The whole of the chapter of the Jinn—namely, Chapter LXXII. The important passages are the earlier ones: "Say, "I have been inspired that there listened a company of the jinn, and they said, "We have heard a marvelous Qur'an that guides to the right direction; and we believe therein, and we join no one with our Lord, for, verily, He—may the majesty of our Lord be exalted! - has taken to Himself neither consort nor son. "And, verily, a fool among us spake against God wide of the mark! ... "And we thought that men and jinn would never speak a lie against God.' "And there are persons amongst men who seek for refuge with persons amongst the jinn, but they increase them in their perverseness. And they thought, as ye thought, that God would not raise up any one from the dead. "But we touched the heavens and found them filled with a mighty guard and shooting-stars; and we did sit in certain seats thereof to listen; but whoso of us listens now finds a shooting-star for him on guard." And the last chapter of the Koran, one of the first chronologically, reads: "Say, 'I seek refuge in the Lord of men, the King of men, the God of men, from the evil of the whisperer, who slinks off, who whispers into the hearts of men! -from jinns and men!"" The belief in jinn among Moslems is almost the same as the belief in spiritual beings demons, sprites, elves, etc. in the African religions. Nassau writes (p. 50): "The belief in spiritual beings opens an immense vista of the purely superstitious side of the theology of Bantu African religion. All of the air and the future is peopled with a large and indefinite company of these beings. The attitude of the Creator (Anyambe) toward the human race and lower animals being that of indifference or of positive severity in having allowed evils to exist, and His indifference making Him almost inexorable, cause effort in the line of worship to be therefore directed only to those spirits who, though they are all probably malevolent, may be influenced and made benevolent." One has only to compare this with the popular practice of Islam to see how close is the parallel. Jinn are called forth by whistling or blowing a pipe. This therefore is considered an omen of evil. Before Islam as now certain places were considered as inhabited by the jinn. Higar (the city of the dead from the days of Thamud), graveyards and outhouses are their special resort. When entering such places a formula must be uttered to drive them away. Jinn are specially busy at night and when the morning-star appears they vanish. Wherever the soil is disturbed by digging of wells or building there is danger of disturbing the jinn as well. Whenever Mohammed changed his camp he was accustomed to have the Takbir cried in order to drive them away. The whirlwind is also an evidence of the presence of jinn. When the cock crows or the donkey brays it is because they are aware of the presence of jinn (Bokhari 2: 182). They also dwell in animals and, as Wellhausen rightly says, "The zoology of Islam is demonology." The wolf, the hyena, the raven, the hudhud, the owl are special favorites in this conception. A specially close connection exists between the serpent and the jinn; in every snake there is a spirit either good or evil. Examples of the Prophet's belief in this superstition are given by Wellhausen.1 In the old Arabian religion the jinn were nymphs and satyrs of the desert. They were in constant connection with wild animals and often appeared in brute forms. Robertson Smith in his "Religion of the Semites," shows us the relations that were supposed to exist between these spirits of the wild and the gods. He says: "In fact the earth may be Berlin, 1897, p. 153. 1" Reste Arabischen Heidentums," said to be parceled out between demons and wild beasts on the one hand, and gods and men on the other. To the former belong the untrodden wilderness with all its unknown perils, the wastes and jungles that lie outside the familiar tracks and pasture grounds of the tribe, and which only the boldest men venture upon without terror; to the latter belong the regions that man knows and habitually frequents, and within which he has established relations, not only with his human neighbors, but with the supernatural beings that have their haunts side by side with him. And as man gradually encroaches on the wilderness and drives back the wild beasts before him, so the gods in like manner drive out the demons; and spots that were once feared, as the habitation of mysterious and presumably malignant powers, lose their terrors and either become common ground or are transformed into the seats of friendly deities. From this point of view, the recognition of certain spots as haunts of the gods is the religious expression of the gradual subjugation of nature by man." To the Arabs of Mohammed's day this teaching formed the background of their supernatural world. The heathen of Mecca considered the jinn as the sons and daughters of Allah. When Islam came this relation was denied, but the existence of the jinn and their character remained unchanged. Dr. Macdonald quotes a number of instances in the history of Islam where the saints had intercourse with God through Jinn (pp. 139-152). We need not marvel at these stories of later tradition for we find in Moslem books a number of instances given where Mohammed himself held converse with jinn. The following is a typical example: "One day the Prophet prayed the morning prayer with us in the Mosque of Al-Madina. Then when he had finished, he said, 'Which of you will follow me to a deputation of the jinn tonight?' But the people kept silence and none said anything. He said 'which of you?' He said it three times; then he walked past me and took me by the hand, and I walked with him until all the mountains of al-Madina were distant from us and we had reached the open country. And there were men, tall as lances, wrapped completely in their mantles from their feet up. When I saw them a great quivering seized upon me, until my feet would hardly support me from fear. When we came near to them the Prophet drew with his great toe a line for me on the ground and said, ‘sit in the middle of that.' Then when I had sat down, all fear which I had felt departed from me. And the Prophet passed between me and them and recited the Qur-an in a loud voice until the dawn broke. Then he came past me and said, ‘Take hold of me.' So I walked with him, and we went a little distance. Then he said to me, 'Turn and look; dost thou see any one where these were?' I turned and said, ‘O Apostle of God, I see much blackness!' He bent his head to the ground and looked at a bone and a piece of dung, and cast both to them. Thereafter he said, 'They are a deputation of the jinn of Nasibin; they asked of me traveling provender; so I appointed for them all bones and pieces of dung.” Al-Tabarani relates on the strength of respectable authorities, on the authority of Abu-Tha'labah al-Khushani AlKhushati, (Mishkat al-Masabih) that the Prophet said, "The genii are of three kinds; the genii of one kind have wings with which they fly in the air; those of the second kind are snakes; and those of the third kind alight and journey to distant places." And again," All the Moslems hold the opinion that our Prophet was sent for the genii as well as for men. God has said, ' (Say)' This Kur'an was inspired to me to warn you and those it reaches."" It reached the genii, (as well as man). God has also said, 'And when we turned towards thee some of the genii listening to the Kur'an, and when they were present at (the reading of) it, they said, “Be |