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Did Moses (peace be upon him) gouge out the eye of Gabriel (peace be upon him) when he was sent to him to take his soul, and was Gabriel unable to do so due to Moses' strength, or did he disobey Allah's command, or was Gabriel's coming not for the purpose of taking his soul, so why did he say: "You sent me to a servant who does not want to die"?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Moses, peace be upon him, did not gouge out the eye of Gabriel, peace be upon him. Rather, he gouged out the eye of the Angel of Death, peace be upon him. Scholars have provided several answers regarding this hadith, among them: that the Angel of Death was not incapable of seizing Moses' soul and did not disobey his Lord's command, but rather he was commanded to be gentle in seizing his soul. Moses did not know that he was an angel from Allah, so he defended himself, and that push happened to hit the eye embedded in his human form, not the angelic eye. It is possible that Allah permitted Moses to perform that action on the Angel of Death and tested the Angel of Death with patience over it. Furthermore, the longing to meet Allah does not contradict the dislike of death.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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