In Middle Eastern and Islamic lore, the jinn are associated with dreams. As subtle, invisible creatures they were treated as a separate race of beings and as a type of spirit-life.

A thread on jinn and dreams-
Jinn were said to have a special capacity to psychically influence humans through whisperings. These could fill the mind of people with doubt, fear, and lust

They could also sway the dreams of humans.
Some jinn like Kabus were described as a type of winged shadow which stalks humans at nighttime.

Slipping in through cracks, he perches on your chest causing paralysis as his icy fingers seep into the mind inducing nightmares and terror.
Meanwhile Qarinah, a jinn queen, uses her sexuality to influence dreams.

Appearing before the unsuspecting she penetrates the mind with lust, causing wet dreams, and draining her victims of their vitality.
Qarinah as a type of succubus, draws heavily from older Jewish lore on Lilith.

Qarinah is also linked to the legends of King Solomon.
The qareen, a jinn-companion each of us has, is said to cause angry dreams and to try to lead people astray or into temptation through dreams.
Jinn who fell in love with humans would visit their paramours in their sleep, arranging dreamy trysts in a realm of mist.
As subtle creatures, the jinn were connected to the hidden realms and thus one could meet them in dreams.

There are charms and invocations which can be used to arrange dream meet ups. Such meetings were used for the purposes of knowledge, to enter pacts, or for sex.
Jinn dreams were generally described as disruptive and having a deleterious effect on health.

Various remedies were used to treat them.
One could place a cup of water near the bedside to cool the hot influence of the fiery jinn.

Recitation of the Qur’an is also common with Surah Naas, Falaq, and Ayatul Kursi said before bed-time.
Traditional healers also use various herbal baths to remove jinn influence and craft talismans to be worn on the body during sleep
Detecting the influence of jinn in dreams is tricky.

Sudden temperature changes, uncharacteristic visions, and phantom smells were all generally seen as markers of their presence.
Sages interpreted jinn in dreams as having special meanings.

Ibn Serin advised if you see yourself turning into a jinn it means you’ve begun to believe your own lies, or will develop bad qualities.
If you do battle with a jinn in your dreams it means you are righteous.

If you see a jinn enter your house in a dream it means thieves are coming, and if you meet a jinn who appears pious then you will gain knowledge and become a leader.
The jinn could also be deliberately invoked to enter a person’s dreams.

If someone breaks an oath or promise, the offended party could take it up with the jinn who will then enter the dreams of the person and harass them until they make good their promise.
In turn jinn familiars could teach a mage how to enter the dreams of others in order to influence them.

The jinn kings of Mercury and the Moon were said to be skilled in dream magic.
The jinn queen Bidukh could also teach one to influence dreams, but you had to first enter into a pact with her.

When she appears in the dreams of humans, she usually is seen standing near a shoreline
Other jinn prefer taking the form of talking animals when they appear in dreams.

A talking cat or talking dog is most common.
The relationship between jinn and dreams sits as the intersection of mysticism, magic, and early medicine.

The treatment of disturbed sleep and the noting of significant dreams were part of a body of medieval psychoanalytic and mental health practices
Jinn and dreams are also deeply connected with communion with spiritual life, with invisible forces that exist alongside humans

Whether deemed disruptive or auspicious it was a reminder for many Muslim thinkers that we are not alone.
I'm covering jinn-human love, relationships, and sex more in depth in my latest podcast episode on patreon: patreon.com/headonhistory
We'll continue to explore the jinn in future threads

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ali A Olomi

Ali A Olomi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @aaolomi

3 Jan
The Horoscope of Iskandar Sultan, cast by the astrologer Imad al Munajjim for April 25th 1384 CE

It has Capricorn on the Ascendent, Venus in her kingdom in Pisces, the Sun in Taurus, and Mars in his domicile in Scorpio
the birth time and subsequent horoscope are idealized; it reflects a nocturnal birth so Venus and Mars are emphasized.

The placements likely invoke Iskandar’s grandfather Timur, with Mars in the 11th House reflecting the power to conquer the world
It’s a beautiful depiction of Persian and Timurid art and the continuation of astrological knowledge with references to the astrologer Abu Ma’shar and the use of the ancient al-hilaj technique in the commentary
Read 4 tweets
30 Dec 20
The Great Pyramids have always captured our imagination. For medieval Muslims, they were a relic of a ancient age of knowledge; an edifice of magic, astrology, and the jinn.

A thread-
By the 9th century there were several theories for who actually built the pyramids.

One stated they were built by the last jinn king, ibn Jann who ruled in the age before humanity.
In this narration, the jinn were the original inhabitants of the world. They filled the earth with wonder and corruption in equal measure.

Eventually a great jinn war broke out in which the angels sided with the goodly jinn and drove out the wicked ones.
Read 25 tweets
21 Dec 20
The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is upon us.

So ends the age of earth and so begins the age of air.

if an undead Timur i lang rises from his grave you'll know why...

we're also entering a new dawr or planetary age

so fun times ahead!

Read 4 tweets
16 Dec 20
Astrologers from the medieval Islamic world envisioned history as a series of great planetary cycles. You've heard of the Great Conjunction on December 20th and the Age of Aquarius, but the medieval writers had different ideas.

According to them we are in a new age

A thread-
While the Age of Aquarius is not really a thing in the writings of medieval astrologers, they do have several techniques which divide up history into astrological ages, or world years.

One is the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn which we discussed in our last two threads.
The others are intiha’at, fardar, dawr, and qisma which were all related to one another
Read 21 tweets
9 Dec 20
Every few hundred years Jupiter and Saturn meet in a conjunction. For medieval Muslim astrologers, the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn would be linked to world conquerors, messiahs, and the apocalypse.

The next Great Conjunction is on December 20th 2020.

A thread-
The Jewish-Persian astrologer Mashallah, drawing heavily from his Sassanian predecessors, argued all of world history was shaped by cycles of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions.

They would be used to explain seismic political and historical changes.
In the little conjunction of 20 yrs Jupiter Saturn would meet in a sign indicating shifts in political winds and war.

In the great conjunction of 240ish yrs they would shift triplicity indicating the fall of empires, the rise of new dynasties, & the coming of a world conqueror
Read 28 tweets
2 Dec 20
Every few hundred years, Jupiter and Saturn meet in a Great Conjunction. For medieval Muslim astrologers the cycles would represent the rise and fall of empires, the coming of messiahs, and foretell the apocalypse.

The next conjunction is December 20th 2020.

A thread-
Jupiter and Saturn are the two slowest classical wandering stars of astrology. Many civilizations from the Babylonians to the Greeks associated them with world-changing events.

But it would be the Persian Sassanians who would use their movements as unique time-periods.
According to scholars like Pingree, the idea was picked up by medieval astrologers of the Islamic world like Ma’shallah, Abu Mas’shar, Ibn Hibinta, Al Qabisi and others.
Read 21 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!