Those who deny the existence of the jinn have no proof to support their denial, but they say that they cannot believe in that of which they possess no tangible knowledge. Doing so, they seem to belittle the faculties of the human mind that can encompass things that are not felt to the human five senses. Allah, Subhanahu wa tatala, says:“ Nay, they have belied the knowledge whereof they could not comprehend and what has not been fulfilled”[10:39]. It is of course likely that someone who lived and died hundreds of years ago could have denied the fact that sounds travel through hearing the air. But not sounds that are being transmitted does not do not exist mean that they because the invention of the radio made it possible for everyone to hear them. The same can be said of the jinn. They constitute a species on their own, different from angles or humans. They are intelligent beings. They are also responsible for their own actions, and they have received ordainments from Allah to perform certain deeds and abstain from others. Although several eyewitness accounts are heard every now and then of people who are reported to have seen the jinn, we humans do not have the ability to see them. However, such animals as dogs and donkeys can see them. It is recorded in Musnad of Ahmed and Sunan of Abu-Dawud that the Prophet, sallallahu alayhe wa sallam, said:“ If you hear the barking of dogs or the braying of donkeys during the night, seek refuge in Allah from Satan, because they can see what you cannot”. Satan And The Jinn Satan, which is recurrently mentioned in the Quran, belongs to the world of the jinn. He lived among the angles and worshipped Allah. But ever since he refused to prostrate to Allah, out of vanity; pride, arrogance and envy, he was cast out of Heaven and out of Allahs mercy. After Satan had lost hope of ever receiving mercy from Allah, he was named Iblees which derives from the Arabic root alabalas denoting one who has no good in ruin; and when transformed into past participle ublisa it means despaired and lost. Many of the early Islamic scholars believed that Satans original name was Azaazeel. Was Satan the origin of the jinn or was he merely one of them No textual evidence (that is text from the Quran or the Sunnah) can confirm that Satan was the origin of all the jinn; he was simply one of them as stated in the Quran:“ ….except Iblees (Satan). He was one of the jinn”[l8:50]. However, Ibn Taymiyyah is of the opinion that Satan is the origin of all the jinn. The jinn, including Satan, eat and drink, marry and reproduce. The first two characteristics, those of eating and drinking, can be inferred from the saying of the Prophet sallallahu alayhe wa salam:“ When one of you eats, he should eat with his right hand. And when one of you drinks he should drink with his right hand. Verily, Satan eats and drinks with his left hand”. As for the two other characteristics, they can be deducted from the Quran in that context where Allah describe the spouses of the believers in Paradise:“ Wherein both will be Qasirat-ut-Tarf [chaste females (wives) restraining their glances, desiring none except their husband, with whom no man or jinn has ever touched”[55:56].
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 22:41:07 +0000
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