AZRAEL

From the Hebrew, meaning Help of God. In the Jewish and the Mohammedan mythology, the name of the angel who watches over the dying and separates the soul from the body. Prior to the intercession of Mohammed, Azrael inflicted the death penalty visibly, by striking down before the eyes of the living those whose time for death was come (see Henry W. Longfellow's exquisite poem Azrael).

Azrael is also known as Raphael, and with Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel, identified as the four archangels. As the angel of death to the Moslems, he is regarded as similar to Fate, and Jewish. tradition almost makes him an evil genius.