The purpose of investigating this question and a statement of its importance

The doctrines (madhāhib) of the Arabs (aʻrāb) and of the philosophers of Islam concerning the jinn

Let it be known that among the questions that deserve care, and the spending of effort to ascertain what has been said and written about them, is the question of the jinn. Approaches to it have run in various channels, and the doctrines in its investigations have multiplied; the Arabs had their own singularities with it in the Jāhilīyah, and in every age it has fresh tunes and marvels. And no wonder, for it is among the oldest of questions and the most firmly fixed in men's minds, since its name has gone round upon every tongue and mention of it has occurred in the whole body of sects and religions.

A question like the question of the jinn is not of the sort that is grasped in a single word, or pointed at with a glance, such that the padder of words raises no head for it and the inert mind accords it no weight. For were its strays gathered in, its runaways tethered and its singular pearls strung in order, there would be transmitted, out of the abundance of surpassing subtleties and delightful rarities, what would take ear and eye captive with wonder, and the veil would be lifted from the heart's listening.

Every question that the understanding does not take hold of at the first look, and reaches only with help from one who has studied its matter and probed it, must of necessity be investigated and excavated, surveyed and minutely scrutinised — the more so when the question is one of ramifications and extremities, of branches and joints. Beyond doubt, then, it ought to be surveyed, made familiar and brought into the light, by way of uncovering what the treasuries of truth have hidden away, and of ascertaining every great pearl among its pearls, and every fine one.

Most of those who have written on divine science (al-ʻilm al-ilāhī), or on what lies beyond matter, have spoken of the jinn — some briefly, some at length, some keeping near the mark and some going far afield. Whoever examines what the philosophers of Islam wrote sees it to be close to the course the scholars of the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb) took in the matter, except, to be sure, in certain fancies with which the investigation ran to excess, so that they drew away from the purpose — as is the way of everything that passes its bound.

Whoever surveys what has been written and spends his effort in excavation will have pass before him, from the sciences of the ancients, what makes the flowers of the gardens needless for beauty and musk newly broken open needless for fragrance; and whoever contemplates it grows the more eager to contemplate and peruse it, returning again to those of its benefits he finds sweet.

The best method and the middle course is to take what matters and to prefer the finest of everything; and this is what we have aimed at in this question, out of what we have read. Otherwise, the breadth of the ancients' learning is such as astonishes those who come after, and nothing is left to us but what is chosen of their opinions and what is picked out of their reports. How well Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ spoke when he said: “The utmost of our learning, a learning in this age” — his own age, God have mercy on him — “is that it should take from their learning; and the farthest excellence of the best among us is that he should follow their conduct; and the best thing by which a man of recent times becomes a transmitter is that he should look into k⟨...⟩

To exhaust what the ancients said on the question of the jinn, and to survey the whole of it, stands in need of several volumes and an ample span of time; and needs are many and demands abundant. We have therefore preferred to gather fragments that uncover its face ⟨...⟩qābihā and make some of its knotty places plain to those who seek them.

What we transmit on this question is confined to an introduction (muqaddimah), two aims (maqṣadān) and a conclusion (khātimah).

As for the introduction, in it we relate what the philosophers of language said in explaining what is meant by jinn: its derivation (ishtiqāq), its general and its particular application, and its literal and its figurative sense.

As for the first aim, it is on the doctrines of the Arabs and their claims concerning the jinn, and it has taken in twenty-one investigations (mabḥath): (1) Those among the Arabs and the poets who claimed that they hear the humming of the jānn (ʻazīf al-jānn) and see the ghouls (ghīlān), and the things they liken to the jinn and the satans (shayāṭīn), and to their limbs and their doings. (2) Their ascription of the buildings of Tadmur and the like of them to the jinn. (3) Their distinguishing among the dwelling-places of the jinn. (4) Their ranking of the jinn in grades. (5) Their claim that the ghoul (ghūl) is one of the females of the jinn, and likewise the siʻlāh. (6) Their claim that the jinn appear to them, speak with them and take wives among them. (7) Their claims concerning the caller in the night (hātif), the carrier (nāqil) and the familiar (raʼī). (8) What has been transmitted of their crying out at the mission of Muḥammad. (9) Their claims about the descriptions of the jinn, and about the one they killed. (10) Those whom they lured away, among them Khurāfah. (11) Their describing of the ghoul's leg and the satan's eye. (12) Their claims concerning the land of Wabār and the country of al-Ḥarsh. (13) Their claims concerning epilepsy (al-ṣarʻ). (14) Their claims concerning the plague. (15) What they claim about the jinn's taking bodily form and assuming shapes. (16) Their view on the companion spirits (quranāʼ) of the lean poets. (17) Their fancy about the jinn of al-Shām and of al-Hind. (18) Their imagining of the features of the jinn in human beings (al-ins). (19) ⟨...⟩