In Christian lore there are entities called demons In Scandinavian folklore they are called wights. European legends identify them as sprites, but for Muslims there are jinn. Jinn are beings that exist in a world parallel to our own which are responsible for the realm of the unseen. To many Muslims, jinn’s primary purpose is to toy with gullible minds and influence people to commit shirk, the vice of worshiping another than Allah, and abandon their faith.

“We speak of jinn and Shaitan (Satan) to protect ourselves from their whispering,” says Indra Rica, a volunteer at the Islamic Society of San Francisco. “They are everywhere all the time. We have to be aware of their influence.”

In Islam-associated mythology, the only way jinn were said to be controllable was by magically binding them to objects, as in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, in the story of Aladdin where a jinn was bound to an oil lamp. Western Culture has slowly adapted the concept of the jinn to what we now know as wish-granting genies. However, there are many examples in which genies have retained their malicious behavior and often caused harm to those in contact with the wisher. Modern television, horror films and fiction have all featured negative versions of jinn who exploit loopholes and twist interpretations of wishes, often ending with the genie’s master wishing he had never come in contact with the genie in the first place.

The modern concept of jinn has a foundation in Islamic faith. According to the Qur’an, Allah created man from clay, angles from light, and jinn from smokeless fire. Shaitan or Iblis (Satan), who according to the Qur’an was a jinn and not an angel, refused to bow to Adam when commanded by God. Shaitan considered man to be an inferior being because man was made from clay while he was created from smokeless fire. For his disobedience, God damned Shaitan to hell for eternity, but gave him deliverance until Judgement Day at his request. Shaitan swore to use this time to influence and lead as many descendants of man astray to sin, to accompany him in his final descent into Hell.

In pre-Islamic mythology, jinn, the ancestors of the Shaitan, were considered to be the spirits of ancient peoples who solely acted at night and vanished by dawn. They were shape-shifters and could take the form of animals, most commonly dogs, snakes and scorpions, or remain invisible at will. They were also often thought to be the cause of diseases and mental dementia. They represented the nymphs and satyrs of the desert, and it was general belief that the flight and movements of these beings caused the large whirlwinds of dust that swept across the deserts.

But in Islam today, Muslims acknowledge jinn as real beings of free will with communities and lives similar to those of humans. However, they are living in what could be described as a “parallel universe” allowing them to see us, but not us to see them.

Jinn are subject to free will as humans are and it is said that most are inherently malevolent. They are said to be responsible for everything from mischief to illness or death. But for most jinn their ultimate achievement would be to lead people away from their Muslim faith. They possess uncanny abilities to assist them in their attempts, which greatly surpass our own including invisibility, instantaneous teleportation, and even space travel. Their strength and life span exceed that of our own, but they are still susceptible to death.

“Perhaps the reason we are not encouraged by the Islamic faith to mingle with the jinn is due to, perhaps, their inherently evil nature,” says Jimmy Dunn, writer for TourEgypt.net “Though there are indeed good jinn who believe in the words of the Qur’an, it must be remembered the the devil is of their kind, and that Shaitan work hard to cause man to be thrown out of heaven. For this reason, they are considered to be man's worst enemy.”