Lesson video

Hello and welcome once again students, it's Mr Latif here, teacher of R.

E and today's learning we'll be looking at one of the other articles of faith after the six, which is on Angels.

So, really interesting, very fascinating part of religion as always.

So key things we'll be looking at today; To understand the nature and the role of angels and to look at the name and roles of particular angels as well.

So there's five things that you'll need as always: Your exercise book or some lined paper, a black or blue pen, a different coloured pen for any corrections or a pencil, those attentive ears, and that curious brain.

So let's get into our learning for today.

So welcome to our learning today, and today we'll be looking at the following; To understand the nature and the roles of the angels, and to name and to understand the role of particular angels.

So as I mentioned before, the teaching of the angels or the belief in the angels, is a really fascinating and a very interesting part of religion.

So let's go and explore what is it that Muslims believe about the role of the angels.

So just as a reminder as always, these five things that you'll need for your learning today.

If you do not have them, this is a great opportunity for you to pause the video now, and you will be back with me just in a moment.

So what is it that Muslims believe about the angels? Now in the Islamic tradition, angels were made before humankind.

So there's a key event that occurs when Allah creates Adam.

And it's mentioned within the Quran that when Allah creates Adam there's the mentioning of the angels which indicates that angels were made before humankind.

But there's also another being who's made before humankind.

So we have the angels that were made but we also have Iblis.

Iblis was also known as Shaytaan or Satan.

Iblis is a bit different to the angels, Iblis has free will.

Iblis as the Devil, and the angels are all told to do something by God.

So they're all commanded to do something and that is to bow down to Allah's creation of Adam, of a human.

The angels do so, but Iblis doesn't.

So this is really important- this indicates and tell us that angels do not have free will.

Another key thing within Islam is that angels are made out of light and the belief in the angels are another of the six articles of faith.

So far, we've looked at two articles; We've looked at the belief in Tawheed, the oneness of Allah, and now today we're looking at the second, the belief in the angels.

So the belief in these six articles of faith, is very important in the Sunni tradition of Islam.

Now as mentioned before, they have no free will and they're seen as supernatural beings.

Within Islam, there are many different archangels as well.

So we'll be exploring some of those archangels in our learning today.

Some of them, their roles are to do with the message and the prophecy of God that they give to a Prophet to deliver us as message, to mankind.

The others is to do with the Angel of Death, others are seen as protectors, and for others they're seen as individuals that give them mercy.

So these are some archangels and the roles of archangels that we'll be looking at today.

Now, angels in Islam are unlike humans.

They have wings, and the expansion of their wings is in many verses and we'll be looking at a verse today in the Quran that mentions that.

They're seen as immortal, angels do not die like humans, and they can not sin.

So as mentioned before, they do their duty of God and God alone, with no free will.

They have no choice, and whatever God commmands them to do in Islam, the angels perform those actions.

So just as mentioned a moment ago, there are some archangels, so we'll be looking today at the archangel of Jibreel, Mika'il and important angels such as Raqib and Atid who are angels that sit on the shoulders of each individual.

Now, you may have seen before in a cartoon, that you got two angels in a cartoon, one's telling someone to do good, the other is telling someone to do bad.

That is not the role of these angels within Islam.

These angels have one thing to do and that is to write down the actions of the human being.

So on the left hand side, is the actions that are all bad actions that the angel writes and on the right hand side, it writes down all the good actions.

Now why is this really important? Because Muslims believe when it comes to the end times on the Day of Judgement , which is another article of faith that we'll be looking at, that these two books, these two recorded books of our deeds, according to Muslims, will be put on a scale.

Now this scale will weigh one way or another and that indicates whether we will go to, according to Muslims, heaven or hell.

So now, a bit of an opportunity for you to see how much you can rememeber.

This will be a good time for you to pause the video for, I'd say, one minute and just to see how much of this information you can digest- not literally but let's see what you can remember of that curious brain and those attentive ears.

Now, if you pause the video for one minute, and then there will be a task for you to complete straight afterwards, so if you can, could I please ask you to pause the video just now.

So welcome back, here is your task.

Now this task I'd like for you to pause the video in just a moment.

For this task, I'm going to give you 5 minutes and what I'd like for you to do is to write down and complete the sentences just here.

So as you can see, there's some gaps here that I'd like for you to fill in.

So if you can , let's see how good your memory is, let's see what you can remember about Iblees, of angels and I'll see you in just 5 minutes.

Welcome back! Let's see how well you did.

So just as a reminder, in the Islamic tradition angels were made before humankind.

Angels are made out of light.

The belief in angels is one of the six articles of faith that we find within the Sunni tradition.

And angels according to Muslims, have no free will and they're supernatural.

They are unlike humans as they have wings, they're immortal, and they cannot sin.

And it's believed that archangels such as Jibreel and Mika'il are important angels and such as that as Raqib and Atid who are the two angels on the shoulders of each individual.

So how did you do? Did you get 9 out of 9? Hopefully you did, and if you didn't, this is a great opportunity for you now to ensure that you're making any corrections.

So if there are any corrections that you need to make, could I ask you to please pause the video now and I will see you in a moment.

So who are the angels and what roles do they have? So the roles of the angels within Islam really do vary and today we're going to be looking at some of the important angels.

Some of these angels are archangels.

One angel that we'll be coming across in a lot of our learning is that of Angel Jibril.

Angel Jibril is the archangel who brought Allah's message to the many prophets, particularly Muhammad.

Angel Jibril is also seen as a messenger of God because he delivers God's message.

He is the individual and the angel who is seen that delivers the revelation of God.

A key thing here, it is the direct and divine word of God.

It is not the word of Angel Jibril, and we have to remember, angels do not have free will.

They just do what they are commanded to do so.

When we look at our learning on the Holy Books as another article of faith, it'll be really important for us to revisit our learning on who the Angel Jibril is.

We already know that Angel Jibril is a very important angel.

He is the angel that delivers the message and visits the Prophet Muhammad in Mount Hira, when the first revelation occurred.

As well as Angel Jibril, we have Angel Mika'il.

Angel Mika'il is seen as the Angel of Mercy and Allah has given this angel the responsibility to send life to Earth through rain.

So rain is delivered through the Angel Mika'il to which nourishment occurs.

This angel also seen to assign to reward righteous people for doing good in their life on this Earth.

From this, we also have Angel Azrael.

This is seen as the Angel of Death.

What's really interesting in Islamic thinking is how this Angel of Death will visit the person who is dying.

Now if you were someone who performed your five pillars, you were righteous, you obeyed Allah and his Prophet, and you followed the commands, the Angel of Death visits you in a very calm and nice way.

It's suggested within the Islamic tradition the angel slowly and gently takes your soul away from your body at the point of death.

Now if you are someone who was not seen as righteous, you were sinful, you murdered, you lied, you were dishonest, you did not follow the commands of Allah and his Prophet, you neglected your prayers and so-forth, the Angel of Death takes you in a very harsh way, so he drags out your soul from your body according to Islamic beliefs.

We can see in a moment and hopefully we can understand that angels and the roles they have actually have an influence on how a Muslim acts within their lifetime.

And from this, we move onto a really important thing- Angel Raqib and Angel Atid.

Angel Raqib sits on the right shoulder of a human being according to the Islamic faith whilst Angel Atid sits on the left hand shoulder of a human being according to Islamic faith.

The key thing that I mentioned just before, just to remind you, is angels are writing down everything that occurs; the deeds, the good deeds and the bad deeds.

According to Muslims, deeds can only have two things, they can either be good or they can either be bad.

So depending on the actions that you do, Angel Raqib is writing down all the good deeds that you do, whilst Angel Atid is writing down all the bad deeds that you do.

And there's also Angel Israfil.

This is a really interesting and fascinating angel.

When I teach students this in a class, they find it really interesting.

This angel is appointed to blow a trumpet at the end times.

So in Islamic thinking, there is the end times, and the end times is the time where everything that is living will cease to exist.

This angel, in Islamic thinking and the description of this angel, has his lips on this trumpet ready to blow it when Allah commands.

According to Islamic thinking and Islamic scholars, when the angel will blow this trumpet, everything that is living will cease to exist.

According to some Islamic scholars, that includes the angel there as well, Angel Israfil, when he blows it, he will cease to exist.

According to other Islamic scholars, he is the only individual that will not cease to exist by the appointment of Allah.

The second blowing of the trumpet which is really interesting, and in Islamic thinking, it is not known how long that time period will be from the first blow to the second blow, but for all of humanity, it will feel like a wink in their lifetime, a few seconds.

So when the second blowing of the trumpet occurs, this is when everything will resurrect according to Muslims, so this is to do with the Day of Resurrection, the Day of Judgement which is really interesting and really important.

What's also really interesting about the angels is there's a Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, who says he can speak about them, the bearers of the throne.

So we're talking about Allah's throne here.

The description of this angel is really interesting because within the Hadith it states the following; the distance from the earlobe to the shoulders of this angel is 700 years in terms of a journey.

So for example, my earlobe to my shoulder is probably about, I don't know, 7cm, that's my guess, that journey from A to B will take a second, or something like that.

Now if I was a giant, imagine I was the size of a 25-story building and my earlobe was the top of the building and my shoulder was the bottom of the building, let's just say that for now, from the top to the bottom.

If you were to have a journey, imagine climbing it, it might take you 3 or 4 minutes.

For the vast, vast size of this angel, from his earlobe to his shoulder, is 700 years in distance.

So it's really interesting to think about how big or how amazing these angels are from these descriptions.

So we can consider, the influence that these angels have in the life of a human being.

Now, a small task for you to do.

What I'd like for you to do now is to match up here we go, this way, it's my other side, you have some angels and you have their descriptions and what I'd like for you to do is to correctly identify what angel links to what role.

So at this point of the video, could I please ask you to pause it and to spend 5 minutes and let's see how we did in 5 minutes.

So, welcome back, hopefully you absolutely aced it, you should have had the following answers; Angel Jibril, he's the angel who delivered the revelations.

Can you remember one of the prophets he delivered it to? Mika'il, the Angel of Mercy, who gives nourishments to the life and rewards people in this life.

Angel Azrael, the Angel of Death.

And remember, the soul is taken very differently depending on what type of believer you were.

Raqib and Atid, the two angels on the side according to Muslims. Remember, they don't tell people to do something, they only record down the deeds, the good deeds and the bad deeds.

And Israfil, the angel appointed to blow the trumpet at the end times.

So really interesting in terms of the different roles that these angels have within Islam.

So this part of the learning is time to look at some scripture.

You can never go wrong with some good scripture in your R.

E lessons.

What I'd like for you to do is the following; In a moment I'd like for you to open up a resource sheet titled 'Verses on Angels'.

Within this resource sheet, you will have verses from the Quran which contain a description of the angels.

I would like for you to spend 20 minutes on this task.

So what I'd like for you to do is to read the verse and to then investigate and to write down, what is it that Muslims believe about the angels and what is it that the quotes reveal about Muslim beliefs on the angels.

So I will see you in 20 minutes.

Welcome back, I really hope you enjoyed that learning, you can never go wrong with some scriptural evidence in your R.

E lessons.

So if there are any corrections you need to make, pleasure ensure you're using your different coloured pen, or adding on any notes that may be missing.

'All praise is due to Allah.

who made angels messengers having wings, two, or three or four.

' So this tells us Allah created angels as messengers and the angels have many wings.

Next verse, 'And to Allah prostrates whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth of creature, and the angels , and they are not arrogant.

' So this tells us that angels worship Allah and they're free from sin.

Now if there's anything that you need to add on at this point, please pause the video but if not, do continue.

Now moving on, let's look at these other verses as well.

'When the two receivers receive, one seated on the right and one seated on the left.

Man does not utter any word except that with him is an observer prepared to record.

' So this tells us, that angels we have on our left and right shoulder are there to record all of our actions and to observe what we do.

And remember the link I gave you there as well, these angels in terms of what they're doing will have an impact on our afterlife.

Because these two books will be put on the scale when it comes to the Day of Judgement.

And the next verse, 'He sends over guardian-angels until, when death comes to one of you, our messengers take him'.

So this indicates that the angels watch over us and they take our soul to the Barzakh.

The Barzakh is a key belief within Islamic thinking.

The Barzakh means a separation or a barrier.

So according to Muslims, the soul is taken to this place which is not on Earth and it's not in the Afterlife, and the soul is there and its waiting period until the Day of Resurrection.

When the human being resurrects, the body and soul reunites together.

As always, if you do need to pause, this is great opportunity for you to pause and to add on any other notes.

And the final verse, 'Indeed, appointed over you are the keepers; noble and recording, they know whatever you do'.

So the aim here is to protects us and record our thoughts and actions and we already know this, don't we? Can you remember the name of the two angels? If you can, please write them down next to your answer, if you can't, rewind just a bit, reflect, and then write it down in your answer.

For this task I'd like for you to make two columns, 'Angels' and 'Humans'.

For this task, you're going to see an image and I'd like you to place it in one of the two columns.

So you don't have to do writing, you can actually draw the icon instead.

So let's look at these images and then consider, is it of a role and characteristic of that of a human or is it a role and characteristic that of an angel? So this image here, light, is it humans or is it angels? Pause the video now to draw it and then we'll go onto the next one.

I wonder what you thought for the first one, let's look at the second one.

Sin.

Individuals can sin.

Can angels sin or can humans sin? For this one you can either draw the icon just here of sin, or you can draw an example of a sin, so maybe cheating or lying or stealing.

What do you think, is it angels or humans? Moving on, we cannot see them.

This shouldn't be too hard, is it angels or humans? So you can draw some glasses, and then we'll move onto the next one.

They have no gender.

Is this of humans, or is this of angels? You can draw the icon here and make sure you put it in either one of the two columns.

And then moving on, the different religious traditions.

All of the different religious traditions, do we find this to be of humans or do we find this to be of angels? So you can draw all the different religious traditions, their symbols, humans or angels? And this one, this image, really really interesting image that we find from philosophy, the Death of Socrates, so hopefully you'll have an opportunity later on when you're a bit older to do a bit of A-Level Religious Studies/Philosophy and Ethics, absolutely fascinating and a lot of good critical thinking.

Now going back to the image, this image indicates death.

So does that happen to angels or does that happen to humans? Draw an image and we'll get back to it.

The next one, wings.

Do humans have wings or do angels have wings? Hmm I wonder what you think.

Okay time for some feedback.

So you should've had the following answers, please ensure that you check the answers here as I just state them and if you need to make any corrections, please do so.

So angels; they are made out of light, we know this, we cannot see them because they're supernatural beings, they have no gender according to Muslims, and they have wings.

But on the counter, humans, we know they can sin, we have many different religions, and humans are not immortal, we do die.

And on the counter, we have humans.

We sin, we have different religions, and we die.

So remember, angels do not sin, they are all one religion according to Muslims, they're all believers of God, and they do not die which is a key thing about the angels compared to the humans.

Now, the final task for you to do, a bit of a reflection.

I'd now like for you to write down your personal response here.

So I have this statement here for you to write down.

'It is impossible to believe in unseen beings such as angels.

' What do you think? Do you agree, do you disagree, why? And what are your reasons? So really important skill in R.

E is not just to write yes or no, it's really important as a student to be able to justify your reasoning so could you please ensure in your answer you've given me your reasoning, you're able to explain what is it that you believe about this statement and of course, you may be in the middle.

So you may say, Mr Latif, I agree for these reasons and I disagree for this reason, overall I believe that.

So that's absolutely fine for you to say as well.

For this part of the video, I'd like you to pause it and spend 10 minutes on this task.

So personal reflection, and then we'll look at some of the answers that you may have had.

So could I please ask for you to pause it just now.

Now time for some feedback.

So ideas which may have agreed with your statement.

You may said, well there's no empirical evidence for angels.

We cannot see them, we cannot hear them, we cannot feel them, we cannot taste them, and if we cannot see something how can we actually believe in it? And you may have also said, actually there's really little recorded evidence of people stating that they have seen or come across an angel.

So how can we ever believe in these unseen beings? Now a key thing with the idea of empirical evidence for angels, if you ever do philosophy, there's a really famous philosopher known as David Hume.

And David Hume says 'A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

' So David Hume was a sceptic, and he was also an empiricist, so he believed that you need empirical evidence in order to justify and suggest that something is true.

So for this reason as an atheist, he rejected ideas of God and he rejected the idea of supernatural beings such as angels and also supernatural events such as miracles.

So hopefully in your school, you'll get an opportunity to learn a bit more about David Hume in the future.

Now ideas against the statement.

The belief consists of faith, you don't necessarily have to have empirical evidence to have a belief in something.

The belief itself is based on your faith, you have faith in it.

And faith doesn't consist of having the need for empirical evidence.

So I might say I have faith that you're going to do really well in your exams. The fact I have faith means I don't need to justify using any evidence for it because the faith is something that is consistent with the heart, its not something that consists of needing records or evidence for it.

And we know the belief in the angels is one of the six articles of faith for the Muslims. Therefore, they believe in it.

Also from today, you may have made the link, there's scriptural evidence for angels which is really important for many people of many different religious traditions, and that scriptural evidence is good enough evidence for angels.

And there's also the furhman.

When some people have near death experiences, they state that they see angels or they see a light.

So this may be evidence for it.

So I'm really interested to see what your answers were for that question as a bit of a personal response.

So in summary, angels are messengers of God, the channels through which humans become aware of Him.

They do not have physical bodies, they are made out of light and have no free will so they do not sin.

They belong to the world of the unseen, they are present all the time and watch over us.

Angel have responsibilities towards humans from our birth to our death, recording our actions and taking our soul.

So today we have learnt the very importance of the role of angels, the characteristics of angels as well, scriptural evidence, and how the belief in angels may influence a believer.

So the fact that they're present, they're within our life, they are angels of mercy, and they give also messages to mankind of the revelation of God, and they influence a believer to do good.

To be aware that the angels are watching and God is all-seeing and God is all-knowing as well, which is really important.

So at this point of our learning, we're coming to the end of our lesson.

I really hope you enjoyed today's learning which I can only say is absolutely fascinating when we look at the role and characteristics of angels and as always you can share your work with Oak National.

And if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer as always to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak and as always it gives me, Mr Latif an opportunity to see your fantastic work.

So just a reminder there's one thing left as always, could you please ensure you do the exit quiz to see and to consolidate your learning for today.

And on that note, I will see you guys next week.