Michael  ·  Mikail

Michael in Islam

Michael is Mikail in Arabic, written مِيكَائِيل. The two names belong to the same person, and the two traditions tell his story differently enough to be worth reading side by side.

English
Michael
Arabic
مِيكَائِيل
Read as
Mikail
Status
Angel in Islam
Where the English comes from
Hebrew Mikhael, who is like God.
What the Arabic carries
Mikail, the Quranic form of the same name.
Full name page
Mikail on AsrNaam

Is Michael the same as Mikail? Yes. Michael is the English form and Mikail the Arabic form of one name. He is named once in the Quran, alongside Jibril, in Surah Al-Baqarah.

Mikail in the Quran

Mikail is named once in the Quran, in Surah Al-Baqarah, in a verse that says whoever is an enemy to God, His angels, His messengers, Jibril and Mikail, then God is an enemy to the disbelievers. Naming two angels in one verse is unusual, and the pairing has stayed.

Islamic tradition assigns him provision: rain, vegetation, the sustenance that comes down. Where Jibril carries revelation, Mikail carries what keeps bodies alive. Neither role is spelled out in the Quran itself, and both come from hadith and commentary.

Naming a child after an angel is permitted in Islamic law and is common in practice. Mikail, Mikael, Michael and Mikaeel are all in use among Muslim families, particularly in Britain and Turkey.

Using the name

The full entry for Mikail carries the Arabic spelling, the Urdu, the pronunciation, the lucky number and the letter-by-letter Ilm ul Huroof reading, along with every romanisation the name is written in.

Open the full Mikail page →

Questions about Michael and Mikail

Is Michael the same name as Mikail?
Michael is the English form and Mikail is the Arabic form of the same name. They refer to the same figure.
Is Mikail the same as the archangel Michael?
Yes. Mikail is the Arabic and Quranic form of the Hebrew Mikhael.
Can Muslims name a child Mikail?
Yes. Naming after angels is permitted, and Mikail is widely used.
Can a Muslim family use the name Mikail?
Yes. Mikail is used as a given name across the Muslim world. AsrNaam carries its full page with the Arabic spelling, the pronunciation, the lucky number and the letter-by-letter Ilm ul Huroof reading.

Other names the two traditions share

Every one of these is one figure under two names.

Jesus and IsaMoses and MusaMary and MaryamAbraham and IbrahimJoseph and YusufDavid and DawudSolomon and SulaymanNoah and NuhJohn and YahyaJacob and YaqubJonah and YunusJob and AyyubAaron and HarunIsaac and Ishaq

Or start from the full list of Biblical names in Islam.

The letters of Mikail

Ilm ul Huroof reads a name through the Arabic letters it is written with. Each carries a traditional numeric value and a principle. Mikail is written ميكائيل, and reads as follows.

م40inward mercy, love returning to its sourceي10the hand and the bondك20the palm, what is graspedا1origin and the upright singularئ10ي10the hand and the bondل30reaching, the extended arm

The values total 121, which reduces to 4. This is a reading of the name's written structure in the letter-science tradition, not a claim about anyone who carries it.

How one name became two

Michael and Mikail are not translations of each other. They are two descendants of the same Semitic word. The Hebrew is מִיכָאֵל (Mikhael), meaning who is like God. Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages built on shared three-letter roots, so the name passed into Arabic as Mikail with its consonants largely intact. It reached English by the longer road: Hebrew into Greek, Greek into Latin, Latin into English, each language reshaping the sounds it could not make. That is why Michael and Mikail look unrelated on the page and are the same name underneath.

The same name, other languages

Miguel, Michele, Mikhail, Mikhael, Mikail, Mikaeel.