Mohammedan legends add to the Bible story the tradition that—God sent Gabriel, Michael, and Israfel one after the other to fetch seven handfuls of earth from different depths and of different colours for the creation of Adam (thereby accounting for the varying colours of mankind), but that they returned empty-handed because Earth foresaw that the creature to be made from her would rebel against G&d and draw down His curse on her, whereupon Azrael was sent. He executed the commission, and for that reason was appointed to separate the souls from the bodies and hence became the Angel of Death. The earth he had taken was carried into Arabia to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where it was kneaded by the angels, fashioned into human form by God, and left to dry for either forty days or forty years. It is also said that while the clay was being endowed with life and a soul, when the breath breathed by God into the nostrils had reached as far as the navel, the only half-living Adam tried to rise up and got ah ugly fall for his pains. Mohammedan tradition holds that he was buried on Aboucais, a mountain of Arabia.
According to the Koran, there are four archangels: Gabriel, the angel of revelations, who writes down the divine decrees; Michael, the champion, who fights the battles of faith: Azrael, the angel of death; and Israfel, who is commissioned to sound the trumpet of the resurrection.
Azrael (az’ ral). In Mohammedan legend, the angel that watches over the dying, and takes the soul from the body; the angel of death. He will be the last to die, but will do so at the second trump of the archangel. See ADAM.
The Wings of Azrael. The approach of death; the signs of death coming on the dying.
The third heaven is of pearl, and is allotted to Joseph. Here Azrael, the angel of death, is stationed, and is for ever writing in a large book or blotting words out. The former are the names of persons born, the latter those of the newly dead. [Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable]