Are there jinn

The Quran states that Allah created three types of beings from three substances: humans made of earth ; angels made of light ; and jinn made of smokeless fire. There are said to be five categories of jinn; two of the best known are shaitan and ifrit, both of which are said to be evil. Considered wind and fire spirits by Muslims, jinn are invisible to humans in their pure form but can take any form they please to suit their needs.

Jinn, just like people, can be good or evil; they are born, grow up, marry, have jobs, raise families, live in their own communities and die, just like us. In contrast to Western versions of jinn, in the Arab world they are not known for their "Aladdin"-like wish-granting — though they can be commanded to perform tasks by wizards, for example, or someone who wears the magical Ring of Solomon.

Jinn are sometimes blamed for unexplained minor health scares, accidents and misfortune. For example, in , teachers at an all-girls school in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah began having mysterious fits and seizures. Though doctors attributed that incident to mass hysteria a mild and harmless form of social contagion and psychological suggestion , many believed that jinn haunted the school and were to blame for the attack.

In May , nine elementary and middle school students at a girls' school in southern Madinah, Saudi Arabia, claimed that jinns had made them feel unwell, causing episodes of fainting and spasms. Nearly of their classmates refused to attend the school for two days while medical authorities searched for an explanation. Belief in the fire spirits is also common among elected officials in the Middle East. In , nearly two dozen associates of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were accused of summoning jinn to attack political enemies.

One man, Abbas Ghaffari, was reportedly accused of summoning a genie who caused a heart attack in one of Ghaffari's rivals. Jinn share many traits with angels, fairies, ghosts and other supernatural creatures.

Many Muslims believe in the literal existence of jinn, just as many Christians believe in the literal existence of angels. Just as Christian theologians have long debated the nature of angels, Muslim theologians have long debated the nature of jinn: whether they have physical bodies, where they live, how they interact with us and so on. Like spirits and demons, jinn are said to be able to possess humans with similar symptoms, including seizures, violence and speaking unknown tongues and can be exorcised from the human body through rituals.

Just as in Catholic exorcism rituals where Bible passages are read to the possessed person to drive the spirit from the human body, Islamic rituals often involve having sections of the Quran recited to the afflicted person to rid him or her of jinn.

Jinn are believed, like ghosts, to sometimes haunt buildings, homes and other locations, including sewers and drain pipes. Keywords: jinn , sorcery , Islamic cosmology , Qur'an , unseen , Muslims , possession , exorcism , Iran.

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