Djinn, Jinn or Devils, What are They?

Jinn were brought to light via the religion of Islam, although texts do mention

them before Islam. It is from Islamic stories however where we get a clearer

picture of what the Jinn are. In fact, modern ideas of the Genie in the bottle is

directly from stories about the Jinn. The word genie is derived from the word

Jinn. Aladdin when he rubbed his lamp was speaking to a Jinn.

In the west, Jinn are very much misunderstood. Often we associate them with

demons or devils. Yes, some do have malevolent intent, and as I mentioned, the

“ devil” in Islam is a Jinn, but there are many Jinn who are “ good”. They are

more like humans than you can imagine, yet they have abilities we do not have,

but can harness.

The word Jinn comes the root Arabic word “ Janna” which means hidden or

concealed. I have to say the Jinn are very interesting to me; as I stated in the

introduction, they exist in an unseen world that parallels our own. They live

and die like we do, they have the same variety of free will that we do and most

intriguing is that they also share in our religious diversity. That latter statement

is most intriguing to me. We will get into that in a moment. The Jinn and

humans have a special relationship. We are both beings created that are not of

the angelic class. Although humans and Jinn can have angelic or demonic

qualities, we do not share the same spiritual essence, I guess you could say. In

terms of creation, Jinn were created first and then humanity. As it states in the

Quran “ Indeed we (God and his hosts) created man from dried clay of black

smooth mud. And we created Jinn BEFORE that from the smokeless flame of

fire.” Quran 15:26-27. Since they are created from fire, they tend to have a fiery

disposition as it were. They are, in essence, intermediary beings that are just

slightly beyond our plane of existence.

The Jinn, like humans have genders, although they can shape shift into

anything they want. The male counterpart is called “ Jinni," and the female is

“ Jinniyah."

Jinn and humans live very much side-by-side.

What about an existence that is known to be living and thinking and that lives

right here with us on our earth?

They live in our houses and they eat and drink with us. In fact, they even

spoil our thoughts and our hearts. These creatures drive us to destroy our

own selves and to spill each others’ blood. They make us worship them

or any other creature so that we will be deserving of the anger and wrath

of our Lord. The Lord’s anger will come upon us and the result for those

who have gone away from their Lord will be a raging fire.

Want to know more about the Djinn? We have several books which will teach you how to

contact them, or deal with them when attacked.