The Jinn: Supernatural Beings of the Muslim World
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According to the Quran, the sacred text of Islam, the jinn are a race of mostly invisible beings that occasionally interfere in peoples’ lives, and possess their minds and bodies. The jinn of Islam grew out of earlier Mesopotamian deities and Greco-Roman daemons, but they also have a great deal in common with traditions of invisible beings and “little people” all over the world. The similarities between jinn, fairies, and twentieth-century aliens, for example, suggest that they may all be manifestations of the same phenomena, filtered through different cultures.
Origins
The precise origin of belief in the jinn is difficult to establish.(1) Some scholars place the origins of these invisible beings as far back as nature gods worshiped by the Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, while others think that the idea grew out of Arabian folk belief in demons who could take the form of animals.(2) Long before the emergence of Islam in the seventh century CE, the nomadic Bedouin people living around the Arabian Peninsula are thought to have passed on belief in desert spirits and nature gods to settled populations. Evidence suggests that settled communities placed great importance on appeasing these spirits for protection from their environment.(3)
German anthropologist Joseph Henninger proposed that some of these gods and demons were jinn who were gradually “elevated” to the status of gods.(4) For example, Pazuzu was an early desert wind god or demon who may himself have originated from the Egyptian desert god Set, the destroyer. Like the jinn, Pazuzu was of great concern to settled peoples, but less-so to nomads.(5)
Ancient Mesopotamian cultures believed in various types of spirits described as half-human and half-supernatural. Sometimes these demons had sexual relations with humans, just as the jinn were known to do. For example, the rabisu of Bablyonian lore - a kind of divine messenger that often brought ill fortune to those it visited - had the same characteristics as an evil type of jinn called a ghul, including hiding in abandoned sites and jumping out on passerbys. Mesopotamian griffon demons were depicted with human bodies, large wings, and the heads of birds of prey. Others were portrayed with lion’s paws, horns, and donkey’s teeth. Lamashtu, daughter of the sky god, Anu, was depicted more like a beast, or a werewolf.(6) Muslim artists later depicted the jinn in similar ways.
Some notable representations of Arabian jinn-gods have been found in the city of Palmyra in modern Syria, which grew prosperous through trade under the Roman Empire, and was influenced by many cultures along the Silk Road trade routes that connected the western and eastern worlds. Here it seems that the jinn were worshiped as protectors against storms and drought.
The word jinn may also have emerged from Palmyra, although its etymology is the subject of debate. It’s commonly thought that the word derives from an Arabic root, jann, meaning to “conceal” or “cover with darkness,” but it may also derive from the Latin word genius, the Aramaic word ginnaya, and the Avestan word Jaini.(7)
Belief in powerful, invisible beings continued to evolve until the completion of the Quran in the seventh century, which merges the two main conceptions of these primordial jinn: the Arabian folk belief that they were desert spirits, and the Graeco-Roman and Mesopotamian belief that they were demons occupying a higher plain than humans in the hierarchy of creation.(8)
Jinn in Islam
Just before his death in 632, the prophet Muhammed had completed writing the text of the Quran, which he alleged to be a transcription of the channeled word of God.(9) This text provides us with the first explicit account of the origins and nature of the jinn, in Arabic.
The various types of jinn or “invisible beings,” are referred to at least 29 times in the Quran. God is said to have created angels from light, and the jinn from “smokeless fire” before creating humankind from clay. For this reason, jinn are sometimes called “the people of the fire” or “fire spirits.” The Quran includes a “sura,” or chapter, titled “The Jinn,” that appears to be written from the first-person perspective of one of these beings. The sura describes the jinn as male and female humanoids who live and die, form communities, birth children, raise families, possess intelligence and free will, and make moral choices. Jinn who reject Islam or cause trouble are considered evil, and sometimes referred to as demons.(10)
Like humans, the jinn experience emotions such as love, hate, fear, envy, and resentment, and their emotional outbursts are often key features of stories about them.(11) Jinn are often divided into several categories including the jann, shaitan, ifrit, and marid, among others.(12) Sometimes different types of jinn are also grouped by color.(13) While all traditions of jinn share some common elements, the names, behaviors, and capabilities ascribed to them vary from one region to another.(14)
For all their similarities to humans, jinn were also said to possess some extra abilities. The Quran states that Satan and his jinn followers “watch you from a position where ye cannot see them.” Jinn are normally invisible to people, or else disguise themselves as humans or other animals - particularly snakes and dogs.(15) The most notable example of this, and the first jinn-human interaction, is that of Satan appearing as a snake in the Garden of Eden, as described in the Bible. To Muslims, this spirit was known as Iblis or Eblis. The Quran states that Iblis is a jinn, while other scholars suggest that he is a fallen angel.(16) Jinn are also connected to magic and fortune-telling, and have been since well before the seventh century. With their connection to heaven, jinn could “eavesdrop” on God’s plans and would relate what they learned to soothsayers.(17)
It is said that the jinn’s homeland is in the legendary Qaf Mountain, which was believed to be found on the other side of the ocean that surrounded the human world, at the entrance to the spirit realm.(18) Jinn are also known for haunting houses or abandoned buildings, roaming lost cities, and dwelling in deep places. Those jinn that live alongside of us typically keep to themselves, but are thought to occasionally interact with people, often emotionally or sexually, in both positive and negative ways.(19) For example, the jinn were said to possess human beings, or to give them physical or mental disease. Malevolent acts have long been blamed on evil jinn: the shaitans, ifrits, marids, and ghuls.(20) Jinn are said to speak through and control the behavior of those they possess, and can in some cultures be exercised by various methods. Even Muhammed was said to have cured a boy who was “seized by fits.” The prophet exorcized a jinn by blowing and speaking commands three times into the boy’s mouth.(21) Jinn were also thought to inspire poets and other artists to produce work that was noticeably different, and often much better, than their usual output - much like the Greek concept of a muse or a genius. Even Muhammad was initially worried that his Quranic revelations were jinn-inspired.(22)
The hadiths - a canon of third-party accounts of the prophets’ words and deeds - reference several of his encounters with jinn.(23) For example, the prophet was once praying in a mosque when he was interrupted by a large ifrit, only to send it away “humiliated.”(24) In a notable tale in one hadith, Muhammed is carried up to heaven on the back of a winged horse-like creature. On their way back to earth, they are interrupted by an ifrit who threatens the prophet with fire. The archangel Gabriel then appears in the air and teaches Muhammed a prayer to drive the jinn away.(25)
In the centuries since Muhammed’s passing, Muslim scholars have debated the nature of the jinn, often reaching very different conclusions.(26) Scholars disagree on whether jinn and humans can or should interbreed, for example. They also disagree on the physical makeup of the jinn. Scholars of the Middle Ages believed that jinn had bodies with the density of air.(27) The prominent thirteenth-century Persian physician, astronomer, and geographer, Zakariya al-Qazwini, defined jinn as “aerial animals, with transparent bodies, which can assume various forms.” He and others believed that the jinn could only be seen when their forms were condensed, but he noted that other “free-thinkers” considered the jinn to be nothing more than “unruly men.”(28)
In the tenth century CE, a legend emerged that King Solomon, the third or fourth king of Israel, wielded power over jinn due to a magical “sealing ring” he wore. Under Solomon’s command, the jinn were credited with building many structures and castles, including the First Temple of Jerusalem. The Bible doesn’t mention Solomon’s workforce, but the Quran does make reference to a number of construction projects involving jinn, and it mentions that an ifrit once offered to carry the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.(29)
Jinn Today
Following the efforts of Pope Sylvester II to bring Arabic knowledge to the west in the early eleventh century, European intellectuals became gradually more familiar with stories of jinn.(30) The prominent sixteenth-century Swiss physician and alchemist, Paracelsus, wrote of creatures he called “elementals” that inhabited a state between the material and the immaterial, and could marry and breed with humans. His four “elemental spirits” - the undines, salamanders, sylphs, and gnomes - were highly reminiscent of al-Qazwini’s aerial jinn.(31) According to a Sufi tradition, Paracelsus was said to have possessed a powerful longsword with a jinn captured in its hilt.
Jinn further penetrated western culture after the first English translations of One Thousand and One Nights in the early eighteenth century. These tales were first compiled in Arabic, drawing stories from Arabic, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, and Mesopotamian folklore.(32) Even the famous French novelist Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables, published a poem titled “The Jinn” in 1829.(33) Over the course of the nineteenth century, western writers shed the jinn of their Islamic associations and reimagined them as the wish-granting “genies” that we see today in western media.(34)
Under the influence of Western materialism, many Muslims today have come to interpret the stories of jinn in a metaphorical sense.(35) Nonetheless, in Pakistan, where around 96% of the country's population is Muslim, a 2009 public opinion poll found that 89% of respondents believed in the existence of jinn.(36)
But even those not raised to believe in the jinn have had encounters with them. David Morehouse is a retired remote viewer for the U.S. military. In his book Psychic Warrior, Morehouse relates an event that occurred in the spring of 1987. He and other U.S. troops were camped with Jordanian soldiers for training exercises in Jordan in a desert valley called Baten el Ghoul, which means “Belly of the Beast.” The Jordanian soldiers considered the region haunted by jinn and some had even seen them. While there, Morehouse was accidentally shot in the helmet, leaving a large bump on his head. Morehouse describes waking that night to a “surreal light” outside the tent that he likened to an “eclipsed sun” that lit the night sky and bathed the surrounding hills in a “strange bluish gray light.” He walked out to a cliff to see the valley and saw “dark figures” gliding “like apparitions” around the groupings of tents. Cries came from the Jordanian encampment, and Morehouse turned to run for help. As he sprinted away, he ran directly into one of the figures but passed clear through it, only to turn around and watch the figure disappear over the cliff. Soon after, he found that the lump on his head was gone.(37)
In eastern Saudi Arabia there’s a region of salt flats in the desert that’s notorious for hosting jinn. Journalist Robert Lebling spoke to an oil worker there who told him about a man he knew who had an odd encounter while attempting to take a short-cut across the flats. The truck driver and his assistant were hours into the flats when their truck broke down, so the assistant left to walk to the nearest town while the driver stayed with the vehicle. After sundown the driver started sleeping but awoke in the night to two voices. After climbing down out of the truck, he was approached by a woman and a small boy she pulled close by her side. The woman was entirely cloaked in black and addressed the driver by his name - asking him why he came there; telling him that the place was their home; admonishing him that he should never come again; and warning that he’ll pay for this sin. The woman then swiveled her head from side-to-side like a bird, yelled and cursed at him, then hit him in the chest so hard that she knocked him backwards and made him lose consciousness. The next morning, the driver awoke alone and found that he’d lost his voice, which he did not regain for weeks afterwards.(38)
In the year 2000, the al-Fikriyah Institute of Education, a girls’ school located in the port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, experienced a range of phenomena alleged to be due to a jinn haunting. Several of the teachers suffered fits and seizures, with one having a miscarriage. Teachers refused to return to the school while it was haunted and looked for jobs elsewhere. Skeptics claimed that depression and job dissatisfaction simply led to “mass hysteria.” However, a Saudi cleric asked by authorities to investigate, submitted his report to the educational government body stating that “the school was inhabited by jinns.”(39)
Significance
The prominent twentieth-century Muslim writer, Muhammad Asad, was early to note that the jinn could account for past encounters of “supernatural” beings like ghosts and demons.(40) It’s significant that not only do the jinn have much in common with the pre-Islamic traditions that they’re derived from, but that they have much in common with similar traditions of “invisible people” all around the world.
Many other cultures in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America have traditions of nature-based little people that live alongside humankind. European christians have long spoken of encounters with strange beings in the Middle Ages that were variously referred to as fairies, lutins, and kobolds, among other names. Descriptions of jinn as light, vaporous beings strongly resemble descriptions of elves, fauns, fairies, and sylphs in northern European folklore, specifically those described in a treatise by the Scottish reverend Robert Kirk in the late seventeenth century.(41) Similarly described spirit guardians are found as close as Ireland and Scandinavia, and as far away as China.(42)
Much like European fairies, kobolds, and leprechauns, the jinn were sometimes said to guard hidden treasures.(43) Similar to the thieving house fairies of European lore, jinn were also said to steal objects and individuals. According to two hadiths, Muhammad recommended that people prevent evil jinns from stealing during the night by covering their utensils, tying up their water skins, and keeping their children close.(44) He also claimed that the jinn feared iron, a trait that they shared with fairies in Scotland, demons in West Africa, and evil spirits in Sri Lanka.(45) It’s now known that iron produces a magnetic field, and that magnetic fields have an effect on plasma.(46) It has also been established that poltergeist activity, hauntings, and even incidents of sleep paralysis are often decreased or stopped entirely when the victims keep electronics on, which also create strong magnetic fields.(47)
As Robert Lebling concluded in his book Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar,
According to the Quran, the sacred text of Islam, the jinn are a race of mostly invisible beings that occasionally interfere in peoples’ lives, and possess their minds and bodies. The jinn of Islam grew out of earlier Mesopotamian deities and Greco-Roman daemons, but they also have a great deal in common with traditions of invisible beings and “little people” all over the world. The similarities between jinn, fairies, and twentieth-century aliens, for example, suggest that they may all be manifestations of the same phenomena, filtered through different cultures.
Origins
The precise origin of belief in the jinn is difficult to establish.(1) Some scholars place the origins of these invisible beings as far back as nature gods worshiped by the Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, while others think that the idea grew out of Arabian folk belief in demons who could take the form of animals.(2) Long before the emergence of Islam in the seventh century CE, the nomadic Bedouin people living around the Arabian Peninsula are thought to have passed on belief in desert spirits and nature gods to settled populations. Evidence suggests that settled communities placed great importance on appeasing these spirits for protection from their environment.(3)
German anthropologist Joseph Henninger proposed that some of these gods and demons were jinn who were gradually “elevated” to the status of gods.(4) For example, Pazuzu was an early desert wind god or demon who may himself have originated from the Egyptian desert god Set, the destroyer. Like the jinn, Pazuzu was of great concern to settled peoples, but less-so to nomads.(5)
Ancient Mesopotamian cultures believed in various types of spirits described as half-human and half-supernatural. Sometimes these demons had sexual relations with humans, just as the jinn were known to do. For example, the rabisu of Bablyonian lore - a kind of divine messenger that often brought ill fortune to those it visited - had the same characteristics as an evil type of jinn called a ghul, including hiding in abandoned sites and jumping out on passerbys. Mesopotamian griffon demons were depicted with human bodies, large wings, and the heads of birds of prey. Others were portrayed with lion’s paws, horns, and donkey’s teeth. Lamashtu, daughter of the sky god, Anu, was depicted more like a beast, or a werewolf.(6) Muslim artists later depicted the jinn in similar ways.
Some notable representations of Arabian jinn-gods have been found in the city of Palmyra in modern Syria, which grew prosperous through trade under the Roman Empire, and was influenced by many cultures along the Silk Road trade routes that connected the western and eastern worlds. Here it seems that the jinn were worshiped as protectors against storms and drought.
The word jinn may also have emerged from Palmyra, although its etymology is the subject of debate. It’s commonly thought that the word derives from an Arabic root, jann, meaning to “conceal” or “cover with darkness,” but it may also derive from the Latin word genius, the Aramaic word ginnaya, and the Avestan word Jaini.(7)
Belief in powerful, invisible beings continued to evolve until the completion of the Quran in the seventh century, which merges the two main conceptions of these primordial jinn: the Arabian folk belief that they were desert spirits, and the Graeco-Roman and Mesopotamian belief that they were demons occupying a higher plain than humans in the hierarchy of creation.(8)
Jinn in Islam
Just before his death in 632, the prophet Muhammed had completed writing the text of the Quran, which he alleged to be a transcription of the channeled word of God.(9) This text provides us with the first explicit account of the origins and nature of the jinn, in Arabic.
The various types of jinn or “invisible beings,” are referred to at least 29 times in the Quran. God is said to have created angels from light, and the jinn from “smokeless fire” before creating humankind from clay. For this reason, jinn are sometimes called “the people of the fire” or “fire spirits.” The Quran includes a “sura,” or chapter, titled “The Jinn,” that appears to be written from the first-person perspective of one of these beings. The sura describes the jinn as male and female humanoids who live and die, form communities, birth children, raise families, possess intelligence and free will, and make moral choices. Jinn who reject Islam or cause trouble are considered evil, and sometimes referred to as demons.(10)
Like humans, the jinn experience emotions such as love, hate, fear, envy, and resentment, and their emotional outbursts are often key features of stories about them.(11) Jinn are often divided into several categories including the jann, shaitan, ifrit, and marid, among others.(12) Sometimes different types of jinn are also grouped by color.(13) While all traditions of jinn share some common elements, the names, behaviors, and capabilities ascribed to them vary from one region to another.(14)
For all their similarities to humans, jinn were also said to possess some extra abilities. The Quran states that Satan and his jinn followers “watch you from a position where ye cannot see them.” Jinn are normally invisible to people, or else disguise themselves as humans or other animals - particularly snakes and dogs.(15) The most notable example of this, and the first jinn-human interaction, is that of Satan appearing as a snake in the Garden of Eden, as described in the Bible. To Muslims, this spirit was known as Iblis or Eblis. The Quran states that Iblis is a jinn, while other scholars suggest that he is a fallen angel.(16) Jinn are also connected to magic and fortune-telling, and have been since well before the seventh century. With their connection to heaven, jinn could “eavesdrop” on God’s plans and would relate what they learned to soothsayers.(17)
It is said that the jinn’s homeland is in the legendary Qaf Mountain, which was believed to be found on the other side of the ocean that surrounded the human world, at the entrance to the spirit realm.(18) Jinn are also known for haunting houses or abandoned buildings, roaming lost cities, and dwelling in deep places. Those jinn that live alongside of us typically keep to themselves, but are thought to occasionally interact with people, often emotionally or sexually, in both positive and negative ways.(19) For example, the jinn were said to possess human beings, or to give them physical or mental disease. Malevolent acts have long been blamed on evil jinn: the shaitans, ifrits, marids, and ghuls.(20) Jinn are said to speak through and control the behavior of those they possess, and can in some cultures be exercised by various methods. Even Muhammed was said to have cured a boy who was “seized by fits.” The prophet exorcized a jinn by blowing and speaking commands three times into the boy’s mouth.(21) Jinn were also thought to inspire poets and other artists to produce work that was noticeably different, and often much better, than their usual output - much like the Greek concept of a muse or a genius. Even Muhammad was initially worried that his Quranic revelations were jinn-inspired.(22)
The hadiths - a canon of third-party accounts of the prophets’ words and deeds - reference several of his encounters with jinn.(23) For example, the prophet was once praying in a mosque when he was interrupted by a large ifrit, only to send it away “humiliated.”(24) In a notable tale in one hadith, Muhammed is carried up to heaven on the back of a winged horse-like creature. On their way back to earth, they are interrupted by an ifrit who threatens the prophet with fire. The archangel Gabriel then appears in the air and teaches Muhammed a prayer to drive the jinn away.(25)
In the centuries since Muhammed’s passing, Muslim scholars have debated the nature of the jinn, often reaching very different conclusions.(26) Scholars disagree on whether jinn and humans can or should interbreed, for example. They also disagree on the physical makeup of the jinn. Scholars of the Middle Ages believed that jinn had bodies with the density of air.(27) The prominent thirteenth-century Persian physician, astronomer, and geographer, Zakariya al-Qazwini, defined jinn as “aerial animals, with transparent bodies, which can assume various forms.” He and others believed that the jinn could only be seen when their forms were condensed, but he noted that other “free-thinkers” considered the jinn to be nothing more than “unruly men.”(28)
In the tenth century CE, a legend emerged that King Solomon, the third or fourth king of Israel, wielded power over jinn due to a magical “sealing ring” he wore. Under Solomon’s command, the jinn were credited with building many structures and castles, including the First Temple of Jerusalem. The Bible doesn’t mention Solomon’s workforce, but the Quran does make reference to a number of construction projects involving jinn, and it mentions that an ifrit once offered to carry the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.(29)
Jinn Today
Following the efforts of Pope Sylvester II to bring Arabic knowledge to the west in the early eleventh century, European intellectuals became gradually more familiar with stories of jinn.(30) The prominent sixteenth-century Swiss physician and alchemist, Paracelsus, wrote of creatures he called “elementals” that inhabited a state between the material and the immaterial, and could marry and breed with humans. His four “elemental spirits” - the undines, salamanders, sylphs, and gnomes - were highly reminiscent of al-Qazwini’s aerial jinn.(31) According to a Sufi tradition, Paracelsus was said to have possessed a powerful longsword with a jinn captured in its hilt.
Jinn further penetrated western culture after the first English translations of One Thousand and One Nights in the early eighteenth century. These tales were first compiled in Arabic, drawing stories from Arabic, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, and Mesopotamian folklore.(32) Even the famous French novelist Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables, published a poem titled “The Jinn” in 1829.(33) Over the course of the nineteenth century, western writers shed the jinn of their Islamic associations and reimagined them as the wish-granting “genies” that we see today in western media.(34)
Under the influence of Western materialism, many Muslims today have come to interpret the stories of jinn in a metaphorical sense.(35) Nonetheless, in Pakistan, where around 96% of the country's population is Muslim, a 2009 public opinion poll found that 89% of respondents believed in the existence of jinn.(36)
But even those not raised to believe in the jinn have had encounters with them. David Morehouse is a retired remote viewer for the U.S. military. In his book Psychic Warrior, Morehouse relates an event that occurred in the spring of 1987. He and other U.S. troops were camped with Jordanian soldiers for training exercises in Jordan in a desert valley called Baten el Ghoul, which means “Belly of the Beast.” The Jordanian soldiers considered the region haunted by jinn and some had even seen them. While there, Morehouse was accidentally shot in the helmet, leaving a large bump on his head. Morehouse describes waking that night to a “surreal light” outside the tent that he likened to an “eclipsed sun” that lit the night sky and bathed the surrounding hills in a “strange bluish gray light.” He walked out to a cliff to see the valley and saw “dark figures” gliding “like apparitions” around the groupings of tents. Cries came from the Jordanian encampment, and Morehouse turned to run for help. As he sprinted away, he ran directly into one of the figures but passed clear through it, only to turn around and watch the figure disappear over the cliff. Soon after, he found that the lump on his head was gone.(37)
In eastern Saudi Arabia there’s a region of salt flats in the desert that’s notorious for hosting jinn. Journalist Robert Lebling spoke to an oil worker there who told him about a man he knew who had an odd encounter while attempting to take a short-cut across the flats. The truck driver and his assistant were hours into the flats when their truck broke down, so the assistant left to walk to the nearest town while the driver stayed with the vehicle. After sundown the driver started sleeping but awoke in the night to two voices. After climbing down out of the truck, he was approached by a woman and a small boy she pulled close by her side. The woman was entirely cloaked in black and addressed the driver by his name - asking him why he came there; telling him that the place was their home; admonishing him that he should never come again; and warning that he’ll pay for this sin. The woman then swiveled her head from side-to-side like a bird, yelled and cursed at him, then hit him in the chest so hard that she knocked him backwards and made him lose consciousness. The next morning, the driver awoke alone and found that he’d lost his voice, which he did not regain for weeks afterwards.(38)
In the year 2000, the al-Fikriyah Institute of Education, a girls’ school located in the port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, experienced a range of phenomena alleged to be due to a jinn haunting. Several of the teachers suffered fits and seizures, with one having a miscarriage. Teachers refused to return to the school while it was haunted and looked for jobs elsewhere. Skeptics claimed that depression and job dissatisfaction simply led to “mass hysteria.” However, a Saudi cleric asked by authorities to investigate, submitted his report to the educational government body stating that “the school was inhabited by jinns.”(39)
Significance
The prominent twentieth-century Muslim writer, Muhammad Asad, was early to note that the jinn could account for past encounters of “supernatural” beings like ghosts and demons.(40) It’s significant that not only do the jinn have much in common with the pre-Islamic traditions that they’re derived from, but that they have much in common with similar traditions of “invisible people” all around the world.
Many other cultures in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America have traditions of nature-based little people that live alongside humankind. European christians have long spoken of encounters with strange beings in the Middle Ages that were variously referred to as fairies, lutins, and kobolds, among other names. Descriptions of jinn as light, vaporous beings strongly resemble descriptions of elves, fauns, fairies, and sylphs in northern European folklore, specifically those described in a treatise by the Scottish reverend Robert Kirk in the late seventeenth century.(41) Similarly described spirit guardians are found as close as Ireland and Scandinavia, and as far away as China.(42)
Much like European fairies, kobolds, and leprechauns, the jinn were sometimes said to guard hidden treasures.(43) Similar to the thieving house fairies of European lore, jinn were also said to steal objects and individuals. According to two hadiths, Muhammad recommended that people prevent evil jinns from stealing during the night by covering their utensils, tying up their water skins, and keeping their children close.(44) He also claimed that the jinn feared iron, a trait that they shared with fairies in Scotland, demons in West Africa, and evil spirits in Sri Lanka.(45) It’s now known that iron produces a magnetic field, and that magnetic fields have an effect on plasma.(46) It has also been established that poltergeist activity, hauntings, and even incidents of sleep paralysis are often decreased or stopped entirely when the victims keep electronics on, which also create strong magnetic fields.(47)
As Robert Lebling concluded in his book Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar,
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“The Europeans have their elves and faeries, the Hindus their ganas, the South Africans their tokolosh, the Japanese their kami. In fact, most — if not all — peoples of the world have their legends of nature spirits, 'little people', shapeshifters and horrific demons… The jinn have their home in one region, the Middle East, and are today roughly coterminous with the spread of Islam through Asia and Africa. But the existence of strikingly similar traditions across the planet shows us that we are dealing with something truly fundamental to and a significant part of what it means to be human."(48)
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Writer and researcher Rosemary Ellen Guiley even identified 17 traits shared between jinn encounters and modern alien abduction reports, suggesting some level of overlap between the two phenomena. For example, both are associated with poltergeist activity, and both types of beings are known to engage in telepathic communication and have eyes that witnesses describe as “compelling” and “hypnotic.”(49)
Twenty-first century researchers have proposed that jinn are composed of plasma, the fourth state of matter. Professor of nuclear medicine at the University of Louisville and head of the Islamic Research Foundation, Ibrahim B. Syed, speculated that plasma could be interpreted as the “smokeless fire” described in the Quran.(50)
Curiously, jinn are sometimes described as being hairy. One account compiled from various sources holds that King Solomon married a woman born from a jinn mother, which Solomon confirmed when he saw the hair on his new bride’s legs.(51) One scholar writing in 1894 found jinn were described as “more like beasts than men,” while another scholar in 1908 described jinn as “hairy beings.”(52) Various Arabic folktales describe ghuls as wild, hairy, and filthy.(53) In 2006, a foreign correspondent with The Economist reported that many in the town of Chitral in northern Pakistan consider the yeti to be jinn.(54) This suggests that the yeti and other cryptids are part of the same phenomenon as jinn.
Summary
From the Ancient Assyrians to the sixth century CE, the people of the middle east and the Arabian peninsula have developed a belief in powerful invisible spirits that influenced the lives of humans. The Quran, the hadiths, and generations of Muslim scholars have combined these beliefs with Greco-Roman folklore to create what we now know as the jinn. But for all the unique abilities and characteristics ascribed to the jinn, they may be more interesting how much they have in common with similar spirits, gods - and even extraterrestrial visitors - posited in different cultures. By other names, the jinn are nearly universal.
Twenty-first century researchers have proposed that jinn are composed of plasma, the fourth state of matter. Professor of nuclear medicine at the University of Louisville and head of the Islamic Research Foundation, Ibrahim B. Syed, speculated that plasma could be interpreted as the “smokeless fire” described in the Quran.(50)
Curiously, jinn are sometimes described as being hairy. One account compiled from various sources holds that King Solomon married a woman born from a jinn mother, which Solomon confirmed when he saw the hair on his new bride’s legs.(51) One scholar writing in 1894 found jinn were described as “more like beasts than men,” while another scholar in 1908 described jinn as “hairy beings.”(52) Various Arabic folktales describe ghuls as wild, hairy, and filthy.(53) In 2006, a foreign correspondent with The Economist reported that many in the town of Chitral in northern Pakistan consider the yeti to be jinn.(54) This suggests that the yeti and other cryptids are part of the same phenomenon as jinn.
Summary
From the Ancient Assyrians to the sixth century CE, the people of the middle east and the Arabian peninsula have developed a belief in powerful invisible spirits that influenced the lives of humans. The Quran, the hadiths, and generations of Muslim scholars have combined these beliefs with Greco-Roman folklore to create what we now know as the jinn. But for all the unique abilities and characteristics ascribed to the jinn, they may be more interesting how much they have in common with similar spirits, gods - and even extraterrestrial visitors - posited in different cultures. By other names, the jinn are nearly universal.
Notes:
1) Robert Lebling, Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar (Berkeley, CA, USA: Counterpoint, 2010), 8 - 11.
2) Following the spellings in UK style found in Lebling, Legends, however Guiley and Imbrogno claim in The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agendas of Genies (Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2011), xi, saying djinn is the “correct spelling” translated directly from Arabic to English.
3) Lebling, Legends, 1 - 2.
4) Lebling, Legends, 10; cites Joseph Henninger, “Pre-lslamic Bedouin Religion,” in Studies on Islam, translated and edited by Merlin L. Swartz (New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press, 1981).
5) Lebling, Legends, 11 - 12.
6) Emrys, Wendilyn, “The Transformations of a Goddess: Lillake, Lamashtu, and Lilith,” 2018. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.33964.62085.
7) Lebling, Legends, 13 - 14; Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Willams & Norgate, 1863), 462, http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Lane//; Amira el-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and Intelligent World of the Jinn (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009), 38; Tobias Nünlist, Dämonenglaube im Islam [Demonic Belief in Islam] (in German) (Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2015), 24; William St. Clair Tisdall, The Original Sources of the Qur'an (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1905); William St. Clair Tisdall, The Religion of the Crescent or Islam: Its Strength, Its Weakness, Its Origin, Its Influence, 1895.
8) Lebling, Legends, 16.
9) Lebling, Legends, 8.
10) Lebling, Legends, 2 - 3, 18, 21 - 23; Quran, 15:26-27, 55:15, 72:1-28; Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, 49 - 52.
11) Lebling, Legends, 23.
12) Lebling, Legends, 7 - 8.
13) Lebling, Legends, 143; Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, many mentions of jinn by colour, especially on 79 - 84, 251 - 52.
14) Lebling, Legends, see chapter 4 (115 - 215), “Jinn Geography” for discussion of how many nations and regions differ in their understanding of the jinn.
15) Lebling, Legends, 3; full quote “watch you from a position where ye cannot see them” (Qur’an, 7:27).
16) Lebling, Legends, 23, 28; full quote “Iblis ... was one of the jinns, and he broke the command of his Lord” (Qur'an 18:50).
17) Lebling, Legends, 17 - 18, 20.
18) Lebling, Legends, 24 - 27.
19) Lebling, Legends, 3.
20) Lebling, Legends, 64 - 65, 72.
21) Lebling, Legends, 72 - 74, 76 - 77, 97, 107, 197.
22) Lebling, Legends, 17 - 18.
23) Lebling, Legends, 19.
24) Lebling, Legends, 19, cites hadith by Al-Bukhari, vol. 1, Book 8, No. 450 in Al-Bukhari, Muhammed ibn Ismaiel, and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Sahih al-Bukhari, The Translation of the Meanings, 9 Vols. (Riyadh: Dar-us-Salam Publications, 1997), available at https://sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_1_08.php.
25) Harry Spitzer, “Across the Islamic World, the Ifrit Brings Miseries Both Large and Small,” Atlas Obscura, October 29, 2020, https://atlasobscura.com/articles/monster-mythology-ifrit.
26) Lebling, Legends, 3.
27) Lebling, Legends, 23 - 24, 110.
28) Lebling, Legends, 3, and see Appendix A, 245 - 55, which reproduces parts of Zakariyä' ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini, Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing, Translated in Edward Lane's 'Notes on the Jinn, or Genii' (1836).
29) Lebling, Legends, 37 - 39, 42 - 46; The sources for this come from Hebrew rabbinical commentaries on interpretations of biblical verses and the Qur’an.
30) Lebling, Legends, 59 - 62.
31) Lebling, Legends, 62 - 63, author cites the Sufi tradition contained in Ernest Scott, The People of the Secret (London: Octagon Press, 1983).
32) Lebling, Legends, 218, author cites Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 1994); Anna Tweed, ed. The Arabian nights (New York, The Baker & Taylor company, 1910).
33) Lebling, Legends, 232 - 36, the poem first appeared in Hugo’s, Les Orientales (1829).
34) Shah in Lebling, Legends, xii; friendly genies found in Disney’s Aladdin movies (1992 and 2019), and the TV series I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70), unfriendly genies in Wishmaster (1997) and Tobe Hooper’s final movie Djinn (2013).
35) Lebling, Legends, 2.
36) Lebling, Legends, 265, note 3, poll was conducted by Gallup for the Gilani Research Foundation. See The News, Karachi, September 1, 2009.
37) David Morehouse, Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program: The True Story of a Soldier’s Espionage and Awakening (NY, NY, USA: St Martin’s Press. 1996), 26 - 34.
38) Lebling, Legends, 123 - 25.
39) Lebling, Legends, 78, cites “Mass Hysteria behind Scared Teachers at ‘Haunted’ School,” Arab News, November 5, 2000; “Two More Teachers Have Fits at ‘Haunted’ School,” Arab News, November 7, 2000.
40) Lebling, Legends, 4.
41) Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies (New York, NY: New York Review of Books, (1893) 2007).
42) Lebling, Legends, 72.
43) Lebling, Legends, 3, 64, 72; fairy connection see Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth.
44) Lebling, Legends, 21.
45) Lebling, Legends, 109, for different geographical beliefs the author cites Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, I Volume, Abridged Edition (New York, NY, USA: Collier Books, 1963); Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, 144 - 46.
46) Salt and occasionally steel would also be used for protection because the jinn are also believed to be afraid of these substances.
47) Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, 7, 22, 186, 230 - 31, 245 - 47.
48) Lebling, Legends, 243, cites Gary R. Varner, Creatures of the Mist: Little People, Wild Men and Spirit Beings around the World (New York: Algora Publishing, 2007).
49) Guiley, The Djinn Connection, 84 - 85.
50) Syed, Ibrahim B., "The Jinn A Scientific Analysis," Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc., www.irfi.org. 2004. Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20041031042315/https://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_1_50/jinn_a_scientific_analysis.htm.
51) Lebling, Legends, 43, 212.
52) Lebling, Legends, 118, citing Scottish minister and Semitic scholar, William Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1894); Campbell R. Thompson, Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development (London, Luzac & Co., 1908), quoted in Lebling, Legends, 129 - 30.
53) Lebling, Legends, 241 - 42, description from folktales compiled and translated by Bushnaq, Arab Folktales (1986).
54) “Jinn: Born of Fire,” a special report in The Economist, December 19, 2006, quoted in Lebling, Legends, 263.
Sources:
Emrys, Wendilyn. “The Transformations of a Goddess: Lillake, Lamashtu, and Lilith.” 2018. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.33964.62085.
https://researchgate.net/publication/337155280_The_Transformations_of_a_Goddess_Lillake_Lamashtu_and_Lilith.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen and Philip J. Imbrogno. The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agendas of Genies. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2011.
https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Vengeful_Djinn.html?id=xMEipdTtH9oC&redir_esc=y.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Djinn Connection: The Hidden Links Between Djinn, Shadow People, ETS, Nephilim, Archons, Reptilians and Other Entities. New Milford, Connecticut, USA: Visionary Living, Inc., 2013.
https://archive.org/details/thedjinnconnectionrosemaryellenguiley/mode/2up.
Lebling, Robert. Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar. Berkeley, CA, USA: Counterpoint, 2010.
https://archive.org/details/legendsoffirespi0000lebl.
Morehouse, David. Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program: The True Story of a Soldier’s Espionage and Awakening. NY, NY, USA: St Martin’s Press. 1996. https://archive.org/details/psychicwarriorin00more/mode/2up.
This video uses sound effects downloaded from StockMusic.com.
Support new videos on Patreon: https://patreon.com/user?u=3375417
Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
1) Robert Lebling, Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar (Berkeley, CA, USA: Counterpoint, 2010), 8 - 11.
2) Following the spellings in UK style found in Lebling, Legends, however Guiley and Imbrogno claim in The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agendas of Genies (Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2011), xi, saying djinn is the “correct spelling” translated directly from Arabic to English.
3) Lebling, Legends, 1 - 2.
4) Lebling, Legends, 10; cites Joseph Henninger, “Pre-lslamic Bedouin Religion,” in Studies on Islam, translated and edited by Merlin L. Swartz (New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press, 1981).
5) Lebling, Legends, 11 - 12.
6) Emrys, Wendilyn, “The Transformations of a Goddess: Lillake, Lamashtu, and Lilith,” 2018. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.33964.62085.
7) Lebling, Legends, 13 - 14; Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Willams & Norgate, 1863), 462, http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Lane//; Amira el-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and Intelligent World of the Jinn (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009), 38; Tobias Nünlist, Dämonenglaube im Islam [Demonic Belief in Islam] (in German) (Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2015), 24; William St. Clair Tisdall, The Original Sources of the Qur'an (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1905); William St. Clair Tisdall, The Religion of the Crescent or Islam: Its Strength, Its Weakness, Its Origin, Its Influence, 1895.
8) Lebling, Legends, 16.
9) Lebling, Legends, 8.
10) Lebling, Legends, 2 - 3, 18, 21 - 23; Quran, 15:26-27, 55:15, 72:1-28; Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, 49 - 52.
11) Lebling, Legends, 23.
12) Lebling, Legends, 7 - 8.
13) Lebling, Legends, 143; Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, many mentions of jinn by colour, especially on 79 - 84, 251 - 52.
14) Lebling, Legends, see chapter 4 (115 - 215), “Jinn Geography” for discussion of how many nations and regions differ in their understanding of the jinn.
15) Lebling, Legends, 3; full quote “watch you from a position where ye cannot see them” (Qur’an, 7:27).
16) Lebling, Legends, 23, 28; full quote “Iblis ... was one of the jinns, and he broke the command of his Lord” (Qur'an 18:50).
17) Lebling, Legends, 17 - 18, 20.
18) Lebling, Legends, 24 - 27.
19) Lebling, Legends, 3.
20) Lebling, Legends, 64 - 65, 72.
21) Lebling, Legends, 72 - 74, 76 - 77, 97, 107, 197.
22) Lebling, Legends, 17 - 18.
23) Lebling, Legends, 19.
24) Lebling, Legends, 19, cites hadith by Al-Bukhari, vol. 1, Book 8, No. 450 in Al-Bukhari, Muhammed ibn Ismaiel, and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Sahih al-Bukhari, The Translation of the Meanings, 9 Vols. (Riyadh: Dar-us-Salam Publications, 1997), available at https://sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_1_08.php.
25) Harry Spitzer, “Across the Islamic World, the Ifrit Brings Miseries Both Large and Small,” Atlas Obscura, October 29, 2020, https://atlasobscura.com/articles/monster-mythology-ifrit.
26) Lebling, Legends, 3.
27) Lebling, Legends, 23 - 24, 110.
28) Lebling, Legends, 3, and see Appendix A, 245 - 55, which reproduces parts of Zakariyä' ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini, Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing, Translated in Edward Lane's 'Notes on the Jinn, or Genii' (1836).
29) Lebling, Legends, 37 - 39, 42 - 46; The sources for this come from Hebrew rabbinical commentaries on interpretations of biblical verses and the Qur’an.
30) Lebling, Legends, 59 - 62.
31) Lebling, Legends, 62 - 63, author cites the Sufi tradition contained in Ernest Scott, The People of the Secret (London: Octagon Press, 1983).
32) Lebling, Legends, 218, author cites Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 1994); Anna Tweed, ed. The Arabian nights (New York, The Baker & Taylor company, 1910).
33) Lebling, Legends, 232 - 36, the poem first appeared in Hugo’s, Les Orientales (1829).
34) Shah in Lebling, Legends, xii; friendly genies found in Disney’s Aladdin movies (1992 and 2019), and the TV series I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70), unfriendly genies in Wishmaster (1997) and Tobe Hooper’s final movie Djinn (2013).
35) Lebling, Legends, 2.
36) Lebling, Legends, 265, note 3, poll was conducted by Gallup for the Gilani Research Foundation. See The News, Karachi, September 1, 2009.
37) David Morehouse, Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program: The True Story of a Soldier’s Espionage and Awakening (NY, NY, USA: St Martin’s Press. 1996), 26 - 34.
38) Lebling, Legends, 123 - 25.
39) Lebling, Legends, 78, cites “Mass Hysteria behind Scared Teachers at ‘Haunted’ School,” Arab News, November 5, 2000; “Two More Teachers Have Fits at ‘Haunted’ School,” Arab News, November 7, 2000.
40) Lebling, Legends, 4.
41) Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies (New York, NY: New York Review of Books, (1893) 2007).
42) Lebling, Legends, 72.
43) Lebling, Legends, 3, 64, 72; fairy connection see Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth.
44) Lebling, Legends, 21.
45) Lebling, Legends, 109, for different geographical beliefs the author cites Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, I Volume, Abridged Edition (New York, NY, USA: Collier Books, 1963); Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, 144 - 46.
46) Salt and occasionally steel would also be used for protection because the jinn are also believed to be afraid of these substances.
47) Guiley and Imbrogno, Vengeful Djinn, 7, 22, 186, 230 - 31, 245 - 47.
48) Lebling, Legends, 243, cites Gary R. Varner, Creatures of the Mist: Little People, Wild Men and Spirit Beings around the World (New York: Algora Publishing, 2007).
49) Guiley, The Djinn Connection, 84 - 85.
50) Syed, Ibrahim B., "The Jinn A Scientific Analysis," Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc., www.irfi.org. 2004. Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20041031042315/https://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_1_50/jinn_a_scientific_analysis.htm.
51) Lebling, Legends, 43, 212.
52) Lebling, Legends, 118, citing Scottish minister and Semitic scholar, William Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1894); Campbell R. Thompson, Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development (London, Luzac & Co., 1908), quoted in Lebling, Legends, 129 - 30.
53) Lebling, Legends, 241 - 42, description from folktales compiled and translated by Bushnaq, Arab Folktales (1986).
54) “Jinn: Born of Fire,” a special report in The Economist, December 19, 2006, quoted in Lebling, Legends, 263.
Sources:
Emrys, Wendilyn. “The Transformations of a Goddess: Lillake, Lamashtu, and Lilith.” 2018. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.33964.62085.
https://researchgate.net/publication/337155280_The_Transformations_of_a_Goddess_Lillake_Lamashtu_and_Lilith.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen and Philip J. Imbrogno. The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agendas of Genies. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2011.
https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Vengeful_Djinn.html?id=xMEipdTtH9oC&redir_esc=y.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Djinn Connection: The Hidden Links Between Djinn, Shadow People, ETS, Nephilim, Archons, Reptilians and Other Entities. New Milford, Connecticut, USA: Visionary Living, Inc., 2013.
https://archive.org/details/thedjinnconnectionrosemaryellenguiley/mode/2up.
Lebling, Robert. Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar. Berkeley, CA, USA: Counterpoint, 2010.
https://archive.org/details/legendsoffirespi0000lebl.
Morehouse, David. Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program: The True Story of a Soldier’s Espionage and Awakening. NY, NY, USA: St Martin’s Press. 1996. https://archive.org/details/psychicwarriorin00more/mode/2up.
This video uses sound effects downloaded from StockMusic.com.
Support new videos on Patreon: https://patreon.com/user?u=3375417
Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
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