This @PBS video by @ZarkaEmily is a good intro into jinn but a few quibbles:
1. I wish they had consulted actual texts on jinn or people from the culture and spent less time on European translations—half the video is about Europeans popularizing jinn
1. I wish they had consulted actual texts on jinn or people from the culture and spent less time on European translations—half the video is about Europeans popularizing jinn
2. It seems @ZarkaEmily conflates two concepts: the kahin and human-jinn offspring. While human-jinn offspring are said to have abilities, the figure who casts and removes curses and divines the future is the kahin, the pre-Islamic soothsayer.
They are different
They are different
The importance of the kahin in pre Islamic culture forms the backdrop of Muhammad’s prophethood, so it’s important to get the figure right
The over focus on European writers is partly the reason for my scholarship and Twitter threads—an attempt to put jinn back in their context
The over focus on European writers is partly the reason for my scholarship and Twitter threads—an attempt to put jinn back in their context
There are hundreds of great Islamic manuscripts, we can move past Edward Lane 🙂
final thought: when we talk about jinn we’re talking about global traditions, not just Arabian—the way jinn became part of the cultural fabric in South Asia, the way they were woven into Persian literature, the beautiful and vibrant variations in Africa are all part of jinn lore
