop had problem, so my routine delayed a bit.

          Today’s topic is about two angels that are very well known I think. Many people know their names and also a little knowledge about their story. The main objective here is I want to change the Muslims thought about these two angels. I want to eliminate all the bad stories or the false stories about them. I want to replace it with new knowledge. It is not new, but it just likes refreshing back the old one. I want to encourage all the Muslim to come back to Quran and Hadith with the authentic knowledge.

And they followed [instead] what the devils had recited during the reign of Solomon. It was not Solomon, who disbelieved, but the devils disbelieved, teaching people magic and that which was revealed to the two angels at Babylon, Harut and Marut. But the two angels do not teach anyone unless they say, "We are a trial, so do not disbelieve [by practicing magic]." And [yet] they learn from them that by which they cause separation between a man and his wife. But they do not harm anyone through it except by permission of Allah. And the people learn what harms them and does not benefit them. But the Children of Israel certainly knew that whoever purchased the magic would not have in the Hereafter any share. And wretched is that for which they sold themselves, if they only knew.

[AL-BAQARAH Ch.2:V.102]

          The above verse is just general story about the angels, Harut and Marut. In the Quran, only one verse telling story about them. There is no more verse that explains or completes the story. Allah tells the story generally and there is no hadith from Prophet Muhammad that explains about this verse. Actually this will not make us difficult, but it makes us easy. Only based on this verse we can solve the problems. Before I tell the true story, I will tell a bit on israelliyyat story first, so that we can make comparison and also change our knowledge.

          When we say about these two angels, we always hear the story about the two become man. Angels questioned Allah for creating human being as they are going to make bloodshed on the earth. Therefore, Allah answers them that human has something special that no creature He created has, that are mind and lust. In order to make the angels understand the human, Allah gives them a try to have “lust” as angels have no lust. The angels decided Harut and Marut to do the task.

          So when Harut and also Marut got their “lust”, they were sent to the earth to test their capabilities. In short, they felt in love with one woman. The woman already have husband. They try to make the woman divorced with her husband and they succeeded. If we look into this story, the story is longer than the verse in the Quran. The story also has no lessons to learn, maybe have but I think it is very limited. We just focus on the angels trying to be a man, then love a woman and make the woman divorced. Actually there are things much important to learn rather than those stories. Israelliyyat stories always diverge from the messages that Allah sent to us.

          The true story about Harut and Marut is already explained by Quran in the verse given. So I am going to focus more on the misunderstood about them.

First of all, Harut and Marut are angels or normal human being? There are different answers from the scholars. There are scholars say they (Harut and Marut) are normal human being. But then, why in the verse says “angels”. They answered, the word “angels” did not mean both of them angels, but they both very good persons and people around respect them very much. So they level was recorded just like an angel. There are scholars say, they are angels.

If they are angels, why they teach human magic and make woman and her husband divorce? There are few answers for this. One thought says that they teach magic to human so that they (human) understand the difference between magic and signs (mukjizat) from prophets or messengers of Allah. If the human cannot differentiate the differences between both of it (magic and signs), so it is going to make the task for the messengers of Allah difficult.

The thought that I think close to the verse is that, Allah sent both of them (Harut and Marut) as a test for the human being. Maybe at that time, the orders from Allah not to learn magic as magic come from the devils and magic can give bad effect to the others. Quran used word “fitnah” in the verse. If Malay people they think that fitnah is likes people accused you on the things that you never did. Actually fitnah is more than that, fitnah is a test or alleged. Both angels already said to the human that they are trial before they teach the human magic. You can check the verse above, I already highlighted it.

They not only warned the human that they are trial to them (human), but they also gave advice not to become disbeliever (kafir). I can give another example that showing the angels come as trial to human. One of them is the story about Prophet Lot. His people are homosexual (gay). Verses below already explain in a very clear manner I think.

And when Our messengers, [the angels], came to Lot, he was anguished for them and felt for them great discomfort and said, "This is a trying day."

And his people came hastening to him, and before [this] they had been doing evil deeds. He said, "O my people, these are my daughters; they are purer for you (with marriage). So fear Allah and do not disgrace me concerning my guests. Is there not among you a man of reason?"

[HUUD Ch.11:V.77-78]

          It is impossible for the angels to disobey Allah’s order. There are many verses in Quran that explain angels never disobey Allah’s order. So all the verses are going to oppose the verse telling the story about Harut and Marut, if we say that the two angels make the situations chaotic. It is the time for us to change our mind and thoughts about the story of Harut and Marut. I hope that from this entry, you can get something or new knowledge.

And [mention] when We said to the angels, "Prostrate before Adam"; so they prostrated, except for Iblees. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.

[AL-BAQARAH Ch.2:V.34]

~Wallahua’lam~

~Pray For Gaza~