Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 2)
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on the influence of Jinn among certain regions around the world of Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Philippines, Iran, Afghanistan, and India’s regional Jinn influences, fairies, and how Muslims defend against the Jinn daily.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Regional Jinn Influences (Pt. 2)
This lecture 21 also has to do with regional areas and the variation, you know, whether it’s the the Philippines. We start with the Philippines, but then we move on to other areas as well. In the Philippines, and this is, the notes need to be changed here a little bit because the, the one that helps with these PowerPoints has switched things around a little bit. But, we start with the Philippines. The Maranao, they’re in the southern part of the Philippines, very animistic, folks they are and, they have incorporated animism into Islam.
They have, you know, many spirits, Tanang, Hmong, Satan, and many others. This this is, you know, it’s just like Satan, really, but it’s they say Satan. The general term for the unseen spirit is manga dekhele, probably murdering the translation the, interp the, pronunciation there, but they have spirits for various and sundry things, for good crops, for fish, and, also to capture folks with the enchanted hooks. So they have all kinds of things. They have spirits come with thunder and lightning and, they have spirits living around trees, etcetera.
And you humans can be turned into Bulbul where the upper body is disconnected from the from the upper, from the, I guess it means from the lower, flies at night, and eats the human blood. Scary stuff. The Philippines, they also believe that each person has a personal spirit. Word here, and you have to appease this spirit to avoid misfortune and bad luck? So you’ve got it.
You gotta live with it. You might as well get used to it. You know? You might as well accept it. You can’t get rid of it.
This is, this is life. So you have to do the best you can to to live with it. And in the Philippines, this is true, but I’ve seen it in, where we were too in Pakistan living there for 23 years, is that when a person gets sick, what do the people do? They go to the quack doctors or the medicine men. And in the Philippines, it’s they call them pomongolong, and if that fails, then people go to the, to a medical doctor.
I suppose they do it for various reasons. They think that, well, maybe, this medicine man or or woman or whatever it is can help, and and, you know, it’s cheaper than going to the to the science doctor, to the medical doctor, but that’s what they do. When all else fails, then you go to the doctor. They have different kinds of rituals to protect from evil spirits, various and sundry things. And, whether the spirit is evil or not, they must be manipulated or fooled through rituals.
You can understand really why Muslims do some, some some of this stuff. I mean, you see, give the baby another name, give put put a little boy in in the clothes of a of a little girl and stuff like that to fool the jinn. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? Whether the spirit is bad or good, because they can be both. They could be either good spirits or bad spirits.
Remember that, some spirits listen to the Quran when Mohammed was reciting it before he went to Medina, and, so that’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? Under the word hierarchy hierarchy, there’s nothing, that was helpful, wasn’t it? But, fairies or do’s and else, are some of the things we’re gonna be talking about right now. In, the dictionary, fairies are, they’re tiny, graceful, imaginary human forms, but they may have magical powers. Now Muslims also hold to this idea.
We, you know, we talk about this. We don’t really think much about it, I suppose, in our culture, but fairies are there. In Islam, it’s the same thing. Fairies are not always distinct from jinn. They don’t hurt you.
You see, here are jinn who are are not that bad, really. They’re they’re symbols of beauty. They live under the rose bushes. They’re like doves. They become Pari.
Pari is the name. They’re helpful and not troubling, not bothersome. In other words, see? So, in Iran, here is an illustration of an Iranian woman who prepared a tray of food, and she prayed to the, fairy princess to remove her daughter’s fits. This comes out of a book called the, I think it’s the wild rue, not The Will rue, The Wild Rue.
And it’s Donaldson. Beth Donaldson, I guess the name of the book is. It’s in our in our bibliography. I, I have a a video that I show in class. It’s called Mystic Iran.
Mystic Iran, the unseen world, and it is, it is something else. I wish you could see it. You can’t get as far as I know, you can’t find it online, but when I’m in class face to face, I show this video of an American woman, she was Iranian, by birth, but she goes into Iran. She takes these pictures. She goes into the, right into the, you know, the middle of the country and all over the place.
She even goes into areas where Zoroastrian is practiced, but goes there and and and, films various things, including women going to the shrine and, Sufis with their long hair and shaking their heads back and forth, people going into a trance. It is a very, very, sobering film because it shows the and and even a woman who is possessed and, trying to eat wood, coals, you know, a piece of wood. It’s extremely disturbing, and it stays with you. In other words, it it shows you that we’re not talking about, you know, just, something that doesn’t exist. This this really does.
And the fact that she’s able to get in there and, go right in and take pictures of it, Mystic Iran, is the name of the video. Now, back to the to to the topic here. I mean, we’re on the topic, but back to this particular thing about fairies, doos, and owls. There are they are similar to winged women. They’re like dogs and snakes.
They can change their form. They can fall in love with humans, get under the skin, and you know the expression get under your skin. Well, this really is true. Cause fruit and flower out of season. Continuing on with, with, fairies, dues, and ahus, in Afghanistan see, we’re shifting locales here.
In Afghanistan, the Dus, there is a little bit of confusion as to whether they’re jinn or not. They stay away from humans. They die if they see death, and they’re from the Qaf Mountains. Surah 50 is what we’re talking about here, and some say that the Qaf Mountains encircle the earth and King Malik’s throne is in the midst of, of who rules some jinn. There is a shrine called the Myr Hashem, the Dewbinder.
I would like to find, someone of our students perhaps who would actually visit that shrine. I haven’t seen it myself, but I did live live right next to to Afghanistan for many, many years and went into Afghanistan several times in the early years. But I’d like to we have a lot of students over in that part of the world, and I’d like some time if one of our students actually went to that shrine, saw that Mir Hashim, the do binder. In other words, the shrine where these this type of jinn is bound. Let’s move on to the Indian subcontinent.
In the Indian subcontinent, if you, if you eat beef, then you have reason to get a stomachache. For a Hindu jinn, this would be a big mistake. So what do you do here as precaution? You avoid the cemetery, especially on Thursday. You put, cooking pot on the roof, black marks on the babies.
You know, for years, I, I wasn’t sure about this myself, but but I do did notice that, babies in the Pakistan, they would put black marks under their eyes, kohl. And if you ask them why it’s done, they say, oh, it’s for beauty. But, I don’t think that’s true. They’re doing it to, you know, as to make sort of a blemish so that the jinn will not be attracted to them. Now this is very, very common.
Now it is true that maybe some don’t know why it’s done. Maybe mother did it, or aunt did it, or somebody or grandma insists on it, but it’s done. And, this putting coal under the black under the baby’s eyes so that they are they’re really, it’s really noticeable. In Afghanistan, spirits are under the ashes, trees and caves, gardens, and they can enter the room through a small hole. Shrines are haunted except the imams and Mecca.
Now I’m not sure why that’s true, why the shrines would be haunted, but, that’s what they say. And then Al’s Afghan in Afghanistan and Iran, are they jinn or are they something else? Owl is a witch who preys on the weak, loves the dark, snatches tiny babies, takes the mother’s liver, and when she delivers, when she takes the mother’s liver when she delivers, and the baby dies when bathed. Now I’m sure that this is, you know, old not all, Afghan women do this, but, definitely, as education comes in and, people teach them how to take care of their babies, then this hopefully would would pass away. But, nevertheless, it is it has been practiced and I’m sure still is practiced in many places.
This owl is 4 feet tall and with a tail. It’s it’s it has a long neck like a camel, a mouth and chin like a donkey, and has a massive frizzy long hair. Just imagine this frizzy hair, If a missionary would have the misfortune of having frizzy hair, I’m just not sure what the what the the Muslims would think about it, but this is what they have an idea they have of the of having long, frizzy hair. And this, this, jinn, if it is a jinn, can climb and stays in places like the storeroom. So it is also afraid of of, a a loud noise, afraid of guns and steel.
And if a baby is attacked during its first 6 days, it’s the al. So you can imagine during the 6 6 days first 6 days of its life, there is a lot of fear by mother and all her relatives. So that’s the time, really, when a charm is needed, but this owl is afraid of loud noise and around a pregnant women woman. You never wanna say the word al. This would be a bad omen.
This would be a big mistake. In still talking about, Als in Afghanistan and Iran, the the idea is to keep a light on at night. I mentioned before that where I was, many people don’t like to sleep in the dark. They keep a light on, cotton balls on the wall, egg, charcoal, or a knife or scissors under the pillow, prayer under the baby mattress, a chalk line for a fortress, you see, so that the the jinn don’t come into an area. I’m not sure the reference here to an egg, how that works, but I do know about the knife or scissors under a pillow.
I have bought a special little knife in, in the Philippines that they put under the pillow. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that. That looks like a knife, some of the knife you’d kill somebody with, but, or a butcher knife or something like that. But, the person who worked on these slides doesn’t really know anything about Islam. Al doesn’t enter if, the husband is there or brother, and so you see you need a man around.
Woman suffering infection after birth, that’s because of the of the owl. You know, it’s not peritonitis. It’s because of the owl. A baby is not bathed at birth. Onion under the pillow.
Black ointment under the eyes. The mother may pierce the child’s ear, talismans, sacrificed sheep eye. You see on the Eid al Adha during the the the the Hajj sacrifice, pilgrimage, or all over the Muslim world, the sheep’s eye is a special talisman or a shell or blue bead and then also the 7 seals of Solomon. Another one is the Al Khatus. Al Khatus.
And that is a a a type of gin. It’s sort of like and it can kill a mother or child. So you never want to leave the child alone, You know, a little tiny child. If no one is present as at birth, the jinn is expected to eat the mother’s liver. And we had a a word for that, in Pakistan.
It was jigahor, which is, who’s called a a liver eater. What’s the treatment? The treatment is, in some areas, It’s, treatment for this al Sabyan, the mother of youth in Egypt, Sudan, Al Kharisi in in Turkey. There’s this fear, this lean, loathsome woman who destroys Bahir birk presence, causes miscarriage, impotency, and closes the womb. In other words, you can’t have a baby.
And for the hardest case, it’s the 7 covenants of Solomon, which is, something too that, you probably won’t see with your, when you’re unless you’re looking for it. But because, you know, Muslims keep these kind of things often secret. They don’t, they wouldn’t they’re probably embarrassed to talk about it, because but it’s it’s it’s in their hearts and so, it’s what’s it’s what they do. Now, we talk about the affrit, which is a female div or demon, and, you notice here that she’s put up a picture of a of a of a white woman, but but, that’s not my you know, because I’ve seen some older women, and, obviously, she couldn’t find, one. But, you know, obviously, we’d be very, very poor and, they are feared sometimes because they are needy and poor, and so they rely on, spiritual power to get things done.
So they’re afraid of this afflict. And, what’s the treatment here? It’s pewter that’s the Jonah, that’s pewter number 11 10, I guess it is, on a deerskin with musk and saffron, and it’s worn by the person, and then there is, the reading of the Quran. As we’ve talked about before, this is, always a treatment for for jinn spirits.