HARUT AND MARUT-KFIR ANGELS: MIDDLE EAST MYTHOLOGY
Let's start our article with a short story. Let this story be one that many of us do not know very much and are not told much to us. In ancient times, two angels named Harut and Marut, who were famous for doing magic and magic, were sent down to earth at their own request. These two angels were two of God's favorite angels, and in return of this love, they were sent to earth to look at the causes on earth. They would look at people's cases and solve their problems all day long. At night, they would pray to the sky by reciting the prayer of İsm-i Azam, going to the right and praying it until the morning. Their routine life and peaceful days would soon end because one day a beautiful woman applied to them. This woman was the queen of Iranian Zühre and her country. Although Zühre was melike, he could not bear the burden of this world. The fact that even her husband, who was in love with her, fell in love with her beauty was hurting her soul. The woman's complaint was about her husband. When the angels saw this beautiful woman, they fell into lust and wanted to take desire from her. Again, that unique beauty of the woman would change the destinies, as in all myths.
The woman half rejected their offer, but she was now aware of her feminine power. On the insistence of the angels, the woman said: "I will not say yes to you unless you decide the case in my favor." said. Thereupon, the angels enthusiastically embraced the haram and fulfilled the woman's request. But these two angels, whom he lusted after, could not easily escape from the captivity of the beautiful worldly Zühre. Zühre realized that he had found a way to escape the bondage of this world. Angels were after Zühre's beauty, Zühre was after not beauty but spirituality.
Yet this or Zühre did not agree with their offer again and asked them to kill her husband as a second request. They also killed Zühre's poor husband. Of course, Zühre did not agree with their wishes again and asked them to fulfill the third condition, which was to drink and prostrate to the idol he showed. Although the angels were reluctant, they also fulfilled these conditions. Now Zühre knew that these two poor people were at his disposal. When the angels repeated their offer, the woman asked them to teach them what raised them to heaven. They also taught Ism-i Azam to the beautiful Zühre. When the night came, when the woman rose to the skies by reading the Name of Azam in the presence of two angels, Allah turned her into a star and made it the brightest star of the spiritual world.
One after another, the angels read the prayer of İsm-i Azam, but they could not rise to the sky. To their horror, the angels realized their mistake. They came to the presence of the Prophet Idris to help them in repentance. They asked him for help. The prophet Idris accepted their requests and prayed to God for these two angels. Ultimately, Allah gave them the opportunity to choose one of the torment of the hereafter, with the torment of this world. They preferred the torment of the world because of its short duration. Now they are serving their punishment in Babylon. They are said to be hanging by their hair, and their punishment will continue until doomsday.
Rising the sky and mixing with the stars is a common narrative in old stories. In a variant of the story that continues to be told in the oral tradition, heroes named Leylâ and Mecnûn rise to the sky as stars as a result of prayer. Accordingly Mecnûn; The star of the shepherd, Leyla becomes the star of the dawn. In another verbal variant, Leyla, while with her lover Mecnn, begs Allah with the fear of being caught by her father and wishes him to turn themselves into stars and meet only once a year. Upon this, Leylâ's prayer is accepted and the two beloved stars rise to the sky. One of the striking features in the stories is the reason the heroes turn into stars. In the Turkish stories of Tahir ile Zühre, Hürşit and Mahmiri, the transformation of girls who ran away from their enemies into a star is a formulation.
We can give an example of the story told about Ibn Sînâ for a different example to the subject. One day, Ibn Sînâ was tired of these escapes and begged Allah to take his life in one night of his painful life running away from Sultan Mahmut. At that time, he sees a star slipping and disappearing very quickly on the southern horizon, and he asks that his request has been accepted and a prayer is read in his ear on the night of that day. It is now a star in the sky. Again, in the narrative, there is a prayer to escape from an enemy and rise to the sky.
If we go even further, we find ourselves in the narratives of the Sumerians. In the Sumerian texts, it was believed that the gods were on earth at first, but after the great flood, the gods rose to the sky and turned into a star because the earth was a place that could not be lived. The star to which the goddess Ishtar, which is the symbol of beauty, lust and fertility that many of us know, was also the same as the star of Zühre.
As it is seen, at the end of almost all narratives, the desire to go far away from the contaminated world, the dream of living eternal happiness by reaching eternity symbolizes the heroes with the star. The sky is the place of escape to eternity, eternal peace. For this reason, the belief among the people that God draws good people to the sky has been kept alive since the beginning of human history and the sky has been seen as the place of God. If it is necessary to reach the sky, it is necessary for Allah to approve it or to mention the secret names of the skies as in the story above. But these dhikr or words are not enough, the only way to always reach the skies is through Allah's approval. This is the reason why angels could not rise to the skies even though they say the name azam.
Compiled by: Hakan KİLİT
Source: Bilge Seyidoğlu, Research on Mythology, Journal publications, 2005
