The Trumpet That Ends the World

Israfil is the archangel who, in Islamic tradition, will sound the trumpet (as-Sur) to announce the end of the world and the resurrection of the dead. He is not named in the Quran, which speaks repeatedly of the blast of the trumpet, a first blast at which all creation swoons and dies, and a second at which the dead rise for judgement, without naming the one who blows it; the name Israfil comes from the hadith literature and later tradition.

There he is ranked among the four great archangels, alongside Jibril, Mikail, and the angel of death, and is often described as standing perpetually with the trumpet raised to his lips, awaiting God's command, so that he has never smiled since the creation of Hell. His role gives him a place in eschatology rather than in the ongoing life of the believer: he is the herald of the final hour, the angel whose single act divides this age from the next.