Jinn
Singular Jinnee, plural Jineeyeh, Arabian spirits, perhaps animistic, but more probably strictly mythological like the Persian divs (q.v.). The jinn were created out of fire, and occupied the earth for several thousand years before Adam; they were perverse, and would not reform, although prophets were sent to reclaim them; they were eventually driven from the earth, and took refuge in the outlying islands of the sea. One of the number named Azazeel (afterwards called Iblees) had been carried off as a prisoner by the angels; he grew up amongst them, and became their chief, but having refused, when commanded, to prostrate himself before Adam, he was degraded to the condition of a sheytân, and becomes the father of the sheytâns, or devils. The jinn are not immortal, but destined ultimately to die: they eat and drink and propagate their species; they live in communities, and are ruled over by princes: they can make themselves visible or invisible, and assume the forms of various animals, such as serpents, cats and dogs. There are good jinn and bad jinns. They frequent baths, wells, latrines, ovens, ruined houses, rivers, cross roads and market places. Finally, like the demons of the Rabbins, they ascend to heaven and learn the future by eavesdropping. But with all their power and knowledge, they are liable to be reduced to obedience by means of talismans or magic arts, and become obsequious servants until the spell is broken. 46 "
It is far from clear or certain, that the jinn of the east were borrowed from the mythology or philosophy of the west, and the practice of translating the Arabic word jinn by the Latin term "genius arose more from an apparent resemblance in the names, than from any identity in the nature and functions of those imaginary beings. This similarity of name, however, must have been purely accidental, for the Arabs knew little or nothing of the Latin language, and not a single term derived immediately from it; dæmon, therefore, and not genius was the word which they would have used if they had borrowed this part of their creed from the west. Jinn appears, moreover, to be a genuine Arabic word, derived from a root signifying to veil" or "conceal"; it, therefore, means properly, "that which is veiled and cannot be seen." "In one sense,' says Fruzàbàdi, author of the Câmus, "the word Jinn signifies any spiritual being concealed from all our senses, and, for that reason, the converse of a material being. Taken in this extensive sense, the word Jinn comprehends devils as well as angels, but there are some properties common to both angels and Jinn; some peculiar to each. Every angel is a Jinn, but every Jinn is not an angel. In another sense, this term is applied peculiarly to a particular kind of spiritual beings; for such beings are of three kinds; the good, which are angels; the bad, devils; and the intermediate, comprehending both good and bad, who form the class of Jinn." Thus the Arabs acknowledge good and bad genii, in that respect agreeing with the Greeks, but differing from the Persians. The genii, so long familiarized to European readers by the Arabian Nights, were not the same beings, mentioned by the Arabian lexicographer, but the Divs and Dévatàs of Indian romance, dressed up in a foreign attire, to please the taste of readers in Persia and Arabia.
The principal differences, therefore, between the genii of the west and the jinn of the east, seem to have been these; the genii were deities of an inferior rank, the constant companions and guardians of men, capable of giving useful or prophetic impulses, acting as a species of mediators and messengers between the gods and men. Some were supposed to be friendly, others hostile, and many believed one of each kind to be attached, from his birth, to every mortal. The former was called Agathodæmon, the latter Cacodæmon; and one of the latter who appeared to Cassius is represented as a man of vast stature and of a black hue, whence, no doubt, that colour has been given, in latter times, to the devil. The good genius prompted men to good, the evil to bad actions. That of each individual was as a shadow of himself. Often he was represented as a serpent; his age also varied; he was generally crowned with a chaplet of plane leaves. In coins of Trajan and Hadrian the genius places a patera with his right hand on an altar, and holds a sort of scourge in his left. His sacrifices were wholly bloodless, consisting of wine and flowers, and the person who performed the oblation was the first to taste the cup. They were adored with prostrations, particularly on the birthday, which was placed under their especial care.
John XXII.
The Roman men swore by their Genius, the women by their Juno. The genius of the reigning Prince was an oath of extraordinary solemnity. There were local as well as individual genii, concerning whom many particulars may be found in Vossius," de Idol. 66 The Jinn, on the contrary, who seem to be the lineal descendants ofthe Dévatés and Rakshasas of the Hindu mythology, were never worshipped by the Arabs, nor considered as anything more than the agents of the Deity. Since the establishment of Mohammedanism, indeed, they have been described as invisible spirits, and their feats and deformities which figure in romance are as little believed by Asiatics, as the tales of Arthur's Round Table" are by ourselves. Their existence as superhuman beings is maintained by the Mussulman doctors, but that has little connection with their character and functions as delineated by poets. 66