The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 188
CH. 2 AL-BAQARAH it, and is a guidance and glad tidings to the believers- 104 only place for enjoying honour and happiness and entertained no hope about the next, yet with no fear of punishment after death, they were less cringingly attached to the present life than the Jews, who believed in Resurrection after death and feared in their hearts that their actions would make them liable to punishment before God. 104. Important Words: جبر (Gabriel) is a compound word made up of (722) which in Hebrew means a man or a mighty man or a hero, and ✓ (38) which means God (Hebrew-English Lexicon by William Geseneus, Boston, 1836. Also see Bukhārī, chap. on Tafsir). The latter word occurs in many combinations (e. g. in the word Ishmael in Gen. 16:11 which means "God heareth" or "God has heard"). In Arabic, which is the mother of Hebrew, the word means, mending a broken thing; giving a poor man so liberally as to make him well off; a brave man. The word is either derived from the Arabic word (God) or from the root JI, the active participle from which is meaning Controller or Ruler, i. e. God (Aqrab). Ibn 'Abbās relates that the other name of is i. e. the servant of God (Jarir), which is simply another rendering of the word (Gabriel) is so called because he is the servant of God; he is the strong and brave servant of God; he looks after the repairing or reformation of the universe, he bestows God's bounties Thus the angel 188 on mankind and is a liberal giver. PT. 1 In Islam has been described as the chief among the angels (Manthūr) and was therefore selected by God to be the bearer of the Quranic message, the best and the last (Law) to descend from Heaven. Many commentators جبريل consider that (Gabriel) is synonymous with më z (the Spirit of Holiness) spoken of in the Quran and the Ḥadīth. Similarly, روح الامين Gabriel has been spoken of as (the Trusty Spirit) in the Quran (26:194). Commentary: The Jews had been invited to believe in the Quran, but they refused to accept it (v. 92 above) on the ground that it was said to have been brought by Gabriel while, according to them, the bearer of Divine Revelation was Michael, and not Gabriel (Musnad). The function of Gabriel, as we learn from the Bible, is to convey the messages of God to His servants (Dan. 8:16; 9:21; and Luke 1:19, 26. It is strange that Gabriel is mentioned in the Old Testament for the first time in Daniel and not earlier). The Quran, as the verse under comment points out, assigns the same function to Gabriel. But in some later writings of the Jews, he is described as "the angel of fire and thunder" (Enc. Bib. under Gabriel). Such was the idea of the Jews in the days of the Holy Prophet. They looked upon Gabriel as an angel of wars, calamities and hardships (Jarīr under 2:98). Muslim historians tell us