Angels-IZRA’IL

Izra’il (Azrael) is the Muslim angel of death and one of the four
archangels of Islam, along with Mikhail, Djibril, and Israfil. There is
quite a bit of colorful folklore surrounding this figure. He is, for
instance, pictured as having gigantic proportions: one foot rests in
either the fourth or the seventh heaven, while the other is on the
bridge between hell and paradise. Also, if all the waters of the earth
were to be poured upon his head, not so much as a single drop would
make it back to the earth.
Beginning life as a rather ordinary angel, his success (where other
angels failed) at bringing God a handful of earth from which to create
Adam earned his appointment as the angel of death. Some feel that
Izra’il has other angels who work beneath him, and that Izra’il himself
only comes for the souls of prophets. Izra’il keeps a roll of humanity,
on which the names of the damned are circled in black and the names
of the blessed, in light. When a person’s day of death approaches, a
leaf with the person’s name on it falls from the tree beneath God’s
throne. After forty days have passed, Izra’il must sever the individual’s
soul from his or her body.