Angels are loyal and obedient creatures of God, endowed with special powers and authority to facilitate the universe’s workings. The angels are invisible to human beings, but human beings are visible to them. They keep a watch over human beings on God’s behalf. These angels have the power to take a person’s soul at the time of death and bring that soul to God. The angels are facilitators of this present universe and the organisers of heaven and Hell in the Hereafter. These angels are countless. Satan does not have any power or authority over human beings. His method is a false adornment of deeds (The Quran, 15:39). That is, adorning evil deeds so that they appear good. Satan uses this same method constantly to make man follow his path. Whenever justice calls for a person to ‘bow down to another, when truth demands one to accept the other’s contention, Satan appears and begins instigating and influencing the person to follow his method instead of the angelic method. So that instead of ‘bowing down’, he spurns and rejects the other. All the evils of human society, within the family or outside of it, begin with a grievance. A person gets angered over a matter that displeases him. In every such situation, there is a choice between pure truth on the one hand and the demands of egotism and injustice on the other. Man, however, chooses to ignore the call of truth and becomes an enemy to his brother. At the beginning of creation, God demonstrated two different characters as examples for humanity. One, a satanic character and the other, an angelic character. All of Satan’s efforts are towards this goal of making man follow him, but man must resist all temptations and strive to acquire the character of the angels.
When God created man, He gave him two different faculties.
One is nafs-e-ammarah and the other is nafs-e-lawwamah. (75:2, 12.53)
In other words, these are ego and conscience. Nafs-e-lawwamah is the conscience. Nafs-e-ammarah is the ego. A human being has two faculties: ego and conscience. Ego is the entry point for Satan. Conscience is the entry point for angels. This is the situation of human beings. If a person comes under the influence of ego, he will allow Satan to enter his thoughts. When your ego is provoked, the entry point for Satan opens up. The window for Satan is flung open. When your ego is provoked, you give an entry point to Satan. If you become modest and your conscience is awakened, you give entry point to angels. Angels enter through your conscience, and Satan enters through ego. Zoroaster had said: The world is a perpetual battle ground between good and evil force. The truth is that there are two different creatures: angels and Satan. Satan wants to deviate a person and angels want to bring a person on the right track. I will give an example to explain ego and conscience.
The Prophet had a Companion called Abu Bakr.
A person began to speak in a bad way with this Companion of the Prophet. He tried to provoke the Companion through his words. First Abu Bakr kept listening silently. When the person spoke too much, Abu Bakr became provoked and reacted in return. When Abu Bakr reacted, the Prophet got up and left. Abu Bakr later said to the Prophet that when that person was speaking badly, you stayed there. When I said something, you left the place. The Prophet replied when you were silent and he was speaking, an angel was present who was speaking on your behalf. You were silent, but the angel was speaking on your behalf. When you began to speak, Satan arrived at the place.When Satan came, I saw no reason to stay and so I left. (Musnad Ahmad 9624)
There is nothing mysterious in this. When Abu Bakr was silent and the angel was speaking, what did this mean? The angel was activating the conscience of the other person. The angel was telling him that you are doing something wrong. On the one hand, the angel was highlighting Abu Bakr's dignity: "He is a person who is silent and isn't reacting. You are so wrong in speaking badly with him." The angel had a chance to dignify Abu Bakr and show that the other person is morally low. The person's conscience then began to criticize him. When Abu Bakr was silent, the other person's conscience was telling him that he was doing wrong by speaking badly with an innocent man. Angels activate us just as Satan activates us. When Abu Bakr was silent, the angel was activating the conscience of the other person. But when Abu Bakr began to speak, Satan got a chance. The window for Satan's entry opened up. The work being done by the angel stopped there. This is the meaning of the above hadith.
