What are the Jinn?

In this second video in our Shocktober 2020 series, we explore the king of mythical creatures in the middle east - the Jinn. What are some of the misconceptions about these creatures, and what different kinds are there out there?

Sources/Further Reading:

Lebling, Robert & Tahir Shah (2014). "Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar. I.B. Tauris.

Henninger, Joseph (2004). "Beliefs in Spirits among the Pre-Islamic Arabs". In "Magic and Divination in Early Islam". Edited by Emile Savage-Smith. Ashgate Publishing Company.

#Jinn #Arabia #Genie

[sheezarai]

Legend has it that a jinn cannot be without its tonic

[ayaankhan]

Gin and jinn are pronounced the same way.

Both are spirits in a bottle.

[uldaman]

There's this famous story my mom keeps telling about a group of women in Kuwait who's job is to bang on drums, not sure what the right term is, but one day these women were invited by a family to make some noise in their wedding, the women ofcourse accepted the offer and went there, they noticed that the groom and the bride wore different kind of clothing, it was colorful and very out of this world but the women didn't care about it and thought this was a tradition, and things got weirder as they celebrated for hours past midnight when the family started hopping as they were dancing, and what they saw was not feet but hoofs, the women quickly fled out of the house in a frightening way as an old man approached them outside and asked them "what are you doing inside that ruined house" the women turned around and noticed the house was abandoned long ago, the old man told them about the jinn that lived there and how they were causing a lot of noise.

Sorry for the bad vocabulary, I hope I made the story clear.

[TechLevelUpOfficial]

As a Muslim i am so happy to see someone that put so much effort to search and understand something so deeply connected to our culture and religion and treating our views on it with so much respect, this video is just top notch.

[abd]

8:10 not to make any confusion, iblis in islam is 100% jinn, but he was in the presence of angels when god created our father adam because iblis was said to be very righteous before that instance

[wilhiamas]

Years ago when I was teaching in Saudi Arabia, a friend and I drove deep into the desert. The full moon enchanted us to get lost in an ancient riverbed. Hours later, we finally spotted our car. A group of bedouins were circling our campfire. We shouted "salam aleikum" three times, but nobody answered. Feeling uneasy, we got closer. The men turned into rocks and bushes...a desert mirage! Later, my Saudi students mooted it was no mirage; we probably had met a band of afreet or jinns, and my boys weren't joking.

[ayaankhan]

Jinn: I shall grant you 3 wishes
Me: I wish for a world without lawyers
Jinn: Done, you have no more wishes
Me: But you said 3
Jinn: Sue me.

[younes]

There is this jinn story that scared me so much because i kinda witnessed it.

Its called abou al fanous (father of the torch) men lost in desert would see a light in the distance and think they are gonna finally find their way to civilization again. The light keeps getting further and further and eventually the man is never seen again. That light was the jin carrying a torche and luring them to kill them.

Also for context, during the night wind make dunes move and change size so using them as reference is useless because when you wake up its a completely different place every single night.

It all started when i went to Dubai i was 21 and took a buggy deep into the desert and i purposely went to a place void of everything so i can see the unpolluted sky and see the stars. My buggy broke down because i suck at driving and i snapped something in it.

I had no reception and it was getting chilly, next thing i see its light, feint but visible maybe just 50-60 meters away and i remembered that horrifying story.

I climbed on the buggy to see what it was, i tried so hard to remind myself this shit probably isn’t real or if it was it wouldn’t happen to me.

Fear got to me and i was shaking, and that light came a little bit close and i heard whistling coming from its direction. I tried to keep it together for what felt like an hour but was less than 5 minutes. And i broke down and yelled try me ! Come here i will kill you.

And the light went little brighter, it wasn’t getting closer just got brighter. I set back in the buggy turned off the lights to maybe see more of its shape. I couldn’t.

20 mins of stress and form the opposite direction i see a second buggy and they told me you are luck the buggies have GPS. When they arrived i showed them the light. They were like “holly shit, you did well to no go there” i said i know the story. The dude said “true or false i wont be the one that finds out”.

We left, 7 years later i still remember that day.

In those 1, 5hrs i lost my sanity and managed to keep it together just enough.

[osumanaaa]

12:52 I don't think that the reason why the prophet asked his companions to avoid that place is because it was inhabited by Djins. First of all, neither the prophets nor his companions were afraid of Djins. The reason is because those places were inhabited by people who disobeyed God and disbelieved their prophet "Saleh", so God sent his wrath upon them. That is why the only time when they had to go through it, the prophet asked his companions to go in a state of fear and submission to God even and seek refuge from Him as His wrath is still upon places like those.

[TheTravelingTrader]

Your channel is wildly underrated. Other channels with similar formats have a million subs, and not even half as captivating.

[osumanaaa]

Fun fact: If you watched Clash of the Titans, in the desert, the weird creatures that saved them from the giant scorpions were actually "Jins" and they spoke classical Arabic.

[fady]

am just so proud of you for your pronunciation for Arabic, specially with the Ghul most foreigners could never say this pronounce of the "g", this shows you doing great job with your researches and although everything else about the video is historically correct it's not just some stupid foreign based shallow knowledge on the middle east mythology or religion nah you actually do the work with precision and that's a Quality content for me.

[jadenaxi]

The Chinese word 精 is pronounced exactly the same as Jinn and means pretty much the same. It could mean spirit, energy, soul, essence, etc. When combined with other words, 精 could also mean alluring (evil or enchanting) spirit/ghost.

[RassBrass]

My Berber North African grandmother told me that Jinns prefer dirty unclean areas. They often like to reside near a body of water, ponds, creeks and rivers. They like to move around at night and they are very very active at dusk. They can turn into humans or animals . She said if you see a frog with the markings on its back resembles the shape of 2 arabic letters together “lam” & “alif” ( لا ), run forest run ! 😂

[alexthebeast]

Growing up in the Catholic/ Christian tradition I love learning about subjects like these so much. Great video. Thank you 👍

[doyle]

Thanks so much for a great video - learnt a lot!!

[YonatanZunger]

Surat an-Jinn is one of my favorite things about the Quran - it's an entire sura talking about the religious status of non-human intelligences. This feels so relevant to our modern age, as we develop things like AI.

[ezix]

I used to go on Reddit and read stories of American soldiers encounters with Jinn while roaming the desert of Iraq

[springwaterhimalaya]

The dark, lightly lit background theme and talking about Jinns.🥶 Clever setup

[MeatyController]

I knew a fella on facebook about ten years ago who lives in Bahrain and he was nice enough to confide in me that he had a Jinn as a sort of spiritual guide and guardian. I was captivated by what he told me. I miss him, we lost touch.