Islamic Angelology: Fuṭrus
Ibn Shahrāshūb, a Shi‘a commentator and hadith scholar who died in the year 1192, details an interesting story concerning the birth of Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn. At his birth, it is said that Gabriel led a thousand legions of angels to Arabia to congratulate the family of Islam’s prophet. On the way there, however, this heavenly host flew over an island with one inhabitant: Fuṭrus. Fuṭrus (possibly etymologically connected to Buṭrus, ‘Peter’) was an angel who had once been one of the throne-bearers of God, but who had hesitated to perform one of God’s commandments and so was cast onto the island. He had been there for a thousand years at the time of the Imam’s birth. Learning why the heavenly host was flying to Arabia, he asked them to carry him there too, so he also could celebrate the birth of the Imam. The other angels took pity on him and carried him there; seeing his broken wings, Muhammad ordered Fuṭrus to rub Husayn’s swaddling clothes against them. When he did, they were miraculously healed. This was a symbol of Fuṭrus’s redemption, but he was still not allowed to return to heaven. Instead, because the love of the infant Husayn had redeemed him, he was positioned as the guardian over Husayn’s future tomb. Source: Redemptive Suffering in Islām: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of ‘Āshūrā’ in Twelver Shī‘ism
