The Angel of Revelation

Jibril, the Gabriel of the Bible, is the greatest of the angels in Islamic tradition, and his defining function is the transmission of revelation. Over the roughly twenty-three years of Muhammad's prophethood it was Jibril who brought the Quran, verse by verse, beginning with the command "Recite!" (Iqra) in the cave of Hira.

The Quran names him three times and identifies him with "the Trustworthy Spirit" (al-Ruh al-Amin) and "the Holy Spirit" (Ruh al-Qudus), and the tradition holds that he was the same angel who carried God's word to the earlier prophets. He is the angel who accompanies Muhammad on the Night Journey and Ascension (Isra and Miraj), guiding him through the heavens, and who is described in hadith as appearing in the form of a man to teach the community the elements of their religion. As the channel between the divine word and the human prophet, Jibril occupies the structural centre of Islamic revelation: the whole scripture is, in the tradition's own account, what he delivered.