The King Solomon Myth: Early folklore features King Solomon—aided by angels or jinn—possessing a majestic carpet that could carry his entire army.
If religious views are considered, they are demons or jinn.
See also: Djinn/Jinn (Widespread in Islamic Mythology)
Robert Lebling, in Legends of the Fire Spirits, calls them forerunners of the jinn.
In Lebling’s book, one of these mates is Lilith, or the Qarinah, the mother of many jinn.
Lebling names five sons of Iblis among the evil jinn:
Early Islamic tradition already names jinn and hinn as earlier intelligent creatures.
Jinn, hinn, and related Arabian tradition belong there.
Those creatures include jinn and hinn.
Jinn are often pictured as human-like pre-Adamites.
In Q 15:26–27, a standard tafsir reading says jinn were created before humankind from fire.
They stand next to the jinn.
Later historians sometimes say hinn or binn were cleared from the earth so jinn could live there.
Mankind is the successor of earlier intelligent creatures such as jinn and hinn.
Jinn and hinn are non-human pre-Adamites.
Jinn and hinn strengthen the same trail.
These include Early Islamic jinn and hinn.
Mankind often comes after jinn and hinn as earlier intelligent creatures.
Qur’anic readings place jinn before humankind from fire.
With it he rules the winds, the animals, the birds and the jinn.
The jinn build him a palace of marble and pearls from the sea and prepare great feasts.
The jinn fear that a marriage and an heir would make their service last longer.
A jinn named Zabwa spreads the rumour that Bilqis has jinn blood, which would show in hairy legs and strange feet.
Bilqis dies after some years, and Solomon buries her in Palmyra in Syria, a city linked with the jinn and said to have been built on his order.
Iblis’ appearance before he fell was said to be unique and grand even amongst the ranks of the Jinn
After 25,000 years, the jinn became proud and arrogant and began to disobey the divine rules.
Allah sent legions of angels to punish the jinn, and many of the wrongdoers were destroyed.
The rest were dispersed to distant islands – all except for Iblis, an impressive jinn who was captured and brought to heaven.
Meanwhile, the scattered jinn on the earth came together again and formed a nation on an island in the Southern Ocean.
He left heaven and descended to the island, where he persuaded the jinn to accept him as their king.
Before his fall, Iblis was notably distinct and magnificent even among the Jinn.
One of these mates was Lilith or the Qarinah, who, as we shall see later, bore numerous jinn offspring.
Five sons of Iblis are noted among the most celebrated of the evil jinn: T ̧ ıˉr (Bird), who causes disaster, injury and loss; al-A'war (the One-Eyed), who promotes lewd and lascivious behavior; Suˉt, consummate liar and the father of lies; Daˉsim, who ruins marriages by generating hostility between husband and wife; and Zalambuˉr, who presides over dishonesty, thievery and fraud in the business world.
An interesting branch of the Adam legend with rich jinn connections involves Lilith, a she-demon of great antiquity whose important role in Semitic lore received its richest embellishment in the late Middle Ages in Jewish Kabbalistic mystical writings particularly prevalent in Spain.
Various categories of jinn were created separately
Both jinn and humans were created in heaven and lived in enclosed gardens
Jinn lacked bodies of their own
Jinn had weight and density equivalent to those of air
Theoretically possible for humans and jinn to intermarry and have children
Jinn
The various categories of jinn were created separately, according to a creation myth reported by the Arab historian Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Mas'udi (896 –956), called by some ‘the Herodotus of the Arabs’.
After 25,000 years, the jinn became proud and arrogant and began to disobey the divine rules.
Allah sent legions of angels to punish the jinn, and many of the wrongdoers were destroyed.
The rest were dispersed to distant islands – all except for Iblis, an impressive jinn who was captured and brought to heaven.
Meanwhile, the scattered jinn on the earth came together again and formed a nation on an island in the Southern Ocean.
He left heaven and descended to the island, where he persuaded the jinn to accept him as their king.
Some maintain that the Arabic word jinn is older, and that the Palmyran (ancient Syrian) word jny' or gny', which we shall encounter later, derives from the earlier Arabic form.
Pazuzu, the ancient Mesopotamian wind demon, is an example of a desert spirit, a primordial jinn, who struck terror in the hearts of city dwellers of Eridu, Ur, Nippur, Uruk, Akkad and other Sumerian cities some 4,000–6,000 years ago.
Jinn are often associated with the wind and are said to travel by it.
Islamic tradition says Allah created the jinn before the creation of Adam.
Both jinn and men were created in heaven and lived in paradise.
As God relates in the Qur'an: ‘We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape; and the jinn race, We had created before, from the fire of a scorching wind’
And He created Jinns from fire free of smoke
As to the nature of the jinn, some early Islamic scholars – such as philosopher Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi of Basra (972–1058, known to medieval Europe as Alboacen) – believed that jinn lacked bodies of their own and did not inhabit bodies of other creatures.
However, jinn were known to have their own independent existence, so these scholars were at a loss to explain what form they took.
Al-Mawardi’s conviction that jinn were totally incorporeal was a minority view.
Many other scholars, including Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi (d.1201) and Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328 AD), believed that jinn did have bodies which were either defi ned, with density, or subtle, so fine that human vision cannot detect them.
The Qur'an states that Satan and his jinn followers cannot be detected by humans:
One opinion circulating among Islamic scholars of the Middle Ages was that jinn had weight and density equivalent to those of air.
or to a female jinn,
To him, a marriage of a female human to a male jinn was simply inconceivable.
Ibn Taymiyyah, a scholar held in high regard by many conservative Muslims today, believed that it was theoretically possible for humans and jinn to intermarry and have children.
As far back as the seventh century, a prominent Islamic theologian named al-Hasan al-Basri decided that marrying a jinn was possible but impermissible.
For the small beings of folklore that the jinn are sometimes linked with, see Little People.
Next to it I set a medieval Islamic tradition of a race of Jinn before Adam, a channeled text called Oahspe, and a long list of small beings from folklore.
Probably connected to the Jinn
It is related in histories that a race of Jinn in ancient times, before the creation of Adam, inhabited the earth, and covered it, the land and the sea … and the favors of God were multiplied upon them, and they had government, and prophecy … and law; but they transgressed and offended, and opposed their prophets, and made wickedness to abound in the earth; whereupon God, whose name be exalted, sent against them an army of angel[s], who took possession of the earth, and drove away the Jinn to the regions of the islands, and made many of them prisoners …
Here the Jinn are a whole people.
"The last case" is when the Jinn appear as human beings.
The Jinn fit "before Adam" well and "little" poorly.
Hughes gives the Persian names for two kinds of Jinn.
In the account of Abu Ali Bal'ami, "God creates parī at some point after the vicious dīvs." The parīs then "ruled the world until it was given to a tribe of angels called al-jinn (fereštegan), whose leader was Iblis." That puts the Dives first, the Peris second, and the angels and Iblis third, which is the order Bailly gives.
Djinn/Jinn
Bhoots or Jinn
In various Middle Eastern cultures, Jinn are sometimes believed to inhabit mines or natural underground formations.
These Jinn are thought to guard the treasures of the earth and can either help or hinder miners, depending on how they are treated.
Similar to the broader concept of Djinn in Islamic mythology, in Afghanistan, there are tales of Bhoots or Jinn that can be small, mischievous spirits.
Thomas Patrick Hughes gives Deves as the Persian name for the evil Jinn, and Bailly, citing Herbelot, reads the Dives as giants.
The Jinn
If religious views are considered, they are demons or jinn.