“I will bring it to you before your glance returns to you” (al-Naml 27:40). This second offer was swifter than the first: in the very span of your sight—before you can blink—it will be here. “So when he saw it” (al-Naml 27:40), he saw it at once, “set firmly before him” (al-Naml 27:40). The scholars explain that the one who possessed knowledge of the Book invoked Allah by His Greatest Name, whereupon the angels carried the throne from Yemen to Syria in that single instant. Hence, the angels are stronger than the jinn.

Do not, then, be astonished that people may die in the farthest East and West while a single angel gathers all their souls, for Allah says: “Say: the Angel of Death who has been assigned to you will take you, then to your Lord you will be returned” (al-Sajdah 32:11). If Allah commands that angel, “Seize the soul of everyone who has died,” could he possibly refuse? Impossible—because they never disobey Allah’s command. Likewise, when Allah said to the Pen, “Write down everything that will occur until the Day of Resurrection,” the Pen—though an inanimate object—wrote down all that is to be until that Day. Whenever Allah, Majestic and Exalted, issues a command, none can rebel except the defiant among the jinn or the children of Adam; the angels, however, never disobey Allah.

These are four of the angels. The fifth is Mālik, the one entrusted with the Fire—its keeper. Allah mentions him in regard to the people of Hell: “They will cry out, ‘O Mālik! Let your Lord put an end to us.’ He will say, ‘You shall remain’” (al-Zukhruf 43:77), meaning: Let Him cause us to die, destroy us, relieve us of what we are suffering! Mālik will respond, “You are to remain.”