the children of Adam over the angels. Then he referred to the discussion of the disagreement on this matter in Sūrah al-Baqarah (1/289), where he mentioned the disagreement in detail, and cited the evidence of those who said this, and those who claimed that the angels are superior. Among these is his statement: "In al-Bukhārī: 'Allāh says: Whoever remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in an assembly better than them,' and this is explicit." Then he said: "Some scholars have said: There is no way to definitively state that the prophets are superior to the angels, nor to definitively state that the angels are better than them, because the way to determine this is through the report of Allāh or His Messenger, or the consensus of the ummah, and none of these are present here." Then I saw that the scholar Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz al-Ḥanafī expanded greatly in mentioning the evidence of both groups and discussing them, clarifying their strengths and weaknesses in "Sharḥ al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah" (301-311) — and he was followed by al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar in "Fatḥ al-Bārī" (13/384-388) —; and he mentioned that Abū Ḥanīfah (may Allāh have mercy on him) did not give a definitive answer on this, and said: "This is the truth, for it is obligatory upon us to believe in the angels and the prophets, and we are not required to believe which of the two groups is superior; for if this were obligatory, it would have been clearly stated to us." What prompted me to elaborate on this matter is that some ignorant people behave disrespectfully by saying: the angel was a servant to the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam)! Or that some angels are servants to the children of Adam!! They mean: the angels assigned to humans, and similar expressions that contradict the sharīʿah and are devoid of proper etiquette