Spiritual beings called “jinn” in Islam

In Islam, spirits are known as jinns. According to Gerard Van‟t Spijker, jinns are protector spirits in Islam, they are impersonal divinities related to Allah. In pre-Islamic Arabia, jinn was an imaginary being living in the desert and it was hostile to human being.³³⁰ In English, jinn rather than djinn, are not divinities, but spiritual or supernatural creatures taken from Arabic folklore.³³¹This Muslim belief in spiritual beings is common with the African Traditional Religion. Western scholars in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and anthropology tend to interpret the phenomenon of spirit possession solely as a kind of psycho-physiological delusion or fantasy for a therapeutic purpose but do not admit it as reality.³³²

The origin of belief in jinn and the practices associated with jinn are one of the most notable phenomena of Islamic supernaturalism in all Muslim societies. Beliefs in jinn are a consistent, essential feature in the whole system of Islamic belief, although the degrees and variable in practice vary from people to people. For ordinary Muslims, the human world cannot be separated or insulated from the spiritual world. Activities of jinn are taken into consideration in every part of the everyday life of Muslims, especially in rituals such as birth, naming of babies, marriage, death, burial, sowing time, harvest, house moving, traveling, house building, and the like. First, the Islamic tradition itself provides ordinary Muslims with theoretical foundation for beliefs in jinn and related practices.

The second fact is that there is a psychological dimension in regard to Islamic beliefs in jinn. The major causes of such beliefs in the spirit world are related to the sense of insecurity in life.³³³ According to Caleb Chul-Soo Kim, frustrated by their inability to access God for help and made

329 Ibid, p.45.

330 Gérard Van‟t Spijker, Ibid, p.19.

331 Jinn, <http://www.crystalinks.com/jinn.html> , 15th July 2014.

332 Caleb Chul-Soo Kim, Islam among the Swahili in East Africa, Acton publishers, Nairobi, 2004, p 4, quoted Oesterreeich 1966; Oughourlian 1991; Lambek 1981; Walker 1972.

333 Ibid, p75.

responsible for their daily survival, Muslims have had to develop a variety of solutions that we encounter in the Muslim world today. Based on the Qur‟anic cosmology,

The ordinary Muslim mind that is instinctively of animistic predisposition has gravitated more toward other spiritual beings than toward God. Consequently, Muslims have considered dead saints, angels, and jinn as spiritual resources from which they can gain the baraka (blessings) necessary for their daily survival.

Among these resources, jinn beliefs and practices present the most distinctive features and are widespread all over the Muslim world.³³⁴

He goes on to say that, what is apparent, is that jinn are real to the majority of Muslims; they not only believe in jinn but also have them in mind in their everyday lives. As far as ordinary Muslims are concerned, fear of jinn is one of the most notable feelings in Islam. Islamic traditional belief in jinn is based upon the Qur‟an and Hadith³³⁵.”It is well known that Muhammad was also accused by his contemporaries of being possessed or mad (Surah 15:6, 37:36; 44:14; 26:27; 54:9). Sorcerer and soothsayer seem to have been identified with the people who are possessed ( majnuun), Surah 51:39, 52: 52:29. ³³⁶ “Jinnah, which is the female form of jinn, refers to the whole group of jinn, and sometimes it also means possession by jinn or madness. This word appears ten times in the Qur‟an.”³³⁷

The female jinn is called jinniyah in Arabic. However, this word does not appear in the Qur‟an but in Hadith, and its existence is well known to Muslims. In the Qur‟an, these Arabic words for jinn refer to the invisible beings created from fire, while human beings and angels were created from clay and light (Surah15:27; 38:76; 55:15) ³³⁸ Jinn are intelligent, imperceptible to human senses, and as capable of salvation as human beings are. In Surah 46:29-32 and 72;1-7, some jinn listened to the Qur‟an and were converted to Islam, and they went back to their people to share the good news. ³³⁹At the Day of Judgment, Allah will judge both people and jinn that alike

334 Ibid., p.77.

335 Ibid., p.79.

336 Ibid., p.80.

337 Ibid.

338 Ibid.

339 Ibid.

according to their deeds. Therefore, Muslims cannot think of the human world without relating it to the spirit world. ³⁴⁰

Although jinns were created from flames of fires Surah 15:27; 55:15; unlike human beings, among Muslims many human qualities are ascribed to jinn rather than to angels. They have intellect, emotion, and will; they also have the power to choose between right and wrong and between true and false. Therefore, it is believed that jinn also eat, drink, marry, produce children, and die as human beings. Jinn have no limit to their satiety, however, and they will eat human bones and dung if they do not find food. If they do not have bodies, they use human bodies to manifest themselves. In this case, human bodies become the instruments through which jinn make their wills known to human society and demonstrate their superiority to human beings with supernatural power.³⁴¹

Caleb Chul-Soo Kim, a Korean Missiologist notes that, jinn also have homes. The main headquarter of Jinn is said to be located in the Ocean. The chief devil orders his soldiers to move to the land to cause all chaotic troubles and immoral problems among people.³⁴²The jinn are believed to be able to have sex with human beings. A devil is most excited about human sexual intercourse. So Muslim parents should read Surah Al-Ikhlass 112 to their children and make a special du’a (prayer) before having a marital relationship.³⁴³

Muslims complain that they are afflicted with many attacks from devils in many different ways.

For example, the jinn may cause people to have illness, both physically and mentally, to experience relational breakdowns, to get bitten by snakes or scorpions, or to fail in business;

everything bad may be caused by devils. This is evident among Swahili Muslim practitioners called Waganga.³⁴⁴ (Waganga are traditional healers or traditional doctors.)³⁴⁵

340 Ibid., p.81.

341 Ibid, p.92.

342 Ibid.

343 Ibid, p.93.

344 Ibid., p.94.

345 Waganga are traditional healers or traditional doctors. Often they use herbs to heal and it believed that they are able to appease ancestral spirits. This is very evident in streets of East Africa countries where there are many posters pinned

on the electric poles and stickers on wall‟s buildings. See website: Waganga and Sangoma-fake traditional