Genie is the English term for the Arabic    Jibril   Azrael   Shaitan  

 In pre-Islamic Arabian mythology and in Islam, a jinni (also "djinni" or "djini") is a member of the jinn (or "djinn"), a race of supernatural creatures. The word "jinn" literally means anything which has the connotation of concealment, invisibility, seclusion and remoteness. In English it may be loosely translated as Ghost.

Etymology and definitions
Genie is the usual English translation of the Arabic term jinni, but it is not an Anglicized form of the Arabic word, as is commonly thought. The English word comes from French génie, which meant a spirit of any kind, which in turn came from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth (see genius). But this has nothing to do with the jinn of Islam, as this might suggest. The Latin word predates the Arabic word jinni, and the two terms have not been shown to be related. The first recorded use of the word in English was in 1655 as geny, with the Latin meaning. The French translators of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights later used the word génie as a translation of jinni because it was similar to the Arabic word both in sound and in meaning; this meaning was also picked up in English and has since become dominant. The plural is Djinni (or Jinni).

Amongst archeologists dealing with ancient Middle Eastern cultures, any mythological spirit lesser than a god is often referred to as a "genie", especially when describing stone reliefs or other forms of art. This practice draws on the original meaning of the term genie for simply a spirit of any sort.


 Jinn in pre-Islamic Era
For the ancient Semites, jinn were spirits of vanished ancient peoples who acted during the night and disappeared with the first light of dawn; they could make themselves invisible or change shape into animals at will; these spirits were commonly believed to be responsible for diseases and for the manias of some lunatics. Types of jinn include the ghul ("night shade", which can change shape), the sila (which cannot change shape), the afrit, and "marid" . From information in The Arabian Nights, marid seem to be the strongest form of jinn, followed by afrit, and then the rest of the jinn.

Arabs believed that the jinn were spirits of fire, although sometimes they associated them with succubi (demons in the forms of beautiful women). The feminine form of jinn is "jinniyah" or "jinneyeh".


Jinn in Islam
Muslims believe that jinn are real beings. The jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from 'smokeless fire' by Allah (the literal translation being "subtle fire", i.e., a fire which does not give itself away through smoke), much in the same way humans were made of clay. In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, Satan or Iblis is believed to be the most powerful (Jinn were created before humans) of the Jinn race, called "Shaitan". (Jinn have free choice, and satan exploited this in front of God by refusing to bow to Adam when ordered to do so. See Shaitan). In the Qur'an, jinn are frequently mentioned and Sura 72 of the Qur'an named Al-Jinn is entirely about them. Another Sura (Al- Naas) mentions the Jinn in the last verse. In fact, it is mentioned in the Qur'an that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both "humanity and the jinn."

The jinn have communities much like human societies: they eat, marry, die, etc. They are invisible to humans, but they can see humans. Sometimes they accidentally or deliberately come into view or into contact with humans. Jinn are believed to live much longer than humans.

Jinn are beings much like humans, possessing the ability to be good and bad. An "Ifrit" is a type of strong and powerful jinn. Evil or malicious jinn are called "Marid" usually they're malicious due to their feeling they have been usurped by humans, example "Shaitan". To protect oneself against evil jinn, Muslims say the Arabic phrase, "A'oo Zu Billa Himinash Shaitanir Rajim" (meaning: O Allah, I seek refuge in You , from Shaitan the rejected). One is also encouraged to recite different Surahs from the Quran - such as Surah Falaq, Surah Naas and Surah Baqarrah.

 Jinn have the power to transform into other animals and humans, and they are known to prefer the form of a snake. It is also known that they eat bones and their animals eat droppings, that is why it is forbidden to perform Istinja (washing) with those items. According to the majority of Islamic scholars, the Qur'an states that the Shaitan or Iblis or Devil was not an angel (which is believed by Christians), but a jinn who was given higher honour and rank than angels. According to Islam, angels are different physical beings,made from light and unlike the fiery nature of jinn, they are beings of goodness and cannot choose to disobey God since they do not possess free choice like humans and jinn, therefore they possess the ability to do evil.

Evil beings from among the jinn are roughly equivalent to the demons of Christian lore. In mythology, jinn have the ability to possess human beings, both in the sense that they persuade humans to perform actions, and like the Christian perception of demonic possession.

In the Qur'an, Prophet Solomon (Arabic: Suleiman) had members of his army belonging to the race of jinn. Solomon had the ability to communicate with all creatures, which allowed him to communicate with the jinn as well.


Genies in Western culture

Western media has chosen many different ways of portraying genies, from the comical to the horrific.The Western interpretation of the genie is based on the Aladdin tale in the Western version of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, which told of a genie that lived in an oil lamp and granted wishes to whoever freed him from the lamp by polishing it. The number and frequency of wishes varies, but typically it is limited to three wishes. More mischievous genies may take advantage of poorly worded wishes (including in one episode of The X-Files and Fairly Odd Parents).

Many stories about genies tend to follow the same vein as the famous short story The Monkey's Paw by W. W. Jacobs, with the overriding theme of "be careful what you wish for"; in these stories, wishes can have disastrous, horrific and sometimes fatal consequences. Often, the genie causes harm to the loved ones or innocent people surrounding the wisher, making others pay for its master's greed or ignorance.

Exploiting loopholes or twisting interpretations of wishes is a classic trait amongst genies in Western fiction. For example, in "The Man in the Bottle" episode of The Twilight Zone, a poor shopkeeper who finds a genie wishes to become a leader of a great nation - and is transformed into Adolf Hitler at the very end of World War II. Often, these stories end with the genie's master wishing to have never found the genie, all his previous wishes never to have happened, or a similar wish to cancel all the fouled wishes that have come before.

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