The Two Angels and what they Record

“I heard Abā ʿAbdillāh (a) say, ‘There is no person but that with him are two angels who write whatever he utters, then they send that up to two [other] angels above them who record what was good or evil from it, and…

“I (Jābir) asked him (the Imam) about the position of the two angels in relation to the human being, so he said, ‘One is here and the other is here,’ meaning on the two sides of his mouth.”

“The two angels do not write anything other than what the servant speaks.”

“The angel does not write down except that which he hears. Allah, to Whom belong might and majesty, said: Remember your Lord inwardly, in humility and awe… (Q7:205). Indeed, no one knows the reward of that remembrance…

“Verily there is an angel in the air called Ismāʿīl who leads three hundred thousand angels, each of whom leads another hundred thousand angels. They count [and record] the actions of the servants, and when a new year…

I asked him about the verse wherein Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, says: Here is what is ready with me [of the record] (Q50:23), so he said, ‘It is the angel who preserves [and records] his deeds for him.’ And I asked…

“When you see a group of people sitting together and then they are suddenly afflicted by [temporary] speechlessness, so none of them says anything, that is the moment in which the Angel of Death glances at them.”