Of all the inhabitants of the Koran, jinns (Allah refers to them collectively as the jinn) are the most fascinating. They are Allah’s most versatile and mischievous creation. They even have a chapter of the Koran named after them, surah 72, The Jinn.

Jinns may not be unlike humans in appearance.

7:179 And We have created for Hell multitudes of jinn and men. They have hearts, but do not understand; and they have eyes, but do not see; and they have ears, but do not hear. Those are like cattle, or rather are even more misguided. Those are the heedless ones.

Like the angels, men and jinns were created to worship Allah, not to look after Him, He can look after himself.

51:56 I have not created the jinn and mankind except to worship Me.

51:57 I do not desire provision from them and I do not want them to feed Me.

51:58 Surely, Allah is the All-Provider, the Mighty One, the Strong.

Allah created the jinn out of fire before he created man who, in one version of Adam's creation, He moulded out of clay and slime.

15:26 And We have created man from potter’s clay, moulded out of slime.

15:27 And the jinn We created before that from blazing fire.

55:15 And He created the jinn from tongues of fire.

Some people, at one point in time, worshipped the jinn instead of Allah. Allah was under the impression that these wrongly-guided individuals had worshipped His angels. On Judgement Day His angels will set Him straight.

34:40 On the Day that He will muster them, then say to the angels: “Are those the ones who used to worship you?”

34:41 They will say: “Glory be to You; You are our protector, apart from them.” No, rather, they used to worship the jinn, most of them believing in them.

There is no relationship between Allah and the jinn, no matter what they allege, and they will be treated like everybody else on Judgment Day.

37:158 And they alleged a kinship between Him and the jinn, whereas the jinn know very well that they will be summoned.

37:159 May Allah be exalted above their allegation.

Allah does not share power with the jinn, men nor women.

6:100 They set up jinn as Allah’s partners, although He created them; and they falsely ascribe to Him sons and daughters without any knowledge. Glory be to Him, and highly exalted is He above what they ascribe to Him!

Jinns can be both good and bad.

72:11 “And that some of us are righteous and some are less than that for we were of different persuasions;

But even bad jinns can be persuaded to do good if given the proper incentive. Some less than cooperative jinns, with a little prodding from Allah, helped Solomon build the first temple.

34:12 And We subjected the wind to Solomon, blowing in the morning the space of a month and in the evening the space of a month; and We smelted for him the fount of brass. Of the jinn some worked before him, by the Leave of his Lord, and whoever of them swerved from Our Command, We shall make him taste the punishment of the blazing Fire.

34:13 To fashion for him whatever he wished of palaces, statues, basins like water-troughs and immovable cooking-pots. “Work thank-fully, O David’s House; for few of My servants are truly thankful.”

Pre-Islamic Arabs believed in the existence of the jinn. Virgil Gheorghiu in his biography of the Prophet, La vie de Mahomet (The Life of Muhammad) writes about how the Prophet’s grandfather Abd al-Muttalib who, in another variation of the story of Abraham and Isaac and the thwarted immolation, had promised Allah to sacrifice his tenth son if He gave him ten male heirs.

When the time came for al-Muttalib to keep his promise, he consulted a dervish to find out if he could fulfill his promise to God in some other manner that did not involve killing his tenth son Abdullah who was destined to be the Prophet Muhammad’s father.

The dervish the Prophet’s grandfather consulted was no ordinary soothsayer; he was a dervish with jinns in his employ, jinns who specialized in eavesdropping on Allah’s conversations with his angels and on the angels talking among themselves. They would fly as close as possible to the lowest of the seven levels of heaven, the one closest to the earth, dogging rocks thrown by angels to keep them away, to find out what Allah had to say about was happening down below.

Much pre-Islamic Arab mythology has found its way into the Koran. Arabs once believed (and some believers still do), that meteorites were rocks thrown by angels to keep evil jinns away from Paradise. The devils in the following verse are probably jinns.

67:5 We have adorned the lower heaven with lamps, and We turned them into missiles launched against the devils: and We have prepared for them the punishment of the Fire.

To try to answer his client’s question, the dervish sent his jinns to eavesdrop on God’s conversation. One reported that Allah, in a conversation with an angel, had indicated that he would be happy with a sacrifice of camels. But how many camels?

The dervish then threw some dice (bone fragments of some type according to Georghiou) to find out how many camels. The answer they gave was one hundred camels as the price of a human life. This is the price the Prophet reminded the faithful in his last sermon before he died, that Allah had set as the payment to the family or clan of the deceased for a non-premeditated homicide, what our legal system defines as the crime of manslaughter.

"And intentional murder shall be punished according to talion law; where the murderess intention is not clear and the victim is killed using a club or a stone it will cost the perpetrator one hundred camels as blood money. Whoever demands more is a man from the time of ignorance." (From a translation by Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah [1908-2002])

The jinn, according to Allah, had no knowledge of the Koran, or perhaps its contents. This was in spite of having eavesdropped on conversations between Allah and his angels and His angels talking among themselves for possibly eons. A group of the jinn did, however, become Muslim after hearing the Prophet Muhammad recite verses from the Book.

72:1 Say [Muhammad]: “It was revealed to me that a company of jinn listened; then they said: ‘We have indeed heard a wonderful Qur’an;

72:2 ‘“It guides to rectitude; so we believed in it, and we shall never associate anyone with our Lord;

The Koran is not clear, but the verses heard by these jinns, judging by their response, was probably about Allah denouncing those who would say he had consorted with a female or ever had a son i.e. Jesus.

72:3 ‘“And that He, may our Lord’s majesty be exalted, has not taken a consort or a son;

The jinns who happened upon the Prophet Muhammad reciting verses from the Koran now considered themselves Muslims; they now thought it foolish to have been disrespectful or to have believed that Allah would reveal anything but the truth.

72:4 ‘“And that our fools used to speak impertinently of Allah; 72:5 ‘“And that we thought that neither mankind nor the jinn will impute to Allah any falsehood;

72:5 ‘“And that we thought that neither mankind nor the jinn will impute to Allah any falsehood;

Some humans sought refuge with the jinn. This Allah may have considered an unnatural relationship considering His use of the word "perversion" in the following verse.

72:6 ‘“And that some individual humans used to seek refuge with some men of the jinn, and so they increased them in perversion;

The believing jinn accepted as true that Allah can raise the dead.

72:7 ‘“And that they thought, as you thought, that Allah will not raise anybody from the dead;

In the following verse the jinn confirm that they had been eavesdropping on Paradise; that Allah is fully aware of what they have been doing, and that even bigger rocks, the comets in the following verse, will now be aimed in the direction of those who persist in eavesdropping on Allah’s and his angels’ conversations.

72:8 ‘“And that we reached out to heaven, but we found it fill with mighty guards and comets;

72:9 ‘“And that we used to sit around it eavesdropping; but whoever listens now will find a comet in wait for him;

And after listening in on Allah’s conversations with his angels, the jinn confess to still not knowing what Allah had in mind for the people on earth.

72:10 ‘“And that we do not know whether ill was intended for whoever is on earth, or whether their Lord intended rectitude for them;

Two verses about the believing jinn’s confession-like ramblings from which you can draw your own conclusions.

72;12 ‘“And that we knew that we will not thwart Allah on earth, and that we will not thwart Him by flight;

72:13 ‘“And that when we heard the Guidance, we believed in it; for he who believes in his Lord need not fear to be stinted or over-burdened;

As mentioned earlier (verse 72:11) the jinn, like humans, can be both good and bad and just like humans, the bad jinn are Hell’s firewood. They may have been created “from blazing fire” but that does not mean that they cannot be burnt over and over again like their human associates, for an eternity.

72:14 “And that some us are submitting and some are diverging.’ Those who have submitted have surely sought rectitude.”

72:15 But those who have diverged, have been firewood for Hell;

The jinn may have wanted to intercept the Prophet when he flew up to heaven on all-Burak to meet with Allah, and the reason they may not have done so.

72:19 And that when the Servant of Allah (the Prophet Muhammad) got up calling on Him, they almost set upon him in throngs.

72:20 Say: “I only call upon my Lord, and I do not associate with Him anyone else.”

72:21 Say: “I have no power to harm or guide you rightly.”

Not unlike the Christian tradition of an angel rebellion, Allah had a falling out with one of the jinn who would be the progenitor of all evil jinns.

18:50 And [remember] when we said to the angels: “Prostrate yourselves to Adam”, and they all did except Satan; he was one of the jinn, then he disobeyed the Command of his Lord. Will you, then, take him and his progeny as protectors, besides Me, while they are all your enemies” Evil is the exchange for the wrongdoers!”

Considering the importance of the jinn in the Koran it is surprising that belief in the jinn is not one of the Pillars of Faith of Islam.

Jinn and Men Together on Judgement Day

6:128 And on the Day when He shall gather them all together [saying]: “O, company of jinn, you have mislead a great many men.” Their supporters among men will say; “Lord, we have profited much from each other and we have attained the term that you assigned for us.” Then He will say: “The Fire is your resting-place, abiding therein forever, except as Allah wills. Your Lord is truly Wise, All-Knowing.”

6:129 And thus We cause some of the evildoers to dominate the others, because of what they used to do (the evil they committed).

Jinn had their own Messengers

6:130 O company of jinn and men, did their not come Messengers from among yourselves to you, reciting to you My Revelations and warning of seeing this Day of yours? They will say: “We bear witness against ourselves.” They were deluded by the earthly life and will bear witness against themselves that they were unbelievers.

6:131 That is because your Lord would not destroy cities on account of their people’s wrongdoing without warning them (by sending Messengers to them).

Orderly processing of sinners, jinn and men, will be the order of the Day.

6:132 And to all are assigned ranks according to what they have done; and your Lord is not unaware of what they do.

Jinn and men, be advised that your All-Sufficient Merciful Lord will not destroy your cities without first warning their inhabitants, but then again, He may not.

6:133 Your Lord is the All-Sufficient, the Merciful. If He wishes, He will destroy you and bring out after you, as successors, whomever he wishes, as He had produced you from the seed of another people.

6:134 Indeed, whatever you are promised will surely come to pass, and you are not able to escape [it].

In typical Allah fashion, He issues a warning about misbehaving after He has brought on the end-of-times. Of all the gods that exist in the past, present and future simultaneously Allah, it seems, has the most difficulties keeping his “times” straight; but then again, this may just be His Way, and His Way is, of course, the Best Way.