Marut (Márūt), with his companion [harut], is one of the two angels of Babylon in Islamic tradition: the pair of angels sent down to Babylon who taught humankind the knowledge of magic as a trial and a temptation, warning each that it was a test and that those who used it for evil would be lost — figures of the testing of humankind through forbidden knowledge. He is an angel of Babylon, a teacher of the trial of magic.
The Companion of Harut
Marut (Márūt), with his inseparable companion [harut], is one of the two angels named in the Qur’an as sent down to the city of Babylon, where they were associated with the teaching of magic (sihr) to humankind. The two are almost always named together — Harut and Marut — and they share the same office and the same story; Marut is the constant companion of Harut in the account of the angels of Babylon and the trial of forbidden knowledge.
The Trial of Magic
As told in full under [harut], the Qur’an relates that Harut and Marut taught magic at Babylon — but as a trial and a temptation, not to corrupt: they warned each person they taught, “We are only a trial; so do not disbelieve,” cautioning that the knowledge was a test of faith and that to misuse it for evil was to fall into unbelief and ruin. Some, heedless of the warning, learned that by which they could cause harm (such as the magic that sows discord between a man and his wife), and so brought loss and evil upon themselves, forfeiting their share in the Hereafter. Thus the two angels were the instruments of a trial: the knowledge they taught tested whether people would heed the warning and keep faith, or misuse the dangerous knowledge for harm.
The Angel of the Test
Marut, like Harut, is bound up with the theme of forbidden or dangerous knowledge as a test of faith. In the later, extra-Qur’anic traditions and commentaries, the cautionary tale grew that the two were angels sent down to earth to be tested (after judging humankind harshly), who fell into temptation and sin and were punished, hung in a pit at Babylon — a story of the testing even of angels and the danger of pride. But the central image remains the two angels of Babylon as the teachers of the trial of magic, warning of its peril. As one of the two angels of Babylon who taught the trial of magic with a warning, Marut, the companion of Harut, holds his place among the beings of Islamic tradition. In Marut, Islamic tradition gave form to an angel of the trial — with Harut, one of the two angels of Babylon who taught humankind the knowledge of magic as a test and temptation, warning that those who used it for evil would be lost, the companion-teacher of the trial of forbidden knowledge.