In Islam, the creation of the universe is similar to the Biblical narrative with God creating Adam & Eve, animals, but God also creates the jinn, an invisible race of fiery beings.

Before humanity, they inhabited the earth and waged a mighty war

A thread on the great jinn war

It is said God created the angels on Wednesday, jinn on Thursday, and humanity on Friday.

The three intelligent races in Islam, their history is complicated and fraught.

The Jinn inhabited the earth first and like humans were granted free will.

Some of the jinn were righteous and followed the path of God, while other jinn were corrupt and fell to wickedness.

The goodly jinn became custodians of the land and nature. But the wicked jinn filled the world with bloodshed and violence, corrupting soil and air.

Something had to be done, and so the good ones prayed for God’s intervention. God sent forth his avenging angels to raise the standard alongside the goodly jinn.

And thus began the jinn war.

The righteous were led by a pious jinn named Al Harith, a fiercely devout and zealous warrior of God.

The war was bloody, fierce, but short for in Islamic cosmology while the jinn are powerful, they are not a match for angels.

The wicked ones were driven from the land, forced deep into caves and far away islands where they would remain a bitter remnant of a forgotten time

The goodly jinn would inherit the earth while their leaders were rewarded.

Al Harith was elevated to the lower heavens where he would be guardian of earth and paradise alike.

Al Harith would revel in God’s favor until God decided to create humanity. Even the angels were dismayed wondering if the new creation would once more fill the world with corruption.

The story goes on leading to the fall of Al Harith. He would eventually come to be known as Iblis, the devil in Islamic cosmology.

The story of the jinn war and the backstory of Iblis is an interesting narrative for it brings into focus several important themes.

Though not entirely mainstream, Al Tabari records the commentary and narrations of Ibn Abbas, Ibn Anas and others.

Firstly, the arc of a great war and the fall are familiar between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam indicating a common late antique body of narratives and literature.

Distinctions are also present. The war is not between angel and rebellious angel, but goodly jinn with angelic allies vs wicked jinn.

This may perhaps hint to the Islamizing of a narrative familiar to the region and situates Islam within late antiquity.

The narration is included in Al Tabari and indicates the process by which Islamic creed and cosmology developed over centuries.

While the Qur’an clearly marks Iblis as a jinn, what that exactly means is debated well into the 10th century.

In another variation, the jinn go to war with another race known as the hinn. This mythic narrative has points of overlap with the Alawi cycle of time and the religion of the Druze and Yazidi.

Then there are the other jinn who were awarded alongside Iblis; they are made jinn kings and granted custodianship of planetary domains: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.

Together with planetary angels they become part an ordered universe in which the celestial and earthly are linked (the jinn were originally of the earth).

The narrative may also reflect a literary explanation. Early Arab religion likely treated jinn as tutelary spirits of some type. Perhaps as semi-divine or intermediaries.

In practice this would have manifested as divination via the jinn through sortilege or possession cults

By bringing the jinn within an Islamic framework and casting out the wicked jinn corrupting the earth in favor of an ordered cosmos the narrative reflects a historical process.

The time period in which Tabari is writing down his history is the time period in which natural philosophy, science, and astrology are all major intellectual traditions in Islamic civilization.

The rejection of possession in divination in favor other methods of divination which were treated as a science during this time reflect the themes of period while consolidating prophecy as a God-given status

We see this hinted at in the Qur’an as well, where the jinn pre-Muhammad were said to eavesdrop on heaven and gain a hint of understanding destiny but after the coming of Muhammad are driven away from heaven and thus have no knowledge of the future. (Quran 67:5)

From the 8-11th century we see an emergence of astrology, dream-divination, alpha-numeric and calculation-based systems and others which were based on esoteric knowledge rather than a relationship with jinn.

The jinn-forms of divination and possession rites still endured, often marginalized but still popular and can still be seen today in folk practices.

Finally, the cosmology reflects imperial geography. The evil jinn are driven out to islands, to places outside the territorial imagination of empire.

The realms of the jinn become the imagined geography at the edges of empire’s borders.

I’ll cover the relationship of the jinn to the astrological planets in future threads.

If you want to learn more about Iblis and what happens after he’s elevated to heaven you can catch the podcast I did on him. Available now on Patreon and late next month for everyone else: https://www.patreon.com/headonhistory 

not directly but some of themes are shared. Some stories talk about half jinn for example