The Ones Made of Light, and the Ones Made of Fire

There is a whole world sitting right next to ours. You cannot see it. You cannot touch it. But it is real, and it is busy, and it is full of creatures made from things you would not expect.

To be a Muslim, you must believe in six great things. We call them the pillars of iman. They are: belief in Allah, in His angels, in His books, in His messengers, in the Last Day, and in His plan for all things. We have already met the first one. Now let us meet the angels.

Creatures made of light

Allah made the angels out of light. Not flesh, not bone, not blood. Pure light.

Because of that, they are not like us at all. They are usually stunningly beautiful, so beautiful that in the Qur’an, when people first saw the handsome Prophet Yusuf, they gasped, “This cannot be a human, this must be an angel!” The angels have wings too. Allah tells us some have two, some have three, some four, some many more. The mighty angel Jibreel has six hundred wings.

And here is the amazing part. The angels never get tired. They never sleep. They never eat or drink. They never get bored. Think about that. You and I get restless after ten minutes of doing the same thing. The angels praise Allah morning and night, without stopping, forever, and they never grow weary of it.

They do not have their own free choice the way we do. Their whole purpose is to obey Allah and worship Him perfectly. So there is no such thing, in our belief, as a “fallen angel.” Angels cannot disobey. They simply do what Allah commands, always.

How many angels are there? So many that only Allah knows the number. The Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, told us the sky above us creaks under their weight, because there is not a single hand-space in the heavens without an angel standing, or bowing, or prostrating to Allah.

The angels we know by name

We only know a few of their names, but they are important ones.

Jibreel (Gabriel) is the greatest of all. He is the messenger between Allah and the prophets. He carried the words of the Qur’an down to the Prophet ﷺ. Every prophet, all the way back, was visited by Jibreel.

Mika’il (Michael) is in charge of things in our world, like the rain and the wind.

Israfil is the one who will blow the great trumpet on the Day of Judgment.

Believing in the angels does something lovely to your heart. It makes you notice how vast and perfect Allah’s creation is. And it gives you a nudge to be good, because the angels pray for people who do certain good deeds. They ask Allah to forgive the one who walks to the mosque early, the one who sits quietly after prayer, the one who does wudu on a cold morning, the one who visits the sick. Would you not want the angels praying for you? Then do the things they love.

Now, the other world: the jinn

When we believe in the angels, we are really saying we believe there is a whole unseen world beside ours. And angels are not the only ones living in it. There are also the jinn.

The word jinn comes from a root that means “hidden.” That is exactly what they are, hidden from our eyes. Allah says in the Qur’an that they can see us from where we cannot see them. They come into our world; we do not go into theirs.

The angels are made of light. The jinn are made of a smokeless fire, a kind of pure energy. So they share the “unseen world” with the angels, but they are very different creatures. Here is the big difference: the jinn are like us in one huge way. They have free choice.

That means, just like people, there are good jinn and bad jinn. There are Muslim jinn who love Allah, and there are jinn who follow other religions, and there are wicked jinn. The Qur’an even tells us that a group of jinn once heard the Prophet ﷺ reciting the Qur’an, and they believed and became Muslim. So no, not every jinn is evil. That is a myth.

What the jinn can and cannot do

Because they are made of fire-energy, the jinn can do things we cannot. They are fast, faster than we can imagine. They can pass through walls, because our solid buildings mean nothing to energy. And some of them are very strong.

There is an incredible story in the Qur’an. The Prophet Sulayman (Solomon), peace be upon him, was given a special power by Allah, a power no one else had. He could command the jinn. Once he wanted the great throne of the Queen of Sheba brought to him, from a whole country away. One powerful jinn stood up and said he could bring it before Sulayman even rose from his seat. Imagine the speed and strength of that.

But do not be fooled into thinking the jinn are better than us. They are not. Allah gave humans something greater: a deeper mind, real intelligence, the gift of language and deep thought. Remember, Allah commanded the angels and Iblis to bow to Adam. Iblis, who was a jinn, refused out of pride, saying, “I am made of fire, he is made of clay, I am better.” That refusal is where all the trouble began. It shows two things: the jinn were told to honor Adam, so humans are higher, and Iblis chose wrongly with his own free will.

The whisperer, and how to be safe

The wicked jinn, the ones we call shayateen (devils), have a job they gave themselves: to whisper bad ideas into human hearts and pull us away from Allah. Sometimes they try to scare people. That strange feeling in a dark room, a nightmare, a sense that “something is here,” our religion explains it simply. No need for spooky stories. It may be a wicked jinn trying to frighten you, so that fear pulls you away from your Lord.

So how do you win against them? It is beautifully simple. You turn to Allah. When a bad whisper comes, you seek Allah’s protection. When you connect your heart to Allah, you become the strong one, and the jinn become afraid of you. It is only when we drift far from Allah that they get any power over us at all.

And one clear rule: we never, ever try to reach into their world or call on them for help. The people who do dark magic have to please the devils to get their little tricks, and that is one of the worst things a person can do. We do not go looking for that door. We keep our hearts close to Allah, and Allah keeps us safe.

So the next time you are in a quiet room, remember. You are not as alone as you think. There are beings of light all around, praising Allah and praying for the good. There is a hidden world of fire, some of it friendly, some of it not.

And the One who made every single one of them, the light and the fire, is watching over you. Stay close to Him, and you have nothing to fear.