The Angel Harut with Two Women

This illustration, created with ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper, is believed to show the angels Harut and Marut dressed in vibrant Safavid robes as they watch carefully over an unidentified, unconscious figure lying in the center of the foreground. The three are positioned within a verdant, paradisical scene abundant with plants and birds. In the Qur’anic story of the angels Harut and Marut (Surah 2:102), God sends a pair of angels from the heavens to Earth, where they are exposed to sin and inevitably succumb to it. God thereby responds by condemning them to earthly punishment, in which they are indefinitely suspended by their feet in a pit of darkness, until the advent of the Judgment Day. 

While many depictions of Harut and Marut center around this scene of punishment, this illustrated manuscript adheres to the larger tradition of angelic depiction in Islam—it presents the angels in a state unmarred by sin, portrayed before their punishment. They are perhaps not immediately recognizable as angels, given that they are depicted with earthly human bodies and lack the grand, sweeping wings that were characteristic of Safavid illustrations of angels. However, their beautiful patterned clothing indicates that they are figures of high rank, hinting at their dual identity as divine and earthly. The poem accompanying the illustration also names Harut, confirming the duo’s angelic status. This blurring of divine and earthly ultimately pertains closely to the goals of Sufi doctrine and ritual practice, which endeavored to form a close, direct, and loving connection between the human believer and God.

Sources:

Berlekamp, Persis. Wonder, Image, and Cosmos in Medieval Islam. New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 2011. 

Burge, Stephen. “Angels in Classical Islam and contemporary scholarship.” In Angels in Islam: Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti’s al-Haba’ik fi akhbar al-mala’ik, 3-15. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2015.

Rizvi, Kishwar. “Between the Human and the Divine: Majālis al-Ushhāq and the Materiality of Love in Early Safavid Art.” In Ut picture amor: The Reflexive Imagery of Love in Artistic Theory and Practice, 1400-1700, edited by Walter Melion, Joanna Woodall, and Michael Zell. Leiden: Brill, 2017.