"Genie" is the anglicized word for the Arabic "jinni". In Semitic mythology and Islamic religion, a jinni (also "djinni" or "djini") is a member of the jinn (or "djinn"), a race of spirits.

For the ancient Semites they were spirits of vanished ancient peoples who acted during the night and disappeared with the first light of dawn; they could make themselves invisible or change shape into animals at will; these spirits were commonly made responsible for diseases and for the manias of some lunatics who claimed that they were tormented by the jinn.

The Arabs believed that the jinn were spirits of fire, although sometimes they associated them with succubi, demons in the forms of beautiful women, who visited men by night to copulate with them until they were exhausted, drawing energy from them similarly to how vampires suck blood.

Jinn in Islam

The term "mythological" would likely be viewed as a pejorative statement by many Muslims because traditionally they take the belief that jinn are real beings. The jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made of smokeless fire by God, much in the same way humans were made of earth. In the Qur'an, the jinn are frequently mentioned and even Surat 72: Al-Jinn is entirely about them. In fact Muhammad was said to have been sent as a prophet to "men and jinn". In Islam-associated mythology, the jinn were said to be controllable by magically binding them to objects, as Sulayman ("Solomon" in most biblical transliterations) famously did; the Spirit of the Lamp in the story of Aladdin was such a jinni, bound to an oil lamp. Also, in Surat 67, it is stated that the stars are the missiles of God to be thrown against jinn who eavesdrop from the Heaven.

There is a book written about the djinn known as 'the amulet of samarkand' it is fiction although the demon is based on fact.

See also

• Ifrit

References

• al-Ashqar, Dr. Umar Sulaiman (1998). The World of the Jinn and Devils. Boulder, CO: Al-Basheer Company for Publications and Translations.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article Qur'an (English)

• Al-Jinn from the Qur'an (http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/072.qmt.html)
• Jinn (http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/Jinn/)

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