Harut and Marut

Also Known As: Arabic Hārūt wa-Mārūt; the two angels of Babylon; one minority reading of the Quran makes them two kings rather than two angels; the names are generally traced to the Zoroastrian Haurvatat and Ameretat
Region/Culture: West Asia/Middle East
Mythos: Islamic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: They are two angels stationed at Babylon who teach sorcery to anyone who asks, but only after warning each pupil that they are a test of faith.
Role in Mythos: In the Quran they mark the line between knowledge sent down as a trial and the magic of the devils, and in later commentary they become the angels who fell when given human desires.
Relation to Humans: Those who learn from them gain a magic able to drive husband and wife apart, though the Quran insists it harms no one except by God’s permission. In the legend they were sent among humans to prove angels could resist temptation, and failed within days.

Somewhere under Babylon, the story goes, there is a well with two angels in it. They hang by their feet in the dark, and they will hang there until the Day of Judgement. People who wanted forbidden knowledge were said to go looking for them.

The whole of what the Quran says about them sits in a single verse, the 102nd of its second chapter. It speaks of what the devils taught in the reign of Solomon, and of what was sent down at Babylon to the two angels, Harut and Marut. Those two, the verse says, would teach no one without first telling them plainly that the two of them were only a trial, and that the learner should not abandon faith. People learned from them all the same, and what they learned was a magic that could part a man from his wife. The verse adds that this harmed no one except with God’s leave, and that whoever bought such knowledge had sold his own soul cheaply.

That is all. Two names, one city, one warning, one kind of spell. Everything else came later, from the commentators who tried to explain how two angels came to be teaching magic in Babylon in the first place.

Even the verse itself would not hold still. A reading attributed to Hasan al-Basri pronounces the key word as two kings, not two angels, which removes the angels from the story entirely. Another, traced to Ibn Abbas, takes the phrase about what was sent down as a negation, so that nothing was sent to them at all. The great commentator al-Tabari, writing around the turn of the tenth century, weighed these readings at length and also recorded the explanation that there are two kinds of magic, one permitted and one not.

Al-Tabari also preserved the tale that made the pair famous. In it the angels of heaven looked down at the children of Adam and were appalled. Humans lied, killed and gave themselves to every appetite, and the angels said that they would never behave so badly in the same place. God answered that they had never been given what humans are given. Let them choose two of their number, and those two would go down with human desires in their bodies, and see. The angels chose Harut and Marut.

The pair came down and for a time did well, judging cases among the people by day and rising back to heaven each evening by speaking the hidden name of God. Then a woman came to them with a dispute. Her name in most tellings is Zuhara, the Arabic name of the planet Venus, and she was more beautiful than anything they had seen. They wanted her. She set terms: worship an idol, or drink wine, or kill. They refused the idol and took the wine, because it seemed the least of the three. Drunk, they lay with her, and when a man saw them, they killed him so he could not tell. Every one of the three sins they had first refused was now theirs.

In some versions Zuhara learned from them the name that carried them into the sky, spoke it herself, rose, and was fixed in the heavens as the morning star. The angels, sober now, tried to ascend and found the way shut. God offered them a choice of punishment in this world or in the next. They chose this one, because it would end. So they were sent down into Babylon, to the well, to hang by their feet in the airless dark until the world is over, and from there to teach sorcery to anyone who came, always with the same warning first.

Two angels, sure of themselves, lasted a matter of days. That is the blunt moral the commentators drew.

The tale was told by many: al-Tabari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Tha’labi, al-Kisa’i, the poet Rumi and the scholar al-Suyuti among them, with variations in the number of angels and the order of the sins. Rumi tells it with three angels, one of whom sees what is coming and turns back. Others objected strongly. Ibn Kathir, in the fourteenth century, judged much of it to be borrowed material, tracing it to Ka’b al-Ahbar, a Jewish convert who passed many stories into early Islamic circulation. The philosophers and the rationalist theologians rejected it outright, because angels by their nature cannot sin, and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi treated that sinlessness as a matter of doctrine. Modern reformers such as Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida dropped the woman and the star altogether. The legend has always been popular. It has never been settled.

Where did the pair come from before Islam? The names are not Arabic in origin. Since the nineteenth century scholars have connected them with Haurvatat and Ameretat, Wholeness and Immortality, two of the Amesha Spenta, the holy immortals of Zoroastrianism, who are always named together as a pair. The plot is another matter. The fall of angels lured by women recalls the Watchers of the Book of Enoch, and closely resembles a medieval Jewish tale, the Midrash of Shemhazai and Azael, in which two angels make the same boast and fall the same way. The scholar John C. Reeves argued in 2015 that the Muslim telling is probably the older of the two, since the earliest Hebrew form appears only around the eleventh century. Al-Kalbi, an eighth-century genealogist, claimed the angels had once carried other names, Aza and Azaya, and lost them when they fell.

What Harut and Marut can do is teach. Their knowledge is real, it works, and it reaches into the most private bond people have. They cannot make it harmless, and they cannot make it act against God’s will; both the Quran and its commentators are firm on that. Their own weakness is the one the story was told to show. Given a body, even an angel feels its pull. They knew exactly what was right, and they still drank the wine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are Harut and Marut in Islam?

Harut and Marut are two angels named in the Quran, chapter 2, verse 102, who taught sorcery at Babylon. Before teaching anyone, they warned the learner that they were only a trial and that the learner should not abandon faith. Their magic could separate husband and wife, but only with God’s permission.

Why are Harut and Marut punished in Babylon?

According to a legend told by commentators such as al-Tabari, the two angels were sent to earth with human desires to prove they could do better than humans. They fell for a woman named Zuhara, drank wine, lay with her and killed a witness. Offered punishment in this world or the next, they chose this world and were hung by their feet in a well in Babylon until Judgement Day.

Who is Zuhara in the story of Harut and Marut?

Zuhara is the woman who tempts Harut and Marut in the later Islamic legend. Her name is the Arabic name of the planet Venus, and in some versions she learns the secret name of God from the angels, rises into the sky and becomes the morning star.

Do all Muslim scholars accept the story of Harut and Marut?

No. Ibn Kathir judged much of the tale to be borrowed material traced to Ka’b al-Ahbar, and philosophers and rationalist theologians such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi rejected it because angels cannot sin. Some readings of the Quranic verse even call Harut and Marut two kings rather than two angels.

Where do the names Harut and Marut come from?

The names Harut and Marut are not Arabic in origin. Scholars connect them with Haurvatat and Ameretat, two of the Amesha Spenta of Zoroastrianism who are always named as a pair. The story of their fall resembles the Jewish tale of the angels Shemhazai and Azael.