And those whom the angels receive [in death], to the end [of the verse]: al-tawaffī is to receive fully the spirit (istīfāÌ) from the body by having it seized from it, which can be in one of three ways: the reception of [it by] the angels, the reception of [it by] the angel of death, and the reception of [it by] God. As for the angels' reception [of the spirit], that is for the folk of the souls who are either fortunate, being the good folk, those of the praiseworthy attributes and virtuous character traits from among the righteous, the Godfearing, those whom the angels receive [in death] while they are goodly, saying to them, 'Peace be upon you! Enter Paradise because of what you used to do' [Q. 16:31-32]: their final return shall be to the garden of the acts. Or they are the damned, the evil folk, those of the base attributes and the wicked character traits, whose spirits are only received by the powers of the angelic realm which in this world are the equivalent of their faculties which constitute their station, veiled as they are by attributes of the soul and the pleasures of the imaginative, estimative, predatorial and bestial faculties, the disbelievers, those whom the angels receive [in death] while they are wronging themselves [Q. 16:27-28]: their final return shall be to the Fire. As for the reception of the angel of death, that is for the possessors of hearts, those who have emerged from the veil of the soul to the station of the heart and have returned to the primordial nature and have become illumined by it. The spirits of these [latter] are seized by the universal rational soul, which is the heart of the world, because of their conjunction with it; this is the case if it is the angel of death himself who seizes their spirits. If he seizes [these spirits] by means of his assistants and their powers, then they belong to the first group [mentioned above]. He [the angel of death] may seize them himself and turn them over to the angelic realm of chastisement so that they might be brought to reckoning and requited in accordance with their vices and be rid [of them]; that will be on account of [their] perfection or deficiency of knowledge, as in the case of the one who is delivered from ignorance and associating [others with God] and becomes adorned with knowledge and the affirmation of Oneness, but upon whose heart there had accumulated dark configurations and base natures because of wicked deeds and reprehensible character traits; or on account of having knowledge of the affirmation of the Oneness but ignorance of the final return, as in the case of the affirmer of the Oneness who denies the [final] recompense and is ensconced in acts of disobedience, as God, exalted be He, says Say: the angel of death, who has been charged with you, shall receive you [in death] [Q.
