Al-Wālibī relates on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the verse, “Over him are succeeding angels, before him and behind him, guarding him by Allah’s command” (al-Raʿd 11): “The ‘successive guards’ (al-muʿaqqibāt) are the angels.”

ʿIkrimah likewise reports from Ibn ʿAbbās about the words “guarding him by Allah’s command”: “They are angels who protect him from in front and behind; but when Allah’s decree arrives they withdraw.”

Mujāhid said, “There is no servant without an angel appointed to guard him, in his sleep and while awake, from the jinn, human beings, and creeping things. Nothing that seeks to harm him approaches without the angel’s saying, ‘Go back,’ except what Allah allows—and that will befall him.”

Abū Umāmah said, “Every human being has an angel with him who keeps danger away until he hands him over to that which has been decreed for him.”

Abū Majliz narrated: “A man came to ʿAlī and said, ‘A group from (the tribe of) Murād intend to kill you.’ He replied, ‘With every person are two angels who guard him from what has not been decreed; but when the decree comes they leave him to it. The appointed term is a well-fortified shield.’”

Among the angels, too, are those charged with recording people’s deeds, as the Exalted says: “On his right and on his left sit two receivers; he utters no word but that a watchful, ready (angel) is with him” (Qāf 17–18), and: “Indeed, over you are keepers, noble scribes, who know whatever you do” (al-Infitār 10–12).

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī records in his Tafsīr: “My father narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭanafusī narrated to us; Wakīʿ narrated to us; Sufyān and Misʿar narrated to us from ʿAlqamah ibn Marthad, from Mujāhid, who said that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

‘Honor the Noble Recording Angels who do not leave you except in two situations: major ritual impurity and relieving oneself. When any of you performs ghusl, let him conceal himself behind the stump of a wall, his camel, or let his brother shield him.’”

This version is mursal, yet al-Bazzār connected the chain in his Musnad through Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān the reciter, from ʿAlqamah → Mujāhid → Ibn ʿAbbās, in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“Allah forbids you from exposing yourselves naked, so feel shy before the angels of Allah who are with you—the Noble Recording Angels—who do not leave you except in three situations: relieving oneself, major ritual impurity, or bathing. Whoever of you bathes in the open should conceal himself with a garment, the stump of a wall, or his camel.”

To honor these angels is to feel modest in their presence and not dictate shameful deeds for them to record, for Allah has created them noble in both form and character.