In this excerpt, commenting on Q. 50:17–18 (“When the two Receivers [al-mutalaqqiyān] receive him . . .”), Thaʿlabī provides details about these two receiver-angels. He presents reports according to which the angel on the right records good deeds, whereas the one on the left records evil deeds. The one on the right is superior to the one on the left. Whenever an evil deed is about to be recorded, the angel on the right often tells the other to wait to see if the person is forgiven. Thaʿlabī relates a ḥadīthon the authority of Abū Umāma saying that whenever the right-hand angel sees a person doing a good deed he records it ten times;
whenever he sees a bad deed committed he tells the left angel to desist from recording it for seven hours in case the person makes a supplication to God and is forgiven. According to Thaʿlabī, on the Day of Judgment, God consults the scrolls written by these two angels and decides what judgment to render. Thaʿlabī cites a Prophetic ḥadīthon the authority of Abū Hurayra and Anas Mālik, “[The two angels] submit what they have recorded to God. Then He consults [the scrolls]. If He finds a good deed recorded at the beginning and at the end of the scroll, He tells His angels, ‘Bear witness that I have forgiven what My servant has committed in between the beginning and end of this scroll.’” In his chapter comparing earthly justice with heavenly justice in the early Islamic imagination in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Christian Lange draws on this source to elucidate the procedures of the heavenly court as imagined by exegetes, highlighting God’s use of written evidence.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.