Ādam pictured the zabāniya as duplicates of the angel of death who, according to the Quran (4:97, 32:11), seizes the souls of sinners when they die and interrogates them about their wrongdoings. This is also how later tradition pictured them: as black creatures who appear at the moment of death to pull people’s souls out of their bodies and drag them into hell, where they torture them.2 However...
