…that the idolaters imagine. Allah, exalted is He, therefore says:

“Intercession will be of no benefit with Him except for those to whom He grants leave—until, when terror is lifted from their hearts, they will ask, ‘What has your Lord said?’ They will answer, ‘The truth; and He is the Most High, the Most Great.’” (34:23)

Sound hadiths and well-attested reports from the Companions and the Followers confirm this interpretation, describing the angels’ state with their Lord exactly as He portrayed them in another verse:

“Rather, they are honored servants; they do not precede Him in speech, and they act only at His command.” (21:26-27)

In the authentic narration recorded by Aḥmad, al-Bukhārī, and others, through Ibn ʿUyaynah, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from ʿIkrimah, from Abū Hurayrah—who attributed it to the Prophet ﷺ—he said:

“When Allah decrees a matter in heaven, the angels beat their wings in humble submission to His word; it sounds like a chain dragged across smooth stone. When the dread is lifted from their hearts they say, ‘What has your Lord said?’ They reply, ‘The truth; and He is the Most High, the Most Great.’ The eavesdroppers among the jinn then overhear it”—Sufyān illustrated this by holding his hand at an angle—“and sometimes a shooting-star overtakes the eavesdropper before he can pass the word to his companion, so it burns him. At other times it misses him, and he throws it to the one beneath him, who throws it to the one beneath him, and so on, until it is cast down to earth. There it lands upon the tongue of a sorcerer or a soothsayer, who then adds to it a hundred lies. People say, ‘Did he not inform us on such-and-such a day that such-and-such would happen, and it came true?’ Thus they credit him because of the single word that was heard from heaven.”

Similarly, in the sound narration related by Muslim and others, through al-Zuhrī, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbās—may Allah be pleased with them—a man from the Anṣār told me that while they were sitting one night in the company of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, a shooting-star flared brightly. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then said to them…