The word “Jinn” has its roots in the Arabic “Djinn”, which describes a well-documented mythological creature that has endured up to the present in the popular imagination.
The djinn (or jinn) are a supernatural race with the power to intervene in the affairs of human beings. Although to the West they are demons, they have free will so they can be the same good as bad.
Djinn are plasma beings (smokeless fire), they are invisible, but they can be seen by humans. Dogs and donkeys can perceive them in their ethereal form.
Among their abilities is to possess people, imitate them in voice and form and become animals.
As shapeshifters, they can either present themselves as demonic beings or as beautiful angels. Their preferred skins are snakes and black dogs, but they can disguise themselves as anything or anything.
In our dimension, djinns live in ruins, abandoned places, caves, and deserts.
As a curious fact, according to Muhammad the djinn do not open closed doors, do not untie knots, or uncover containers .. This is probably why they can be locked in a bottle.
They also fly, and take advantage of this ability to listen in the lower heaven to the conversations of the angels about the designs of man.
They are indiscreet, so they can reveal these conversations and can be consulted on present and future events. They can be conjured with magical rites to perform tasks and services, but they are difficult to control.
They have a very long life, but they are not immortal. If someone kills them, even by accident, their fellows will retaliate, bringing misfortune, illness and death to the aggressor.
The origin of the Djinn
The legend of the djinn comes from the Islamic tradition. According to the Quran, Allah made the angels of pure light, the djinn with smokeless fire, and the man of clay.
They were born about two thousand years before Adam and Eve. They live in the Kaf, an emerald-colored mountain range that surrounds the Earth.
The confusion with the figure of demons in the West comes from the Koran, where it is explained that the djinn refused to bow down to Adam as the highest creation of God, so they were expelled from paradise.
Iblis, a powerful djinn, interceded for his own and made it possible for his race to redeem itself at the Last Judgment. Another of Iblis’s names is Shaitan or Satan, so that’s where the mistake comes from.
Just like humans, geniuses have free will so they can be good or bad. Therefore, they can be the parents of great misfortunes or bestow wonderful gifts.
That means that whoever controls them can use them to do black or white magic.
However, as a race they will not see the end of time, although they can be redeemed through human beings and converted by reciting the Quran to them.
According to Islam, although they can create their own offspring, djinn can marry humans and have offspring, even regulating marriage, inheritance and offspring for these unions.
According to tradition, God gave King Solomon a ring of copper and iron, with which he touched the necks of the djinns, making them his slaves and putting them to build the first Temple in Jerusalem.
An evil genius (they say Asmodeus) stole it while Solomon was bathing in the Jordan, condemning him to wander while he reigned over men.
But God forced him to throw the ring into the sea, from which Solomon retrieved it and had the djinn enclosed in a bottle – we know they don’t open containers.
Is the genie in the lamp a djinn?
When a djinn misbehaved and was cruel to men, they were locked in a bottle for 1,000 years, imprisoned and subjected to the will of whoever possessed it.
He then becomes an ifrit, a great genius who may grant wishes, but always tries to grant them not exactly the way they are asked, in order to harm and mock humans.
From this legend comes the tale of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp”, incorporated in the book “The Thousand and One Nights”, a collection of Arab folk tales.
