Dumah (angel)


Dumah is an angel mentioned in Rabbinical and Islamic literature as an angel who has authority over the wicked dead. Dumah is a popular figure in Yiddish folklore. I. B. Singer's Short Friday, a collection of stories, mentions Dumah as a "thousand-eyed angel of death, armed with a fiery rod or flaming sword". Dumah is the Aramaic word for silence.

The angel

Duma or Douma is the angel of silence and of the stillness of death.
Dumah is also the tutelary angel of Egypt, prince of Hell, and angel of vindication. The Zohar speaks of him as having "tens of thousands of angels of destruction" under him, and as being "Chief of demons in Gehinnom with 12,000 myriads of attendants, all charged with the punishment of the souls of sinners." As the patron of Egypt, he disregarded the command of God to exercise judgment over the Egyptian deities. Whereupon God banishes him into Gehenna, there he becomes its ruler and three angels of destruction are appointed to him. He and his fellow angels torment the sinners every day in the week except on Sabbath.
In the Babylonian legend of the descent of Istar into Hades, Dumah shows up as the guardian of the 14th gate.
According to hadiths mentioned in Al-Suyuti's al-Haba'ik fi akhbar al-mala'ik, Azrael hands over the souls of the deceased unbelievers to Dumah.

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