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From: zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: A question about Ginnies/Angels?
Message-ID: <14615@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 24 Aug 90 12:19:02 GMT
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Dennis Kriz writes:

>I was once told that muslims believe in the existance of purely spiritual
>beings, that are popularly known as ginnies.  Is this true, or are ginnies
>more part of Arab folklore, like say dwarves/elves or vodniks are part of 
>Germanic or Slavic folk-traditions.

    The second-last word in the Quran mentions the Jinn specifically (min
al jinnati wa al-nas).  Whether they are "purely spiritual beings" I don't
know.  But certainly the Quran contains reference to them (there is also
the whole"chapter" --known in Muslim terminology as "sura"--of the Quran
which recounts the incident of Jinn coming to meet the Prophet [surat al-
Jinn]).  There are also a lot of hadiths on the subject.  A very reliable
and comprehensive book on the subject (unfortunately, in Arabic) is
Akam al-Marjan fi Ahkam al-Jann.

hadith=saying of the Prophet.