The Rooster Angel (Book of Ascension)
Jibril and the Prophet meet the Rooster Angel leading a collection of angels in prayer
Then Gabriel took me, and I saw a rooster standing on its feet. Its wings were whiter than snow. Its feet reached the earth, and its head breached through the skies. When it spread a wing, it stretched from the east to the west and beyond. It crowed and flapped its wings. It was uttering this prayer: “Praise be to God, the Great, the Exalted, there is no god but God, the Living, the Eternal.” When it crowed, the roosters from the east to the west crowed, and the crowing of those roosters was: “Remember God, o negligent ones!”
This angel is a giant rooster. No, really, there is a massive rooster which is one of the four major angels the Prophet sees in heaven.
There's more to it than just that, of course. The Book of Ascension, was both a work of art and a spiritual tale teaching Sunni Muslim devotional norms. The painting of Muhammad’s encounter with the rooster angel and choirs of angels in the first heaven provides a pattern of physical gestures that accompany Islamic tasbīh. prayers and other forms of prayer invocations. In this composition, the Prophet stands next to Gabriel in the lower right corner with both hands crossed at chest level, while angels raise both hands in prayer toward the large white angelic rooster standing on a dais. These gestures are not coincidental; indeed, when examined in relationship to the contents of the Ilkhanid Mi‛rajnama text, they clearly function as patterns of emulation for du‛ā practices. The Prophet’s hands are in the position of qabd (clutching or grasping), a prayer position he was said to have preferred over a number of others. Similarly, the angels are in the position of the ‘raising of the two hands’ (raf‛ al-yadayn), a movement that is used at fixed points in Islamic prayer. This latter position is heralded by many writers— including the famous hadith compiler al-Bukhari, who wrote a treatise on this precise topic—as an essential part of religious observances (‛ibādāt). Thus, the viewer’s observation of this painting and his learning and imitation of both the qabd. and the raf‛ al-yadayn in prayer can provide a firm affirmation of the Prophet’s Sunna. It is possible to imagine that the text accompanying this narrative episode resembled closely the Mi‛rajnama text presented in this edition, since here Muhammad’s encounter with the rooster angel serves to teach the following tasbīh. formula in Arabic: ‘Praise be to God, the Great, the Exalted, there is no god but God, the Living, the Eternal.’ The roosters of the world respond in kind, exhorting the faithful on earth to continuously remember God. In this case, rather than communicating directly with the angelic rooster, the Prophet listens to a heavenly prayer invocation directed to God and a gentle reminder that such remembrances must resound on earth.
One again, Imam al-Suyuti's 15th century book on angels called al-Haba'ik fi al-Akhbar al-Mala'ik collects a number of interesting traditions on our subject:
God has a Cockerel, whose feet are on the Seventh Earth and it passes through the Seven Heavens, and no earthly cockerel can prevent itself from answering it.
God has a Cockerel; its two wings are ornamented with chrysolite, pearls and sapphires. It has a wing in the East and a wing in the West, its feet are on the lowest earth and its folded head is under the throne. It causes the cockerels to crow at dawn. On the Day of Resurrection it will be told to stop beating its wings.
The Throne is on an angel made of pearls in the image of a cockerel; its feet are on the boundaries of the lowest [earth] and its folded neck is under the Throne; its wings are in the East and the West; when that angel worships God, nothing remains except the praise of God, may He be praised and exalted.
What's Gameable Here?
The fact that there is a kaiju-sized bejeweled Divine rooster out there should be reason enough to include it in your games. Perhaps a seemingly average rooster provides some surprising aid against Infernal enemies or preaches a sermon. Go wild, really.