NOTES: JINN AND PRE-ISLAMIC DEMONOLOGY
Added 2022-05-05 18:04:39 +0000 UTCDJINN: WHAT ARE THEY?
- Associated with Islam, and the pre-islamic world of the arabian peninsula
- Humanoid, ghostlike creatures
- Djinn is singular, Djinnni is plural
- From the root word J-n-n, meaning to hide or conceal
- God made three sentient types of being.
- Angels, from light
- Humans, from clay
- Djinni, from smoke and fire
- Ah, but Djinn predate islam
- Their origins are speculated on, they might have been previous gods “dethroned” by other religions
- May have represented a fear of the desert
- Can come into contact with, influence, and even possess human beings
- Djinn are actually more similar to Daimons functioned in ancient greece
- They are neither good nor bad
- Live in societies, they have kings, friends, and even religions
- It is said that many pre-islamic poets were inspired by Djinns to write their poems, similar to daimons inspiring greek poets
- In the ancient arab world, Djinn functioned kinda like Middlemen between the gods and humanity
- This is why the quran says that mohamed’s enemies claimed he was effected by magic
- Djinn possession and divine recitations were commonplace for the time
- The Quran talks about Djinn on multiple occasions, even dedicating an entire surah to them. En-Djinn.
- The Quran seems to identify Iblis, islamic satan, as a djinn.
- Other verses call him a fallen angel
- Iblis was a great djinn who led djinn armies in great battles, they fought for god. But when god created adam, and asked the angels to bow to him, Iblis refused.
- This rebellion is when Iblis became condemned as a Shaitan.
- He is not a powerful adversary to god, but a king of evil djinn who leads humans astray.
- This version of Iblis probably made islam much easier to incorporate into local religions and folklore
- “Legends of the Fire Spirits” Robert Leibling
- Five categories of djinn
- Jann - The most general term for all djinn
- Jinn - General, but also refers to specific Djinn and specific tribes of djinn
- Shaytan - Always evil. More similar to common demons.
- Ifrit - More powerful Jinn, mostly evil. These are common in the arabian nights. They like to hang out in ruins. They like sandstorms and shapeshifting.
- Marid - The most powerful kind of djinn, mostly evil. These are the big wish-granting kind.
- For example. In the story of aladdin, the djinn of the ring is is an ifrit, and the djinn of the lamp is a type of marid.
- There are also lesser types
- The Ghul, which can shapeshift and likes to eat human flesh. Inhabits cemeteries. Appear as beautiful women, to lure men to their deaths.
- There are way way more and way more myths.
- One states that he Djinn’s original homeland was a mountain on the edge of the world called Mount Qaf.
- Jinn are generally connected with specific places. Even today, places are considered to be infested with Jinn
- Madain Saleh, ruins from the nabetean kingdom, are said to be crawling with jinn.
- Ubar/Iram of the Pillars, the “Atlantis of the sands” its treasures are guarded by Jinn
- There are also famous individual Jinn
- Aisha Kandicha from Morocco. Looks like a beautiful dark-haired woman with the feet of a camel who lures men into the desert to kill them
- The Sufis and other holy mystics were kinda in charge of managin jinn
- A common form of exorcism was ecstatic Nawah music.
- The 1001 nights has a ton of Jinn lore.
- Some are chill, others are malicious.
- They have religions!
- Some listened to mohamed as he preached, later converting to islam. There are Christian Jinn, Jewish Jinn, etc. They are subject to gods punishment just as we are.
- Some consider Jinn to be beings that inhabit the world, others consider Jinn to be anything that cannot be perceived by the senses.
Ancient Israelite Demonology
- Isralites didnt have much in the way of malicious spirits until the advent of apocalyptic Judaism in the persian period
- The ancient near-east operates differently
- Apocalypticism shifted the paradigm to a battle between good and evil
- The more archaic form was more of a chaos vs order paradigm
Comments
Aside from that, everything I'm seeing here checks out. Finally have a source for the four jinni types thing.
StabOfHappiness
2022-05-06 16:18:48 +0000 UTCHold up, I thought jinni was singular and jinn plural? That's what I see literally everywhere else.
StabOfHappiness
2022-05-06 16:16:24 +0000 UTC