What if I or someone else told you that unknown to most people, unseen by most people there are many well structured and socially well organised tribes or communities of supernatural beings called jinn or djinn living amongst us? That the jinn tribes/communities eat and drink, have kings, courts of law with incidentally, hanging as an ultimate punishment, weddings, children, deaths and mourning rituals very similar to those of humans? That jinn can marry a human or otherwise have a sexual relationship with a human? You probably wouldn’t believe it, much less the amazing powers that they possess and the many types of jinn that exist.
Though technically incorrect, the word “jinn” is commonly used as both a singular and a plural, just as “jinn” and “janaat” are often used interchangeably although they are two different albeit similar supernatural entities. The Arabic word ‘jinn’ is from the verb ‘Janna’ which means to hide or conceal. In the Qur’an it s mentioned that the jinn were created from a smokeless flame of fire. Jinn can be Muslims or non-Muslims but because they were all created from fire, their temperament is generally fiery. Jinn are said to have been created before man but their life span is far greater than that of humans.
According to Cryptid Wiki, the jinn or djinn or genies are “spiritual creatures in Islam and Arabic folklore. They are mentioned in the Qur’an and other Islamic texts and inhabit an unseen world in dimensions beyond the visible universe of humans”. The different types of jinn and names enumerated range from marid, ifrit or afreet, jann, ghoul, hinn, shiqq, nasnas, palis, si’lat who are expert shape-shifters and the smartest of the jinn, iblis or shaitan—said to be the first jinn, created from fire who became the father of all the jinn and was also the first recorded jinn to be disobedient, and many others.
Ghoul, of which there are several categories, are shape-shifting, cannibalistic, and blood-drinking creatures that feed on the flesh of human beings, especially corpses in graveyards. A female ghoul has the ability to appear as a normal, mortal woman and can marry an unsuspecting man, who then usually ends up as her prey. The oldest references to ghoul in Arabian lore are found in The Book of 1001 Nights.
The hinn are jinn close to animals and like especially to appear as dogs. In Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing or The Book of Jinn, Zakarīyā’ ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī claimed to have sighted these creatures in Arabia, Persia, and India. The ifrit or afreet is mentioned in the Qur’an and is usually evil, extremely powerful and difficult to control. They “live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes and clans. They generally marry one another, but they can also marry humans… they are susceptible to magic, which humans can use to kill them or to capture and enslave them.”
Marids are mentioned in pre-Islamic Arabian mythology and in the One 1001Nights and are considered the most powerful type of jinn. “Like every jinn, they have free will yet could be compelled to perform chores. According to folklore, they also have the ability to grant wishes to mortals…” The powers of jinn include the power is to whisper/deceive. They are able to take on any physical form they want to and can appear as humans, animals, trees and anything else. They also have the ability to possess and take over the minds and bodies of other creatures, though they are prohibited from using this to oppress others or possess others. Yet “through their powers of flying and invisibility, the jinn are the chief component in occult activities. Voodoo, Black magic, Poltergeists, Witchcraft and Mediums can all be explained through the world of the Jinn.” And because the jinn can traverse huge distances and collect information in seconds, their value to magicians and fortune tellers is great.
Fortune telling is in fact one of the most popular activities associated with jinn. Fortune-tellers often operate through the qareen, the jinn companion assigned to every human being. “Because the qareen is with a person all his life, it knows all that has happened to the person from the cradle to the grave. By making contact with the qareen, the fortune-teller is thus able to make out that it is he who knows about the person… By visiting Muslim lands such as Morocco, one is able to see as to how much inter Jinn-fortune-teller activity there really is…” Jinn have also been known to manipulate ouija boards and seances, generally used to contact the dead, and manipulate people through “visions” by, for example, taking on the form of someone’s friend or parents or some other loved one. Perhaps the greatest advantage jinn possess is that ordinary people cannot see them while jinn can see everybody.
Close to my home there stands a d house in which an elderly couple was murdered years ago. This house is now in ruins and serves as an abode for two jinn who over the years, probably seeing me pass by regularly on my nightly dog walks have established a sort of friendship with me and my dogs. The jinn often offer to help with anything I want, but I always decline diplomatically. Why? Because I know that accepting their help would also entail compensating them in some way, and once they begin regarding me as a “provider”, there could be complications and I may be get landed with a life-long jinn association. But I am immensely indebted to them for providing me with invaluable demonstrations of their immense power.
They can “shift” shapes and one time in just a flash they drew themselves upto a height so high that I could no longer see their faces and then they were back to their normal height, which in their particular case, is usually about three and a half feet. Another time, like a magician, they asked me to think of a flower and in maybe a second, they had handed me a fresh red tulip—from Kashmir they told me proudly. It is also well known that jinn have the power to change matter into energy and back into matter again and my friendly jinn have done this before me time and again.
Quite obviously, the world of the jinn has multiple dimensions which are fascinating, sinister, intriguing, complex, astounding, and mysterious. And yet, the world of the jinn is just one of the innumerable layers that combine to make up the larger world of the paranormal, the other world. Think about it: it’s not that simple, is it, to dismiss the paranormal, the other world or worlds as figments of the imagination?