"Djinn" by Optimist
This is an interesting story from Jerteh, a town in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia. (
View Map) A group of healers claim to have acted to rescue a child from spirits, called jinns (or
djinns). The child has a history of vanishing; in the most recent episode the girl was allegedly taken to a cave, and was found later “pale and unconscious.”
These healers somehow treated her, and claim to have extracted 12 jinns. A previous time, they extracted 9.
Three healers from Terengganu Islamic Foundation (YIT) claim they captured 12 more djinns from the house of Siti Balqis Mohd Nor after she disappeared again on Saturday night.
Her family thought her ordeal was over when two bomoh captured 9 djinns on Friday and put them in sealed containers.
State Religious and Information Committee at Siti Balqis Mohd Nor’s house
Yesterday, however, the 22-year-old, who is the eldest of four children, claimed she was whisked away to a cave about 15km from her home in Kampung Gong Nangka here.
She mysteriously disappeared at 7.30pm, minutes before state religious and information committee chairman Khazan Che Mat, YIT director Kamarul Al Amin Ismail and YIT officials arrived at her home with the healers.
Hundreds of residents searched around the house and at locations that she had been found in previous disappearances but this proved futile.
At 11.30pm, her mother Norizan Said, 47, received an SMS from Siti Balqis, saying that she had been taken to a cave in Bukit Keluang.
Jabi assemblyman Ramlan Ali headed a rescue team to Bukit Keluang but they only found seven men and two women who were meditating (bertapa) inside the cave.
Two hours later, Siti Balqis sent another SMS, saying she had been whisked home but had landed on a rambutan tree.
Siti Balqis was pale and unconscious when rescuers brought her down from the rambutan tree. The three Islamic medical practitioners said they captured 12 djinns after treating her.
Siti Balqis only regained consciousness at 5am and told her mother she saw Ramlan and other rescuers at Bukit Keluang cave but none of them could hear her calls.
“I even tried to touch Ramlan’s wife as she passed by me but she did not see me,” she said.
Meanwhile, Khazan said the medical practitioners were sent by the state government to help the family.
The Majlis al-Jinn cave in Oman
Genie (Arabic: جني jinnī; variant spelling djinni) or jinn is a supernatural creature in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings which occupies a parallel world to that of mankind. Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. According to the Qur’ān, there are two creations that have free will: humans and jinn.
…
The social organization of the jinn community resembles that of humans; e.g., they have kings, courts of law, weddings, and mourning rituals. A few traditions (hadith), divide jinn into three classes: those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, and those who travel about ceaselessly.
Other reports claim that ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd (d. 652), who was accompanying Muhammad when the jinn came to hear his recitation of the Qur’an, described them as creatures of different forms; some resembling vultures and snakes, others tall men in white garb.
They may even appear as dragons, onagers, or a number of other animals. In addition to their animal forms, the jinn occasionally assume human form to mislead and destroy their human victims. Certain hadiths have also claimed that the jinn may subsist on bones, which will grow flesh again as soon as they touch them, and that their animals may live on dung, which will revert to grain or grass for the use of the jinn flocks.
Ibn Taymiyyah believed the jinn were generally “ignorant, untruthful, oppressive and treacherous”.
Ibn Taymiyyah believes that the jinn account for much of the “magic” perceived by humans, cooperating with magicians to lift items in the air unseen, delivering hidden truths to fortune tellers, and mimicking the voices of deceased humans during seances.
In the following verse of the Quran, it is affirmed that prophets were sent to the Jinn as they were sent to men:
“O ye assembly of jinns and men! came there not unto you apostles from amongst you, setting forth unto you My signs, and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours (The Day of Judgment)?” They will say: “We bear witness against ourselves.” It was the life of this world that deceived them. So against themselves will they bear witness that they rejected Faith.” (Quran 6:130)
Unless I am mistaken, Jinns and other spirits are sometimes thought to spend times in certain caves, and out in the desert. There is actually one amazing-looking cave called
Majlis al Jinn; which means literally: “Meeting place of the Jinn.”
Btw, the cool-looking image at the top of the post is a piece called “Djinn,” by Optimist at
deviantart.com.
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