This morning during breakfast, my son Al asked me, “Where did the idea of genies come from?” I have no idea what brought the question on, as I don’t remember they’re having been part of our conversation up to that point. I was tempted to answer that the origins of legends are almost by definition unknown, and that at most we can say what part of the world they come from. But I don’t think he meant the “where” geographically.
I could also have given an abstract answer about how people have come up with fanciful stories to explain things they don’t understand. But that wouldn’t really answer his question either. He wanted to know where the idea of the genie, specifically, came from.
So I decided to see what I could find out to answer his question. Just how did people come up with the idea of powerful beings with no more substance than smoke, who were kept in lamps and granted wishes when they were released? I’ve read a fair amount of mythology, but mostly that of European origins. Genies, as any kid who has watched Disney’s Aladdin can tell you, come from Arabia.
The word genie is the English equivalent of the Arabic jinn (or djinn). According to wikipedia, it came by way of the French translation of Arabian Nights, where the French word génie (from the Latin word genius for a guardian spirit assigned to each person at birth) was considered a particularly apt transliteration of the Arabic. Most of our ideas about genies came from the stories in Arabian Nights (and modern stories building on those literary foundations), especially the story of Aladdin. Oddly enough, this story was not in the Arabic version, and was added by the French translator, who had heard it from an Arab Syrian storyteller from Aleppo.
I read my father’s copy of Arabian Nights when I was growing up, but I had long ago forgotten most of it when Disney’s Aladdin came out. I knew that of course Disney had made up a good deal of it, but I couldn’t tell which elements they had kept from the original story other than the poor boy finding the lamp and the genie. From poking around on the web, I see other features of the original story that were preserved in the animated movie:
- A sorcerer recruits Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave.
- After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave.
- The sorcerer is later able to get his hands on the lamp by trickery (in the original, he tricks Aladdin’s wife).
In the original, there are actually two genies, one in a magic ring and a more powerful one in the lamp. Disney left out the ring and gave Aladdin a magic carpet to fulfill some of the lesser genie’s functions in the story (remaining with him after a sorcerer gets the lamp away from him, and getting him out of some difficult situations). Neither genie helps Aladdin out of friendship and goodwill, as Disney’s Genie does. Jinn (which is the plural form of the word in Arabic) are generally not at all kindly disposed to humans, and serve them only when they must.
Several years ago I picked up an entertaining anthology of stories about genies (Aladdin: Master of the Lamp). Truer to tradition, these genies fulfill the letter of the requests that are made but nearly always manage to do so in some tricky way that makes the person worse off. Jafar’s treatment of Abis Mal (who finds his lamp and asks for a legendary treasure, only to find himself, with the treasure, at the bottom of the sea) in Disney’s The Return of Jafar is a good example of this.
I was surprised to discover that jinn are discussed in the Koran, and are considered a creation of God, somewhat similar to mankind. Man was created from dirt [note: see comments below regarding this]; jinn were created from “a smokeless flame of fire.” (And angels were created from light.) One of them, Iblis, disobeyed God by refusing to prostrate himself to Adam, because Adam had been made from mud. Iblis and other disobedient jinn became known as shayateen (satans).
According to Islam, jinn eat and drink, and procreate. They live in some kind of organized society, and are generally hidden from humans although they can see humans. We see them only when they take a material form, which is usually in an unpleasant or ugly form such as a snake or a black dog, as opposed to angels who take pleasant and handsome forms. They have free will, and can choose good or evil. They can even choose to be Muslims, or to be unbelievers. Like men, after death they will go to Paradise or to Hell. They whisper deceit to men and mislead them.
[Side note: I found it strange to read a FAQ page where people’s questions about jinn, such as whether a human can marry one, what they eat, and whether they have pets, are answered based on verses in the Koran. In some places the expert giving the answers acknowledges that scholars differ on the matter, and I was reminded of Random Name’s comment on WorldMagBlog recently in the midst of some theological disagreement:
Once a person accepts things that can’t be proven are the foundation of truth, they can argue about the details for the rest of their life, always claiming that they have “proved” their case.
Having scholars debate the details of the lives of jinn may seem absurd to us (considering that they are not arguing about it as literature but as an aspect of our reality). But the arguments that Christians have over the meaning of the Trinity or the nature of heaven no doubt seems just as absurd to non-Christians.]
I was further intrigued to read an opinion regarding evidence of jinn influence in our world today. Occult activity is attributed to them (whereas conservative Christians would attribute it to demons, and skeptics to trickery or pure imagination). So are religious visions of Christ or the Virgin Mary, and even visions of Mohammed or Allah (presumably Allah does not grant such visions). And so are the illusions performed by magicians, who are thought to have sold their souls to the jinn in exchange for their cooperation in tricks such as making objects disappear and reappear (which the jinn can do easily by traveling long distances almost instantaneously).
What I still haven’t found is how these jinn entered folktales as granters of wishes. I found an interesting article discussing characteristics of Arabic folklore, showing how the stories reflect the culture they grew out of. But while it mentions jinn (as one of the evil forces that control human beings), it makes no mention of lamps or wishes. As people everywhere do wish for things they do not have, however, it is not surprising that the folklore of cultures around the world include stories of wishes granted by magical beings.
In a culture where the most common supernatural beings are jinn, and they have powers that could grant some (though certainly not all) of people’s wishes, it is natural that stories would develop where jinn grant wishes. Since they have no desire to be servants to humans, however, the human would have to be provided some kind of power over the jinn in order to compel them to grant the wishes. Possessing a container which could be used to imprison the jinn would provide such a degree of compulsion.
As for why the wishes are granted by jinn who try to trick the humans and give them technically what they asked for but not what they really want, I suppose it reflects the wisdom of the community storytellers (typically a very respected position in a pre-literate society). Observation of human behavior over time will show that people very often wish for things that are not what is best for them, and often regret it later when they have what the wished for and realize it’s not what they really want. (And this applies perfectly well to non-magical wishing.)
Lately Al likes to ask me a question such as “What would you like to invent?” or present a scenario such as “Your teacher comes in holding a strange bag… What happens next?” Apparently these are exercises he has been given in school to develop creative writing abilities. Yesterday it was “If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?” Assuming that “more wishes” was probably not allowed as an answer, I came up with the relatively unimaginative “A million dollars” for my first wish.
A million dollars really wouldn’t go all that far, once I paid off all our debt, saved some for taxes (even money delivered by a genie would come under some taxable category or other), provided for our sons’ college education, given a good chunk to charity, saved for retirement, and fixed numerous problems with the house. So I don’t think that I would be ruined by sudden wealth, as I have heard that many lottery winners are. But I suppose I would lose the opportunity to trust in God to provide for our needs, so I will have to reluctantly conclude that it’s just as well that genies only show up in fiction.
Perennial Student 
Okay, Pauline, what would you do with 10 million dollars? (I don’t think you would be ruined by it; you know of too many good things that money could be used for.) Happy Thanksgiving!
I lived in a place for six years where people very much believed in the existence of the djinn. They mostly were frightened of the mischief that they could cause.
Hi Pauline.
I am way behind on reading your blog, but I’ll catch up.
You know that other often-asked question about what things you’d want with you on a deserted island? Well, Chrissy read somewhere that someone asked why no one ever answers “A boat”. Good point.
Just passing by, but I thought I’d let you know that this information is exactly what I have been searching for and it’s written in a nice, easy to understand, format. Just wanted to show my appreciation.
A little correction: Quran does not say “Man was created from dirt” creation of Man was from mud.
You own this correction to your readers.
Thank you for the correction. I can’t say that I see a big difference between dirt and mud – to me, mud is just dirt with more water mixed in, and I was more concerned, when I wrote this, with the contrast between the element “earth” from which man was created and the element “fire” from which genies were supposed to have been created.
I don’t know whether I read somewhere on the Web that the Quran said that man was created from dirt, or if I read a quote from the Quran and used the word dirt because it seemed an acceptable synonym to me. The verses quoted on the page I linked to in that context actually specify “clay” in most cases, though one also uses the word mud. I think perhaps I used the word dirt because it seemed to encompass both mud and clay.
Now that you brought the matter to my attention, I looked further to see what the Quran says that man is made from – admitted by doing Web searches since I do not own a copy of the Quran. From what I see, it variously indicates clay, mud, dust, congealed blood, and a sperm-drop.
you kinda rock
how do genies get trapped in objects in the first place?
Good question. I don’t think the stories usually bother to address that.
Well i dont think they really get “trapped” more like they like to live in quiet, secluded, dark places and someone stumbles across them bothering them in the process. So the jinn is like ill do something for you if you leave me alone.
Sorry for replying to a two year comment, but really wanted to add my two cents.
In what I know, they are trapped by powerful sorcerers. Maybe through a spell, or trickery. Usually it’s a dangerous genie I think.
have you ever asked your self how electric is made?
is a similar idea used for making electric, like the genie in a lamp? (rubbing the lamp to take the genie out)
research on how a generator makes electric.
what are radio waves or microwaves?
I want a genie lamp I want to make some wishes.
I heard that the gene`s bottles were actual tombs of punishment, that they would put geniuses that would abuse their understanding of quantum mechanics to throw stones in the path of God or who ever was the great leader of the time. They would pour an organic substance down into the mouth of the lamp… It some how prevented the neural peptides of the perpatrader from affecting the less sociopathic and cruel leader. Making it easter for him or her to heal the sick and help true love each other
I’m going to take some of this info and change it up a little. I’m writing fiction, after all. But I need snippets of fact to entwine with my story. My genie used to be regarded in high esteem. But, since he had ‘screwed up’ by questioning someone of a higher power, he will be punished by spending his life in a lamp. But, my genie was an Egyptian that was praised by the Pharaoh himself. I didn’t want to use the ‘usual’ lamp story. But I need just enough fact to suspend disbelief.
If you want to separate fact from fiction, I would advise you to speak more directly to those that come from that culture. As Djinn, Jinn, Genie, and Jinni come from not Arabia alone but from the middle east and NE Afica, perhaps someone from one of those cultures could better assist you. And “Genius” didn’t originate from Latin, but from ancient Rome.
If I knew anyone from one of those cultures I would be fascinated to learn more about this from them. As it happens, I lack such contacts, and posting my speculative thoughts on a blog is one way of inviting anyone more knowledgeable on the topic to enlighten me.
As for the word “genius,” everything I have read says that it does come from Latin, which *was* the language of ancient Rome.
I Went to University, and studied with a guy from Yemen. He was from a very old clan, who only stopped being Bedouins in the last 50 years. Some of the stories he told me about Jinns were amazing. Im talking modern stories from everyday life. He told me his friends wife got lost in the desert as a little girl and suddenly appeared back at camp out of nowhere claiming her guardian jinn had brought her home. Later when she got married her husband would make fun of her claim about Jinns. So (apparently) she told her Jinn to send text messages to her husband… Apparently this happened and when the guy tried to trace the number he received texts from it didnt exist… This guy completely believed these stories. He also told me that black magicians were often used by Jealous wives to win favor over other wives, if they were in a polygamous marriage. He even showed me a news report from Yemen (I have tried to find it now and cant) with a story about a man who made a deal with evil Jinns for money etc. Then he decided to stop dealing with them, so these Jinn “Murdered” his children..-Yep I know what that sounds like but this was a real news report and the guy was on TV crying his eyes out about it. Apparently you can still be put in prison from black magic in Yemen – but how they prove this beyond a doubt, I have no idea…
i am a muslim…and i knw everything bwt the jinn….and everything you said is true…thank you for sharing …you really did ur research
I’m not sure if Genies exist, allI can say is the reason for my looking this subject up!
A few years ago, at a time when my very rocky marriage was maybe at its worst, I prayed for things to get better on a nightly basis. I had this dream that I was walking down a road and as I was walking past a house on my right I noticed a tornado shape of smoke twirling beside a rather large tree. As I continued on, I looked up to see where this twirling smoke led to and up very high, higher than the free beside it was a figure, the twirling smoke formed into a giant genie looking figure which was very frightening. I ran and took a left in through a gate, of a chain link variety, and ran into a house, I am assuming was my own in this dream, and ran into a room at the right, I felt he was going to lean down and look into the window and just as a giant eye appeared I woke up, very frightened and of course relieved that this was a dream. Later, my husband of this rocky marriage I was in went to jail for his umteenth DUI, I purchased a trailer home as I could no longer afford the house that I had lived in. During this time I dreamed this dream again, passing the same tree and running through the gate into this same house, but this time, I ran into a different room that I somehow knew had a smaller window but he could still see in it so I ducked down to hide beneath something. Four years later, my husband and I are considering divorce. He move to the neighboring city and bought a house and starting counseling to try and save our failing marriage. I finally started council inc too, and went to the house he had purchased. I was looking out his front door and it hit me like a ton of bricks, a cross the street was the very free thT I had dreamed the genie was beside and I was standing in the very house from my dream. The rooms were the sNe and it had the room with the little window and under the window was a desk that my husband had built and I could duck there and not be seen from that window. I’m not sure still if my getting back into this marriage was the right choice. It is better but not perfect by any means, it that figure looked just like a Genie that you would imagine. How did I dream of this house that is never in my life had seen. Thinking about this is what made me look up Genies and their origins. Very strange but true story!
Thank you for this, I have also been looking for som info on the origin of jinns. Do you maybe know of somewhere else I can turn to find out more? Currently doing an art project on this.
I have never seen your blog before but will probably read more.
Bers regards Therese Thorgren from Sweden
Thanks
well all i know from our culture is that, During the Reign of Solomon son of David (according to islamic Religion) he had the power over Jinn, and force them to work for him and any one who disobey would be tortoured extremely (besides the ability of talking to animals and birds) so the genie in the lamp or the bottle or the ring was imprisoned by solomon for disobeying him and casted away and would only comeout if a man sratches it