The Three Functions of the Angel Gabriel

The Promised Messiah^as & Imam Mahdi (Guided One)
Founder of
THE REVIEW OF RELIGIONS

Gabriel has three functions relating to revelation. First, when the womb receives the seed of a person whose nature God the Glorious, out of His Rahmaniyyat [Grace]—with which man has nothing to do—desires to make him capable of receiving revelation, He casts the reflection of the light of Gabriel on him in that very condition. Then such a person’s nature develops, under Divine direction, the capacity for receiving revelation and he acquires senses for the receipt of revelation. 

Secondly, when the love of a servant falls under the shadow of Divine love then, on account of the providential movement of God Almighty, a movement is produced in the light of Gabriel and that light falls on the heart of the true lover. That is to say, a reflection of that light falls on his heart and produces in it a reflection of Gabriel which operates as light or air or heat and dwells within him as a faculty for the receipt of revelation. One end of it is sunk in the light of Gabriel and the other enters into the heart of the recipient of revelation. This, in other words, is called the Holy Spirit or its reflection. 

Thirdly, it is the function of Gabriel that when Divine word manifests itself he comes into motion like a wave and carries the word to the ears of the heart, or being illumined like light presents it to the eyes or, in the guise of heat, causes the tongue to utter the words of the revelation.  

Endnotes

1.  Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as, The Essence of Islam, vol. 2 (Tilford, Surrey: Islam International Publications, 1993), 169-170.