Normal
The beginnings of the concept of "angels" is 1000 years older than Islam. Angels come into many different religions of the middle east and Asia Minor, including Judaism, at about 600 BCE. So it should not surprise if the subcontinent of India would have contact with the idea of angels, and introduce the idea into all of its many religions, following Persian conquest of the Punjab. Much later Christianity adopts the idea of angels, from Jewish and Persian influences. About 1000 years after the birth of Islam, and 2000 years of Persian influence, Guruji is written and we read of angels in a few places. I am not convinced that the Gurus were including angels as part of Sikhi, but were using images that were familiar to common folk. These angels by now are part of a tradition that is thousands of years old.My reasoning: Angels would be part of the spirit world...if you believe in the spirit world. If one believes seriously in them then one has to also accept that there is a spirit world inhabited by spirits, and that these "spirits" wander through more than one level or plane of reality doing the work of 2 executive officers of the supernatural. These CEO's would be either a good God or an evil demon (depending on religion the demon has a different name, e.g., Lucifer), or both at the same time. Do we see anywhere in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji examples of agents of the divine carrying out orders in the khands or other planes of existence or reality, on behalf of good and evil lordships of creation. That is why the idea of angels in Sikhi is very strange, and I think they are used as metaphors and nothing more in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
The beginnings of the concept of "angels" is 1000 years older than Islam. Angels come into many different religions of the middle east and Asia Minor, including Judaism, at about 600 BCE. So it should not surprise if the subcontinent of India would have contact with the idea of angels, and introduce the idea into all of its many religions, following Persian conquest of the Punjab. Much later Christianity adopts the idea of angels, from Jewish and Persian influences. About 1000 years after the birth of Islam, and 2000 years of Persian influence, Guruji is written and we read of angels in a few places. I am not convinced that the Gurus were including angels as part of Sikhi, but were using images that were familiar to common folk. These angels by now are part of a tradition that is thousands of years old.
My reasoning: Angels would be part of the spirit world...if you believe in the spirit world. If one believes seriously in them then one has to also accept that there is a spirit world inhabited by spirits, and that these "spirits" wander through more than one level or plane of reality doing the work of 2 executive officers of the supernatural. These CEO's would be either a good God or an evil demon (depending on religion the demon has a different name, e.g., Lucifer), or both at the same time. Do we see anywhere in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji examples of agents of the divine carrying out orders in the khands or other planes of existence or reality, on behalf of good and evil lordships of creation. That is why the idea of angels in Sikhi is very strange, and I think they are used as metaphors and nothing more in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
