Jinn

We're heading back to Arabia and looking at the legendary Islamic mythology icon, the Jinn, otherwise known as Genies. What type of Jinn will help you in a battle if they find you worthy? How is this related to the story of Lucifer and the creation of Hell in the Bible and Quran? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Happy new year! Welcome to 2022, how wild! I hope you all had a fab new year and holiday celebrations. I went to the Lake District up north in the UK for my new year and it was absolutely gorgeous - I would totally recommend that to anyone who loves the great outdoors. It did make me a little ill though, which is why this is delayed so I am sorry about that. December is never a fun month for illness, and it just gets colder here in the UK til at least March so I will have to watch out for colds.

I also hope you enjoyed the holiday special - I thought it was a really great way to end the year, and we’re not even a year into podcasting! But we’re gonna kick this year off with a great and legendary monster - the Jinn from Arabic mythology! 

DESCRIPTION:

Now you might not recognise the name Jinn, but you will most likely know another name for them - which is a Genie. Jinn are described as beings made of smoke and fire, with burning fiery eyes - but they are a corporeal being and can be interacted with physically by people and can also touch things physically too. They live in a completely invisible world to humans, in a multiverse so to say. Sorry I saw Spiderman the other day and the multiverse is on my mind. They are also invisible to humans, and humans kind of appear hazy to them. Jinn can travel immensely fast - I guess they travel on the wind considering they’re just smoke? They live in remote areas such as in the mountains, bottom of the seas, tops of trees or in the air in their own little Jinn communities, which is kind of cute. They do not tend to live in lamps, which is a typical thought when discussing Jinn, or genies - so get that outta your head. There is no itty bitty living space here, they live truly in the great outdoors.

According to some hadiths, which are statements of the Prophet - Jinn can also shapeshift, and can appear as dragons, donkeys, or other animals. The Jinn also occasionally disguise themselves as human, which they use to get closer to their human victims. And this gets us onto why they’re on this podcast really, why they’re considered a monster. Some hadiths have stated that Jinn eat humans, and they’;ll go hunting for corpses as when they touch the bones, the flesh regrows. This happens with their animal forms too, and they’ll go live in the dung of animals to feast on the grain or grass, which they can then regrow.

In contrast to this though, they are considered one of the three sapient and holy creatures of Allah in the Qur’an, alongside angels and humans. However, all but angels are judged on the Day of Judgment and will be sent to either Heaven or Paradise, or Hell depending on which path they take in life. This implies that potentially they are the ‘evil’ part of this triforce of creatures, but they can actually not be, they can be good, evil or completely neutral as they do have freewill. However, it is mostly believed by scholars that the Jinn were generally "ignorant, untruthful, oppressive and treacherous’. This is interesting though, as angels in this mythology are always good - as they have no freewill at all, which I think is almost a weird servitude mentality, but hey ho.

The Jinn have their own communities which are very similar to humans, they can get married, have funerals, decide what religions to follow, have a monarchy and laws - but this does end up causing separation much like in human communities. This creates different types and classes of Jinn, some of which are notoriously ‘good’ and some that are evil. Let's get into some famous types of Jinn.

The first I’ll go into are called Ghouls, which are the straight up really nasty Jinns - who feast on humans and drink their blood. They specifically love children, travellers, or corpses from fresh graves, which they tend to make the place they hang around the most, so I would advise keeping away from graveyards just in general. They otherwise hang out in lonely places, as they are told to represent the terrifying unknown out in the desert and abandoned places. You’ve also got the Palis, who are vampiric Jinns and are called foot lickers. They would attack sleeping people in the desert by licking the soles of their feet and draining their blood. However, there is quite a funny way to avoid this, and this is to sleep either with another person and their feet touching yours, or sleeping with your feet stuck together.

You’ve then got the Hinn, which are the Jinn’s who are most in touch with their animalistic side. They are mostly found shapeshifted, usually into dogs. There is another type of Jinn who have a love for shapeshifting too, and that’s the Jann. The Jann were the first Jinn ever discovered by humans and they hide in oasis’ or in the forms of whirlwinds or white camels. They are very neutral when it comes to people and have been known to help those they deem worthy and hinder the ones they do not. There are a couple of events in Islamic history that have been attributed to the help of a Jann, this is how much help they give - so I’m looking for one personally. Also, they will kill any ghoul Jinn, as they are apparently sworn enemies. Lastly in our proper shapeshifty section is the Si’lat, who are considered the most intelligent Jinn, and they often mimic humans so well that they get away with merging into human communities and living normal human lives. 

There’s the little Shiqq Jinns, which are considered a monstrosity of the Jinns and is a much lesser version of one too, they’re malformed and considered a half creature. But related to this, there’s also the Nasnas - who are actually the children of humans and Shiqq, and appear as only one side, so only one leg, one arm, one side of their head and body for example. It's said that it can kill a human by just touching them and the person would be fleshless in seconds, which is kind of scary and also gross.

We also have the Ifrit - which are known for being very strong and cunning that cannot be hurt with conventional weapons, but also they can be manipulated by magic quite easily, so are often enslaved by people or killed. They are winged fiery creatures, who live in ruins or underground and tend to keep to themselves if they can. They famously helped retrieve the throne of the Queen of Sheba, which I was frequently called by my mother when I was being particularly demanding as a child. A cool historical note, the Queen of Sheba is in most religious texts - but in Islam, depending on which version you follow, it’s believed that the Queen of Sheba was in fact a Jinn hybrid herself! How cool is that!

Anyway, I got distracted by a cool fact. Lastly, we have the two most powerful Jinns - and definitely the ones you have heard of and think of when I say Genie. 

The Marid is really the one we all think of when the word Genie is said, as they are the ones who tend to grant wishes for humans, however, there is always a bargain to get one, such as battle, imprisonment or just being really really charming. They were incredibly proud and the strongest type of Jinn, and actually the word Marid means giant in Arabic to this day, so they were also MASSIVE. A good example of one is the entity Bahamut, which is the giant fish entity in the Quran which we spoke about in the Roc episode - he is actually considered a Jinn, but not a humanoid version of one. 

Lastly, we have the Shaitan. This literally means Satan in Arabic, and is very literally that and there is only really one that leads them too. This Jinn was called Iblis. This story will probably ring true no matter which religion you follow, but there are technically two stories that lead to his downfall. In one, Iblis was a high ranking angel, and when the first man and first prophet of Islam, Adam was created - Iblis refused to bow to him, therefore he was expelled from Paradise to rule over the devils. Another version is that he was already a Jinn, and when Allah asked the angels to bow, Iblis refused as he was not one of them - but both stories end the same, much like the story of Lucifer from the Bible becoming Satan. In fact, they changed Iblis’ name to "Shayṭān" too - bit harsh, but it happens.

But yeah, they only exist to be super evil and punish humans - however, the Quran does say that they will only do so to people of no faith - so if you believe, you’re pretty much safe from these legitimate demons.

ORIGIN:

Okay so onto etymology, Jinn is from an Arabic word jann, meaning 'to hide' or 'to adapt' - much like the actual Jann Jinn too. The origin of the word Jinn is actually not known, but some scholars think it is linked to the Latin word genius, which is cool. Others claim it comes from the Aramaic word ginnaya - which means guardian deity or the Persian Jaini, which was the name of an evil lady spirit. 

We do have to talk about the word genie though - this is the anglicised version of Jinn, which comes from the French word genie (basically it has the accent on the first e), which again comes from the Latin genius. So basically, we’re just lazy, but strangely are using a French word instead of Arabic, which is shorter and probably easier to pronounce if you had to learn both words.

Although we know they’ve been around for as long as the Quran has, they were mentioned loads in the Book of Wonder and the legendary 1001 Nights (or Arabian Nights in English). So their origin is a little hazy, but we do know that they’ve been in this literature since at least the Pre-Islamic period, which was the first century AD, which is wild. 

Apparently pre-Islamic Arabs believed that Jinn were almost as important as the Gods and they considered them mortal, but knew they had a much bigger part in their day to day lives than the gods. Poets, philosophers and musicians believed that they were inspired by the Jinn, who liked human entertainment. However, they did also consider them harbingers of disease and mental illnesses as they would inhabit dark places where only the more vulnerable of society would venture. So it was interesting as they were adored and praised, but also feared - and constantly had people looking over their shoulders for, and considering they’re invisible most of the time, I imagine that was quite tricky. But they did know that they could kill them, so there was always that. 

Which I should have mentioned earlier - how do you kill a Jinn? Well I did kind of answer this earlier, but you can use magic against them if you were a spellcaster of some kind, but certainly with most types of Jinn, they are physically there - not a ghost or spirit as much as that’s in our minds as they are smokey beings, you could just smack it in the head like a zombie I suppose. 

Moving on though, it is debated whether potentially they were pagan monsters before the pre-Islamic period and these clans picked up the belief. However, there’s not really much information on this as it's so old. 

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto cultural significance; we have so so many this week so I hope you’re strapped in for all of these recommendations. 

For art, they’re an ancient monster - so they are in a lot of art, but mostly illustrations from religious texts and from carvings. It’s actually quite hard to describe where these are best found honestly, but if you fancy having a look, you can look up the illustrations from Book of Wonders and 1001 Nights - which is what I’d recommend. 

In movies this week, we have a load honestly - and this category isn’t on its own with that either. I’ve got most famously the Disney animated film Aladdin and it’s sequel, Aladdin and the Return of Jafar, Clash of the Titans, When Evil Calls, Kazaam, Wishmaster, Ducktales the Movie and The Outing. 

For TV, there are a huge amount, but here are a nice mix of all ages, and types of tv from anime such as Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures, One Piece, Dragon Ball to American Gods, Charmed, I Dream of Jeannie, Once Upon a Time, The Witcher, Supernatural, Power Rangers, Twilight Zone, Ultraman 80, Wizards of Waverly Place, Dukes of Hazzard, X-Files, Angel, Fraggle Rock, Fairly Odd Parents, Lazytown and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

For video games, we’ve got a few such as Golden Sun, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Age of Wonders, Cuphead, Destiny, The Sims, Runescape, Final Fantasy, Wario Land, Pokemon, Baldur’s Gate, Mario Party, Skylanders, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Uncharted 3, Miitopia, Terraria, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Battleborn, The Witcher 3 and The Secret World - to very literally name a few, there were SO MANY.

My book recommendations this week are some wonderful Arabic lore books - The Encyclopedia of Eastern Mythology: Legends of the East by Rachel Storm - or just have a read of 1001 Nights, it’s such an amazing bunch of stories, by a collection of authors. Another one is Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. There's a Jinn in there and he’s pretty cool, and Neil Gaiman is a terrific author.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? I’m not sure on this one actually, it's tricky as this one is very ingrained into the Arabic and Islamic culture. But I think this one is really interesting, as you kind of have to believe in a spirit form of smoke and fire - and although it’s believable that people can see stuff like this, it’s a tricky one to follow. 

I did read though that some followers of Islam believe that Jinn cause all the magic perceived by humans in the world - controlling magicians for entertainment, providing fortune tellers with information and mimicking the voices of the dead during seances, so that’s quite a fun idea that they just get off on teasing us with magic.

But for me, it’s probably going to be a no. Although, I struggle to get away from the Robin Williams version of the Genie in Aladdin, and this is probably a super westernised view, but it’s the first thing I think of when I think of them. So it’s a really nice learning curve for me this week, where I could look at where one of the best animated characters comes from and the monster he’s based on gets its kicks.

OUTRO: 

Well that was an interesting one - there are so many different types of Jinn that it’s so cool to learn about the different types, and a differing one to the one we all know and love in the Genie from Aladdin - which let’s be honest, is the best version of the Jinn we could possibly ask for, especially with Robin Williams voicing him - an absolute legend in his own right, bless his soul.

Next week we’re heading back over to the east in the Philippines - and looking at the petrifying, vampiric Penanggalan who flies around with just her head and organs out and flailing around. Come flying in next Thursday and find out more about these horrible creatures of the night!

For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast, ya know if you feel like it.

Come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.