The Angel of the Fetus

The Angel of the Fetus is the angel entrusted with the form of the fetus in its mother's womb; God sends him after forty days and he shapes him and creates his hearing, sight, skin, flesh and bones, then says: O wretched one, O happy one — and writes his deed — as in the hadith of the nutfa in Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim ^{1 2}.

• In Sahih al-Bukhari from 'Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud: "One of you is gathered in his mother's womb for forty days... then God sends to him an angel who shapes him and creates his hearing, sight, skin, flesh and bones... then says: O wretched one, O happy one" ¹.
• In Sahih Muslim from the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud: "Then after that is forty nights... God sends an angel who shapes him... then says: O wretched one, O happy one" ².
• In a narration "O wretched one, O happy one" — and the principle is that it is read "wretched or happy", meaning his deed is written and he finds in his papers what he used to do ^{2 3}.
• In a hadith "God wrote..." and in it that the angel entrusted with the fetus is the one who writes his deed before he is born ¹.

• Al-Mu'minun 12, Al-Mu'minun 13, and Al-Mu'minun 14 in the creation of man from a drop, then a clinging clot, then a chewed lump — and in them that God creates with measure, and in them no naming of an angel ⁴.
• As-Sajda 7 and Al-Hajj 5 in the context of the creation of man from a despicable fluid — and in them scenes of creation without naming the Angel of the Fetus ⁴.

Ibn Kathir details the hadith of the nutfa, and mentions that the angel entrusted with the fetus is the one who shapes him and creates his limbs and writes his deed, and that "wretched" and "happy" are written of him before he is born ³. And al-Qurtubi held that the Angel of the Fetus is the one entrusted with writing him in his mother's womb ⁵.

• God sends him to the fetus after forty days of pregnancy; he shapes him and creates his hearing, sight, skin, flesh and bones ^{1 2}.
• Then he says: O wretched one, O happy one — and his deed is written and he finds in his papers what he used to do ^{2 3}.
• In a narration he is the angel entrusted with the womb, who writes the fetus's deed before he is born ⁶.

• "The Angel of the Fetus" is a technical name from hadith, and the Qur'an does not name him ².
• And in it is evidence that the fetus has dignity and a measure, and that his being written before he is born is among the greatest of what is mentioned in hadith ³.
• And the writing of his deeds before he is born links him in that place to the recording angels on the Noble Recorders' page.