Those of the Arabs and the poets who claimed that they see the ghouls and hear the humming of the jinn, and what they likened to the jinn and the devils, to their limbs and their deeds

…Banū Qays b. Thaʻlabah al-Bakrī, and he is mentioning Sulaymān b. Dāwūd and what God bestowed upon him

Were any thing to abide and to be granted long life — that would be Sulaymān, held safe from time My God fashioned him and chose him out of His servants — and gave him dominion from Thurayyā to Miṣr and He made subject to him nine of the jinn of the angels — standing before him, labouring without wage

(He said:) The Arabs would have it, in their language, only that the jinn are everything that conceals itself. He says: God named the jinn "jinn" for no other reason than that they conceal themselves and so are not seen, and He named the children of Adam "ins" for no other reason than that they are manifest and do not conceal themselves. So whatever is manifest is ins, and whatever conceals itself and is not seen is jinn.

Then Ibn Jarīr said: as for God's report of him that he was of the jinn, there is no denying that whatever among things conceals itself from all eyes may be called jinn, as we have already mentioned above in the verse of al-Aʻshā; so Iblīs and the angels would be of them, since they are concealed from the eyes of the children of Adam:

Al-Rāghib al-Iṣbahānī said in his Mufradāt: "jinn" is said in two senses. (The first) of the spirit-beings (al-rūḥāniyyūn) veiled from all the senses, set over against mankind (al-ins); on this reckoning the angels fall under the term, and the satans, so that every angel is a jinnī and not every jinnī is an angel. It is on this reckoning that Abū Ṣāliḥ said: the angels are all of them jinn. And it is said: rather the jinn are one part of the spirit-beings, for the spirit-beings are three: (the good), who are the angels; (the evil), who are the satans; and (the middling), among whom are the good and the evil, and these are the jinn. This is indicated by His saying, exalted be He, "Say: it has been revealed to me" down to His saying, mighty and majestic, "and that among us are those who submit and among us are those who deviate."

Those of the bedouin Arabs and the poets who claimed that they see the ghouls (1) and hear the howling of the jinn, and what they liken to the jinn and the satans, to their limbs and to their works

A bedouin recited:

It was as though, when its tether (2) drew close — and its neck-thongs (3) and its girth-rope (4) snapped, and the horses came all together hard at its heels (5) — it were a satan of the jinn in the air, under watch, when he followed close and the star hurtled down upon him

And he recited:

The ʻUqaylī — you will find no like of him — even were you to wait to meet him upon the white camels (1) While you see him reclining in silk — of a sudden there he goes, shuffling like an old man (2) in the privy (3) among the cotton cloths (4) His violent men (5) have flanked him this long while — likenesses of jinn squatting in attendance about Iblīs When the paupers one day made war upon a king — you see the ʻUqaylī among them in great squadrons (6)

And Abū al-Khaṭafā (7) said

By night, when the dark came down, they lift up — necks of jinn (8) and heads that shook, and a long stride (9) after the smooth pace (10), snatching up the ground (11)

Ibn al-Aʻrābī recited

A Kulaybī singing — you see the jinn seeking — its echo, whenever one of the jinn comes back returning

Al-Aʻshā said:

For I — and this that you have charged me to follow after — my Lord shall know which was undutiful and which fell into sin (12) [I am] like the bull whose back the jinnī beats — and what fault of his is it that they refused the water as a drinking-place

Al-Riqyānī said:

Between its uvulas, when they fell still — like the howling of the jinn (13), it boomed a booming

Dhū al-Rummah said:

I have struck out blindly (14) into the far unknown, over its trackless way — in a green gloom where the owl calls to its night-birds (15) The jinn have by night in its expanses a clamour (16) — as desert shrubs (17) moan to one another in the wind A wilderness (1) and the blackness of night, as though they were — a sea (2) on whose shores the Byzantines jabber in a foreign tongue (3)

And he said:

How many a resting-place (4) I have rested at after the night march — in which, out of the echo of the jinn, were the voices of men talking through the night

And he said:

How many a black unmarked waste I have crossed short of you — a land that leads astray (5), when the haunt of its jinn sat up talking through the night

And he said:

And sand where, for the howling of the jinn in its dune-knots — is a snarling like the singers' beating of the drum

And he said:

And a bewildering waste whose devouring distance we beat down, and there flung us about (6) — the father of remoteness, out of its far-scattered expanses (7) A wilderness in whose dreadful places the voices of the jinn are — a snarling, and the owls in it have wailing-women and my long plunging into the blackness, whenever there startled — out of the night the echoes of the shrilling repeated cries

Of a man who has a facial palsy (8) or a turned eyelid (9) they say, when it flares up, "you whom Satan has slapped"; and they say to the man of excessive height, "O shadow of the ostrich", and to the bulky arrogant one, "O shadow of Satan".

ʻUmar b. ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz was the first to forbid people to mount boys on the backs of horses on the day of the race, and he said: you are mounting the boys upon jinn. And there was recited, in the likening of men to jinn, the verse of Abū al-Juwayriyah al-ʻAbdī:

Men when they are safe, jinn when they take fright (10) — much besought, noble lords, when they muster

And they recited:

And wa-qāt — by God, we drove off — young she-camels you would take for jinn

Ibn al-Zawāʼid said:

Seas of easy plenty to whoever comes upon them — jinn with their lances when they stride out brandishing

And they recited:

I am a man whose follower is my satan — I have made him my brother my life long, and he has made me his He drinks from my bowl (1), and he has given me to drink from it — so praise be to God who gave him to me

ʻUbayd b. Aws al-Ṭāʼī said:

Has there come to Aws word of my night and its delight — and of Aws's standing in the tent laced shut (2) I never ceased to traverse the jinn, hearing their stir — until I was thrust out to the brink of the meadows

Another recited:

You went off and came back with the commander, and you said — we have left talk behind us, and meat cut up and set out It added me nothing but splendour and elevation — and added you, among the people, nothing but abasement My jinnī did not bolt, nor was my file blunted (3) — nor did my birds come, out of fear, to settle on the ground (4)

Their verses on this theme pass all counting

Their attribution of the buildings of Tadmur and the like of them to the jinn

Al-Nābighah al-Dhubyānī said:

None but Sulaymān, when the God said to him — stand up among mankind and hold them back (5) from falsehood (6) and subdue the jinn (7): I have given them leave — that they build Tadmur with broad flat stones (8) and with columns

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: the people of Tadmur claim that that building is older than the time of Sulaymān, peace be upon him, by more than what lies between us today and Sulaymān b. Dāwūd, peace be upon them both. "They said": but you, whenever you see a marvellous building and are ignorant of where the artifice in it lies, attribute it to the jinn and do not trouble yourselves over it with thought. And al-ʻArjī said:

She stopped her ears against the rapping of striped cloths — of a weave of jinn, the like of which is not woven

Al-Aṣmaʻī said: the maʼthūrah swords are those said to be of the jinn's making for Sulaymān b. Dāwūd, peace be upon them both. As for the glass flasks and the baths, that is a thing about which there is no doubt. And al-Baʻīth said:

The sons of Ziyād built, for the remembrance of God, a structure — of stone, not worked out of clay as though it were — save that it is men who raise it — of what the satans built for Sulaymān

Al-Aʻshā said, of the satans' building for Sulaymān:

I see ʻĀdiyā — death was not kept off from its lord — and the Jew's Ablaq (1) came to be at Taymāʼ Sulaymān b. Dāwūd built it for a long age (2) — it has solid hewn stones (3) and coursing firmly bound (4)

Their distinguishing among the places of the jinn

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: just as they say "the hedgehog of Barqah" (5) and "the lizard of Saḥā" (6) and "the hare of al-Khullah" (7) and "the wolf of Khamar" (8), and so distinguish between these and what else is ascribed to that kind, whether in fatness or in malice or in strength — so likewise they distinguish between the places of the jinn. When they ascribe one shape of them to a known place, they have singled it out for a malice, a strength and a fierceness (9) that the whole body and the mass of them do not have. Labīd said:

Thick-necked ones (10) bracing for the fight (11) about the water-holes, as though they were — the jinn of al-Badī (12), their feet planted firm

Al-Nābighah said:

Coated (13) with the rust of iron, as though they were — beneath the mail (14) the jinn of al-Baqqār (15)

Zuhayr said:

Upon them are young men like the jinn of ʻAbqar (16) — fit one day to rise high and to overtop

Ḥātim said:

Upon them are young men like the jinn of ʻAbqar — shaking in their hands the straightened lance-wood (17)

Their ranking of the jinn in degrees

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: then they place the jinn in ranks. When they mention the jinnī plainly they say "jinnī". When they mean that he is one of those who dwell with men they say "ʻāmir", and the plural is "ʻummār". If he is one of those who show themselves to children, they are "arwāḥ" (spirits). If one of them turns malicious and violent, he is a "shayṭān". If he exceeds that in strength, he is an "ʻifrīt", and the plural is "ʻafārīt". And they are, in sum, jinn and "khawāfī". The poet said

and none but the barefoot one feels a trace in it

And when the jinnī appears and speaks and is cleansed and becomes wholly good, he is an angel — on the view of the one who interprets His saying "he was of the jinn, and so he transgressed the command of his Lord" to mean that "the jinn" in this place are the angels. Others said: he was of them by way of attribution to the dwelling and to the religion, not because he was of their kind; and that is only on the pattern of their saying: Sulaymān b. Yazīd al-ʻAdawī, Sulaymān b. Ṭawḥān al-Nīmī, Abū ʻAlī al-ʻAbdarī and ʻAmr b. Qāʼid al-Uswārī — they ascribed them to places and left aside their true lineages:

And others said: everything that conceals itself is "jinnī", "jānn" and "janīn"; and so too the child in the belly is called "janīn" because of its being in the belly and its concealment; and the dead man who is in the grave is called "janīn". And ʻAmr b. Kulthūm said

Nor a grizzled woman (1) whom the dooms left — out of nine, with none but one hidden away

He tells that she had buried them all. "They said": and so too the angels — the guardians, the bearers and the Cherubim (2) — must have their classes; and sometimes they are distinguished by their works, and names are derived for them from the occasion, as they said of one of the prophets "the friend of God" and of another "the one to whom God spoke" and of another "the spirit of God". The Arabs too place the brave in ranks: the general name is "shujāʻ" (brave), then "buhmah" (3) — is this not the saying of Abū ʻUbaydah? As for their saying "the satan of the ḥamāṭah" (4), by it they mean the serpent. And al-Aṣmaʻī recited

A doubled Ḥaḍramī strap plays about as though it were — a satan's writhing among the castor-shrubs (5) of a barren waste

And they will call pride and insolence and arrogance (6) and violent anger a "satan", by way of likeness.

ʻUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, said: by God, I shall tear out his snorting (7) and I shall beat him until I draw his satan out of his snout (1). And Ḥassān b. Thābit said, concerning his saying "by God, I shall beat him until I pull his satan out of his head", and he said

And a wilderness, a far level tract, a bare flat plain (2) — of the deserts, whose flanks you know I crossed it on a swift she-camel (3) like a pampered stallion — whose satan gambols in the mirage

And plainer than that is the saying of Manẓūr b. Rawāḥah

There came to me, while my people were at the lances and in the press — a foul reviler (4), the very byword of baseness, down even to the sons of Badr But when what you say reached me, they drew back — the satans of my head, and they grew flushed as with wine

And the bedouin make the "khawāfī" and the self-concealing ones — before they arrange the ranks — into two sorts of jinn: they say ḥinn and jinn, with the jīm and with the ḥāʼ. And they recited

I passed the night falling in among satans that ring out — their vapour at odds with itself: ḥinn and jinn

And they set the ḥinn above the jinn. And Aʻshā Sulaym said

I am not of the jinn when I am hidden — nor am I of the nisnās in the stock of mankind

He goes to the view of those who said that mankind are "nās" and "nisnās", and the concealed ones are "ḥinn" and "jinn"; and he says: I am of the nobler of the two tribes, wherever it may be.

The feeble among the ascetics and the dull-witted among the devotees claim that they in particular have a satan who has been appointed over them, called al-Mudhhib, who lights fires for them and makes the darkness bright for them, so as to tempt them and to show them a marvel, when they suppose that this comes from God, exalted be He.

(He said:) As for the "khābil" and the "khabl", that is simply a name for the jinn who derange and who accost, out of those with whom there is nothing but the howling and the wailing. Labīd too distinguished between them, and said

O censuring woman, had it been man against man (5), they would have been fought — but there came upon us every jinnī and deranger

Their claim that the ghoul is of the females of the jinn, and likewise the siʻlāh

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: "they said": when the female jinnī accosts and changes her colours and plays her tricks, she is a shayṭānah, then a ghoul. And sometimes they make "ghoul" a name for everything of the jinn that shows itself to travellers and changes into sundry shapes and garments, whether male or female — except that most hold that it is female. And Abū al-Miḍrāb ʻUbayd b. Ayyūb al-ʻAnbarī has said

I swore alliance with the wild beasts and they with me — by their near covenants and by the distant ones and the wolf has taken to lying in wait for me, kindling the fight (1) — because my blow is light and my strength weak and a ghoul of the waste, a male and a female — as though upon the two of them were pieces of striped blanket-cloth

So he put among the ghouls both the male and the female. And the poet said, of her changing of colours

She never stays in one state that she is in — as the ghoul changes colour in her garments

So the ghoul is whatever is like that. (And the siʻlāh) is the name of one of the women of the jinn, who plays the ghoul so as to tempt travellers. "They said": this on her part is only out of mischief, or perhaps that she may frighten a man so that his mind is altered on that account — for they have not been given power over the sound of mind; and had that been so, they would have begun with ʻAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and Ḥamzah b. ʻAbd al-Muṭṭalib and Abū Bakr and ʻUmar in their time, and with Ghaylān and al-Ḥasan in their age, and with Wāṣil and ʻAmr in their days. And ʻUbayd b. Ayyūb has distinguished between the ghoul and the siʻlāh where he says

And one who mocks at me — yet had her eye — seen what terror I meet with, she would have gone mad A lank wolf, a siʻlāh and a ghoul in a waste — when night hid the jinn in it, she cried out (2)

And when they see a girl sharp of glance and of wit, quick of movement, slender and of unmixed stock, they say: a siʻlāh. And al-Aʻshā said:

and men slain on the two flanks of Arīk (3) — and women as though they were the siʻlāh-demons

And they say: ʻAmr b. Yarbūʻ married the siʻlāh. And the rajaz-poet said:

O may God do battle with the sons of the siʻlāh

And of the siʻlāh's changing of colour, ʻAbbās b. Mirdās al-Sulamī says:

A ghoul struck the people, the most of their folk — in the midst of the tents; and the ghoul's colour is many colours

And ʻUbayd b. Ayyūb said — and he was a wanderer in the unknown parts of the earth — when his fear grew severe and his roaming long and he went far in flight

I have come to such fear that, were a dove to pass by — I would say: an enemy, or the scout of a company And if "safety" is said, I say: this is a trick — and if "fear" is said, I say: true, so gird up I feared my friend, the sincere one, and he made me suspicious — and it was said: so-and-so, or such a woman — so beware So praise be for the ghoul — what a companion she is — for a man of the waste, fearful and shying off She cried out in one strain after another, and kindled — about me fires that gleam and blaze and I became like a wild thing that follows whatever is empty — and seeks out the scattered inhabited parts of the land

And among the places where he has mentioned the ghouls is his saying:

She says — and a touch of human company had come upon her — her fingertips dyed, her anklets silent "Is this the friend of the ghoul and the wolf, and the one — who is mad for the ladies of the curtained howdahs, the full-grown ones?" She saw one worn like threadbare rags (1), shaggy and sallow — smiling in the famine, noble of qualities He has taken from his fathers their deeds of daring — and their feeding of men in every year of dust and dearth (2), all-encompassing

And among what he said on this theme:

Why do you see Laylā tormenting with vain hopes — a brother of the wastes who used to take comfort in the wolf and who became the ghoul's friend after enmity — a bosom friend, and the empty barren wastes (3) reared him

And he said on this theme:

Were it not for men, O Manīʻ, whom I have seen — who have a praiseworthy way in the duty of protection there would have reached you from me a chastisement and a raid — with a tail-end so far off you could not have overtaken it The sons of good dealing have grown few, until you raided — one who rouses the jinn while they lie asleep

And the bedouin claim that when the ghoul is struck a blow she dies, unless the striker repeats upon her, before she expires, a second blow; for if he does that she does not die. And their poet has said:

So I struck a second time — and destiny guards its own — would then that my right hand had withered before that

And they recited, of Abū al-Bilād al-Ṭuhawī:

Light indeed to Juhaynah was what I meet — of terrors, on the day of Raḥā Biṭān (4) I met the ghoul journeying by night in the dark — in a tract like a garment-chest, a bare level plain (5) I said to her: both of us are worn thin by the land (6) — a brother of travel; so turn aside from my place She turned aside, and I bore down upon her with a keen blade — a cutting sword, of unmixed metal (7), Yemeni It clove her back (1) and the striped cloth upon her — she snorted, down upon her forelegs and her throat She said: give me more. I said: gently — against the likes of her I am firm of heart I tied her hobble fast and unloaded from her — that I might see in the morning what had befallen me And behold: two eyes in a hideous face — like a cat's face, with a split tongue and the two legs of a stunted thing (2), and a dog's tongue — and a hide of scabbard-leather or of worn-out water-skins

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: this Abū al-Bilād al-Ṭuhawī was one of the satans of the bedouin, and he lies, as you see, and he knows it, and he draws the lie out at length and lets it pass. And he has said, as you see:

She said: give me more. I said: gently — against the likes of her I am firm of heart

For so they say: they claim that the ghoul asks for more after the first blow, because she dies of one blow and lives through a thousand blows

Their claim that they appear to them and speak with them and intermarry with them

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: and it is of the bedouin's talk that they appear to them and speak with them and intermarry with them. It is for this that Shamir b. al-Ḥārith al-Ḍabbī said:

And a fire I kindled (3) a little after (4) the deep of the night — in a place where I wanted no stay nothing but the covering of a moment's rest, and an eye — which I keep watch over for fear that it sleep They came to my fire, and I said: who are you? — and they said: the jinn. I said: a good dark evening to you I said: to the food! And one of them said — their spokesman: we begrudge mankind the food

And Abū Zabd reported of them that a man of theirs married the siʻlāh, and that she was with him for a time and bore him children, until one night she saw lightning over the country of the siʻlāh-demons and flew off to them. And he said

He saw lightning and pressed hard on (5) upon a young camel — and hard it was, that running and that camel-march

Of this shared breeding and this composite creation are — "in their view" — the sons of the siʻlāh among the Banū ʻAmr b. Yarbūʻ, and Bilqīs the queen of Sabaʼ

And they interpreted the saying of the poet: O God, Jurhum are Your servants — men are newly gotten property (1) and they are Your ancient inherited stock

They claimed that the father of Jurhum was of the angels who, when they disobeyed in heaven, were sent down to earth, as was said of Hārūt and Mārūt. And they made Suhayl a tax-gatherer transformed into a star, and they made Venus a harlot woman transformed into a star, and her name was Anāhīd. The Indians say something like this of the planet called ʻUṭārid. And people say "so-and-so is served", meaning by it that when he pronounces an incantation over the satans and the spirits and the ʻummār, they answer him and obey him. Of these was ʻAbd Allāh b. Hilāl al-Ḥimyarī, who was called the friend of Iblīs; and of them were Kadyās the Indian and Ṣāliḥ al-Mūsawī. And ʻUbayd used to say: the ʻāmirī is eager to answer the incantation, but when the body is not fit to be a temple, it cannot enter it; and the device for that is that the man fumigate himself with male frankincense, and watch the course of Jupiter, and wash himself with pure fresh water, and leave off intercourse and the eating of rank greasy food, and go wild in the desert wastes, and enter ruins often, until he grows thin and fine and there comes to be in him a resemblance to the jinn. If he then pronounces the incantation and is not answered, let him never come back to the like of it, for he is not one whose body can be a temple for them; and whenever he does come back it deranges him, and he may go mad and he may die. He said: had I been one fit to be a temple for them, I would have been above ʻAbd Allāh b. Hilāl

"The bedouin said": we would sometimes halt at a great gathering and see tents and pavilions and people, and then lose them that very hour

The common people relate that Ibn Masʻūd, may God be pleased with him, saw a man of the Zuṭṭ and said: these are the likest to what I saw of the jinn on the night of the jinn. But the contrary of that has also been related from him

And Abū al-Najm said: "where the ghoul runs its course together with the jinn" — so he took the jinn out of the ghoul with which the jinn passed the night. And this belongs to their habit of taking a thing out of the whole after that thing has entered into the whole, so that it stands out for some particular purpose

And in one line of report they used to hear, in the Days of Ignorance, a murmuring out of the hollows of the idols; and that Khālid b. al-Walīd, when he demolished al-ʻUzzā, was pelted by it with sparks until most of his thigh was burned, until the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, said a protective charm over him. "The imām al-Jāḥiẓ, may God the Exalted have mercy on him, said": this is a trial with which God, exalted be He, would not have tested the bedouin of the common sort. "He said": and I do not doubt that the shrine-keepers had devices and subtleties, on account of the profit in it. And had you heard or seen some of what the Indians have prepared of these conjuring tricks in the houses of their worship, you would know that God, exalted be He, has bestowed a favour upon the ignorant among men in the mutakallimūn who have arisen among them — meaning the scholars of kalām and the philosophers of religion, God's good pleasure be upon them

Their claims concerning the unseen caller, the carrier of news, and the familiar spirit (al-riʼī) (1)

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: the bedouin and the likes of the bedouin do not shrink from believing in the unseen caller; rather they marvel at whoever rejects it. Of this sort is the report of al-Aʻshā b. Mās b. Zurārah al-Asadī, that he heard a caller saying:

The overflowing one has perished, the rain of the Banū Fihr — the man of long reach, of lofty glory, of high worth

He said: so I said, answering him:

O you who announce the death of the brother of bounty and open-handedness — who is the man whose death you announce to us, of the Banū Fihr?

And he said:

I announce the death of Ibn Judʻān b. ʻAmr, brother of open-handedness — of the age-old pedigree and the topmost station

And this class of thing is abundant

"They said": and it was by the jinn's carrying of news that people came to know of the deaths of kings and of weighty matters — as they heard tell of al-Manṣūr's death on the very day he died, near Makkah. And this class of thing too is abundant

"And they used" to say: when a jinnī becomes attached to a human being and inclines to him and tells him some of the news, he feels his stir and sees his shape; and when it is so with them they say: with so-and-so there is a familiar of the jinn. Among those of whom they say this are ʻAmr b. Liḥāʼ b. Qamʻah — and al-Maʼmūn al-Ḥārithī — and ʻUthaybah b. al-Ḥārith b. Shihāb, among well-known men of standing, whether a chief horseman or an obeyed lord. As for the soothsayers (2), they are such as Ḥārithah b. Juhaynah, and the soothsayer-woman of Bāhilah, and ʻAnz Salamah, and such as Shiqq and Saṭīḥ and their like

As for the diviner, who is below the soothsayer, such are al-Ablaq al-Usaydī, and al-Ajlaḥ al-Zuhrī, and ʻUrwah b. Zayd al-Asadī, and the diviner of al-Yamāmah, Rabāḥ b. Kaḥlah — and he is the companion of al-Mustanīr al-Balthaʻī. And the poet has said:

So I said to the diviner of al-Yamāmah: treat me — for if you cure me, you are indeed a physician

And Jabhāʼ al-Ashjaʻī said:

The love of Ṣafiyyah has settled in my heart — though I had sent packing every beloved passion May good things be yours — how is it that you were granted my love — while I have no share at all in your passion I say, while ʻUrwah al-Asadī recites his charm — he has come to you with the charm of the fawning liar By your life, the yawning, O son of Zayd — is no cure out of your charms, and no answer The march of the white she-camels, I think, is more healing — for what is in me than the physician of the Banū al-Dhuhūb

And the class of thing these men claim is not of the kind of bird-augury (al-ʻiyāfah) (1) and the driving of birds and the [sand-]lines, and the looking into the secrets of the palm, and into the places where the mouse has gnawed, and into the moles on the body, and the looking into shoulder-blades, and judging by the stars, and healing by thought

And Musaylimah used to claim, in the earliest part of his time, that he had a familiar with him; and it is for this that the poet said when he described his conjuring tricks and his deceits:

With a flask's egg and a fawn's banner — and the friendship of a jinnī and the joining of a bird

Do you not see that he mentioned the friendship of the jinnī

What has been related of their calling out concerning the Muḥammadan mission

The imām al-Māwardī related in Aʻlām al-nubuwwah what the men of the sīrah report of the jinn's calling out concerning the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, before his mission, and that it was among the signs of his prophethood, proceeding from inspiration. Of this is what ʻUthmān b. ʻAbd al-Raḥmān related from Muḥammad b. Kaʻb, who said: while ʻUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, God's good pleasure be upon him, was seated one day, a man passed by him, and it was said to him: do you know this man who is passing, O Commander of the Faithful? He said: and who is he? They said: this is Sawād b. Qārib. He said: are you Sawād b. Qārib? He said: yes, O Commander of the Faithful. He said: are you the one to whom his familiar came with the appearance of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace? He said: yes, O Commander of the Faithful. One night, while I was between sleeping and waking, a familiar of the jinn came to me and struck me with his foot and said: rise, O Sawād b. Qārib, and hear my speech and understand it, if you are a man who understands: the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, has been sent from Luʼayy b. Ghālib, calling to God, exalted be He, and to His worship. And he began to recite:

I marvel at the jinn and at their seeking — and at their girthing of the white camels with their saddle-frames they rush down to Makkah seeking the guidance — the truthful of the jinn is not as their liar So ride out to the chosen ones of Hāshim — for their forefeet are not as their tails

I said to him: leave me be, for I have come to the evening drowsy — and I gave no heed to what he said. Then on the second night he came to me and struck me with his foot and said: rise, O Sawād b. Qārib, and hear my speech and understand it, if you are a man who understands: the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, has been sent from Luʼayy b. Ghālib, calling to God and to His worship. And he began to recite:

I marvel at the jinn and at their overbearing — and at their girthing of the white camels with their camel-saddles they rush down to Makkah seeking the guidance — the believers of the jinn are not as their unbelievers So ride out to the chosen ones of Hāshim — among its hills and its stones

I said: leave me be, for I have come to the evening drowsy — and I gave no heed to what he said. Then on the third night he came to me and struck me with his foot and said: rise, O Sawād b. Qārib, and hear my speech and understand it, if you are a man who understands: a messenger has been sent from Luʼayy b. Ghālib, calling to God, exalted be He, and to His worship. And he began to recite:

I marvel at the jinn and at their spying about — and at their girthing of the white camels with their saddle-cloths they rush down to Makkah seeking the guidance — the best of the jinn is not as their foul ones So ride out to the chosen ones of Hāshim — and lift up your two eyes to their head

He said: so I rose in the morning, and God had tried my heart for Islam. I saddled my she-camel and came to al-Madīnah, and there was the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, and his companions. I said: hear my speech, O Messenger of God. He said: out with it. And I began to recite

A confidant came to me between stillness and slumber — and I was no liar in what I was told in confidence Three nights, his word each night — a messenger has come to you from Luʼayy b. Ghālib So I tucked up the hem of my waist-wrap, and there carried me through the middle — the swift hard-cheeked she-camel, among the level wastes And I bear witness that God — there is nothing other than He — and that you are trusted over every hidden thing and that you are of all the messengers the nearest in means of access — to God, O son of the noblest and the purest So command us with what comes to you, O best of those who have walked — even if in what has come there is what greys the forelocks and be an intercessor for me on a day when no possessor of intercession — ⟨...⟩ avails anything for Sawād b. Qārib

He said: the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, and his companions rejoiced at my speech with a great joy, and ʻUmar leapt up to him and embraced him and said: I had wished to hear this account from you. Does your familiar come to you today?

He said: since I have read the Qurʼān, no — and what an excellent exchange for the jinn is the Book of God

And Ibrāhīm b. Salāmah related, with his chain, to a man of Khathʻam, who said: Khathʻam used to make nothing lawful and to forbid nothing, and they used to worship idols. (He said:) and while we were at an idol of ours one night, seeking its judgement in a matter that had arisen between us, of a sudden a crier cried out from its hollow

O you riders, you men of judgements — what have you to do with flighty wits and with leaning the judgement upon idols This is a prophet, the lord of created beings — proclaiming aloud the truth and Islam the most just of any who judges with judgements and the light follows upon the darknesses — he will be made manifest in the sacred town he has purified men of their sins

The Khathʻamī said: we took fright at it, and I went out to Makkah and became a Muslim with the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace

And Ibrāhīm b. Salāmah related, with his chain, from a man who told ʻUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, saying to him: I went out with companions of mine on a trading venture of ours, making for al-Shām, and a man of the Jews travelled with us. When we were in one of the valleys of al-Shām, a caller called out

Beware, do not be hasty, and take her as one that brings to ruin — for the worst of journeying is the journeying that drives to death A star has gleamed and set itself straight in its rising-place — uncovering a scowling, ruinous darkness calling to the shade of delightful gardens,

The Jew said: do you know what this shouter is saying? We said: what is he saying? He said: he tells that a prophet has appeared behind you at Makkah. So we came, and we found the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, at Makkah

And of the glad tidings among their calls is what Abū ʻĪsā related, saying: Quraysh heard in the night a caller upon Abū Qubays (a mountain) saying:

If the two Saʻds submit, Muḥammad will ⟨...⟩ — at Makkah, fearing no opposition from any opponent

When they rose in the morning, Abū Sufyān said: who are the two Saʻds? Saʻd of Bakr and Saʻd of Tamīm? Then on the second night they heard him saying

O Saʻd, Saʻd of al-Aws, be you a helper — and O Saʻd, Saʻd of the two Khazraj, the noble lords Answer, you two, the caller to guidance, and ask for yourselves — of God, in Firdaws, the wish of one who knows For God's reward to the seeker of guidance — is gardens of Firdaws, richly adorned

Al-Māwardī said: and even though these calls are reports of single transmitters, about one whose person is not seen, and though his word establishes no argument, still by its departure from the ordinary course it is a warner, and by its effect upon souls a bearer of glad tidings; and the hearers accepted them, and the acceptance of reports confirms their soundness and strengthens their proof. (If it be said) that if the calls of the jinn are among the proofs of prophethood, it would be permissible for them to be a proof of the soundness of soothsaying — there are two answers to that. (The first) is that they are not proofs of prophethood; they are only glad tidings of it, and there is a difference between a proof and a glad tiding, taken as reports. (The second) is that soothsaying is about what is absent, and the glad tiding is about what is determinate; for what is seen is known, and what is absent is a matter of surmise. End of al-Māwardī's words

Their claims concerning the descriptions of them and whom they have killed

They say that among the jinn is a kind the form of one of whom is half the form of a man, and his name is "Shiqq"; and that he often shows himself to a travelling man when he is alone, and sometimes destroys him by fright and sometimes destroys him by beating and slaying. (They said:) of this is the report of ʻAlqamah b. Ṣafwān b. Umayyah b. Ḥarb al-Kinānī, the grandfather of Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, in the Days of Ignorance. He went out making for some property of his at Makkah, upon an ass, wearing a waist-wrap and a mantle, with a riding-crop with him, on a moonlit night, until he came to a place called Ḥāʼiṭ Jarmān; and there was a Shiqq that had one hand and one leg and one eye, and with him was a sword, and he was saying

ʻAlqam, I am to be slain — and my flesh is to be eaten I strike them with the Dhuhlūl (1) — the striking of a nimble lad broad of forearm, a noble one

And ʻAlqamah said

O Shiqq, here now — what is there between me and you — sheathe your blade away from me we kill whoever does not kill you

Shiqq said

I have set myself upon you, I have set myself upon you — that I may make the slaying of you lawful so bear with what has been decreed (1) for you

So each of the two struck his fellow, and they fell down dead. Among those the jinn have killed are this ʻAlqamah b. Ṣafwān and Ḥarb b. Umayyah. They said: and the jinn said

And Ḥarb's grave is in a desolate place — and near Ḥarb's grave there is no grave

(They said:) and of the proof that these two verses are of the poetry of the jinn is that no one is able to recite them three times running without stumbling in them, while he is able to recite the heaviest and most difficult poetry on earth ten times over and not stumble

(They said:) and they killed Mirdās b. Abī ʻĀmir, the father of ʻAbbās b. Mirdās — and they killed al-Gharīḍ by strangling, after he had sung the song they had forbidden him — and the jinn killed Saʻd b. ʻUbādah b. Dublum, and they heard the caller saying

We it was who slew the lord of the Khaz — raj, Saʻd b. ʻUbādah and we shot him with two arrows — and we did not miss his heart

Those whom they lured away (2) — and of them is Khurāfah

(They said:) they lured away Sinān b. Abī Ḥārithah that they might take him as a stallion, and he died among them; and they lured away Ṭālib b. Abī Ṭālib, and no trace of him has been found to this day of ours — and they lured away ʻAmr b. ʻAdī al-Lakhmī, the king of whom it is said "ʻAmr has outgrown the necklet", and then gave him back to Jadhīmah al-Abrash after some years — and they lured away ʻUmārah b. al-Mughīrah and blew into his urethra, so that he went off with the wild beasts

And they relate from ʻAbd Allāh b. Qatādah, tracing it back, that he said: Khurāfah was a man of ʻUdhrah whom the satans lured away

And they related from ʻUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, that he asked the lost man whom the jinn had lured away: what was their food? He said: dung. He said: and what was their drink? He said: urine

Their description of the ghoul's foot and the satan's eye

The common people claim that the ghoul takes on the fairest of forms, except that her foot must be the foot of an ass; and they reported from al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad that a bedouin recited to him

And an ass's hoof upon a plump leg (1) — and the lid of an eye set lengthwise, unlike mankind's

And they mentioned that the common people claim that the split of the satan's eye runs lengthwise. Al-Jāḥiẓ said: and I do not think they took these two notions from any but the bedouin

Their claims concerning the land of Wabār and the country of al-Ḥawsh (2)

The bedouin claim that when God, exalted be He, destroyed the nation called Wabār — as He destroyed Ṭasm and Jadīs and ʻImlāq and Thamūd and ʻĀd — the jinn settled in their dwellings and guarded them against everyone who sought them; and that it is the most fertile of God's lands, the most abounding in trees, the sweetest in fruit, the richest in grain and in grapes, and the most abounding in palms and in bananas. If a human being draws near those lands, whether on purpose or in error, they throw dust in his face; and if he refuses to turn back they derange him, and they may kill him

(Al-Jāḥiẓ said:) and the place itself is a falsehood. For if they are told, point us to its quarter and set us at its boundary, and no blame to you — they claim that whoever seeks it has al-ṣarfah cast upon his heart, so that they become like the companions of Mūsā in the wilderness. And the poet said

And a caller called, while the night let down its curtains — the summoning to the guest-meal: O Muslim b. Ḥimār He called a dung-beetle that cannot find its way to its resting-place — out of baseness, until it can find its way to Wabār

So this bedouin poet made the land of Wabār a byword for going astray. And the bedouin talk of it as they talk of what they find in al-Daw (3) and al-Ṣammān (4) and al-Dahnāʼ (5) and the sands of Yabrīn (6). And how often they mention the land of Wabār in verse in the sense this poet gives it. (They said:) and there is nothing today in those lands but the jinn and the Ḥawshī camels; and the ḥawsh among camels are, with them, those into which the stock of the jinn's camels has been crossed. So the Ḥawshiyyah are of the progeny of the jinn's camels, and the ʻAbdiyyah and the Mahriyyah and the ʻAsjadiyyah and the ʻUmāniyyah have had the ḥawsh crossed into them. And Ruʼbah said

It gathered men from the lands of al-Ḥawsh

And Ibn Harmah said

As though I were upon a Ḥawshī she-camel, or upon an ostrich hen — that has a lineage among the birds, and he is a male ostrich

And it is only in this sense that they named the mistress of Yazīd b. al-Ṭathriyyah "Ḥawshiyyah". And some of the men of commentary said, concerning His saying, exalted be He, "and that men of mankind used to seek refuge with men of the jinn, so they increased them in oppression", that a company of the Arabs, when they travelled in a trackless part of the earth and came into the midst of the country of al-Ḥawsh, would fear the mischief of the jinn and the siʻlāh-demons and the ghouls and the satans; so one of them would stand and raise his voice: we are seeking refuge with the lord of this valley — and no one would harm them, and by that they would have safe conduct

Their claims concerning the falling fit

They claim that when the madman is thrown down by the female jinnī, and the madwoman is thrown down by the male jinnī, that is only by way of passionate love and desire and the appetite for intercourse; and that the satan falls in love with a woman of ours — and that his looking at her out of admiration for her is harder upon her than a fever of days — and that the eye of the jānn is stronger than the eye of man

Their claims concerning the plague (1)

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: the Arabs claim that the plague is a spear-thrust from the satan, and they call the plague "the lances of the jinn". Al-Asadī said to al-Ḥārith al-Ghassānī, the king of Ghassān

By your life, I did not fear for Ubayy — the lances of the sons of her who hobbles the ass but I feared for Ubayy — the lances of the jinn, or else you, Ḥāri

He says: I was not afraid for Ubayy, with his impregnability and his sharpness, that the base should kill him, or those who tether the ass short of the horse; but I feared you for him, that you should be the one to spear him, or that the plague of al-Shām should spear him. And al-ʻUmānī said, mentioning the dynasty of the Banū al-ʻAbbās: God has warded off the lances of the jinn — and has taken away the torment and the fault-finding

And Zayd b. Jundab al-Iyādī said:

Were it not for the lances of the jinn, they would never have been routed — by the lances of the enemies, whether of clear Arabic speech or of foreign tongue

He goes to the saying of Abū Duʼād:

Death and the fates were set over them — and they have, in the echo of the graves, night-birds (1)

meaning the plague that struck Iyād. And it is related that ʻAmr b. al-ʻĀdī stood among the people at the plague of ʻAmwās and said: this plague has appeared, and it is only a prick from the satan, so flee from it into these mountain passes. That reached Ibn Jabal, and he condemned it in him

What they claim concerning their taking of likenesses and their assuming of forms

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: the common people claim "that God, exalted be He, has given the jinn and the satans and the ʻummār and the ghouls power to change into whatever form they wish — except the ghoul, for she changes into the whole form of a woman and her dress, save her two feet, which must be the feet of an ass"

And they only measured the jinn's assuming of forms against Jibrīl's assuming, peace be upon him, of the form of Diḥyah b. Khalīfah al-Kalbī — and against the form-taking of the angels who came to Maryam and Ibrāhīm and Lūṭ and Dāwūd in the form of believers — and against what has come in the tradition of Iblīs's taking the form of Surāqah b. Mālik — and against his taking the form of the shaykh of Najd

(They said:) so if it stands that their forms and the humours of their bodies differ while their minds and their intentions and their power agree, then it is permissible also that Iblīs — God's curse upon him — and the satan and the ghoul should be exchanged in their forms without being exchanged in mind and speech and power. End

And the ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad Ibn Ḥajar transmitted in Fatḥ al-bārī from al-Bayhaqī in the Manāqib al-Shāfiʻī, with his chain from al-Rabīʻ, who said: I heard al-Shāfiʻī say: whoever claims that he sees the jinn, we annul his testimony — unless he be a prophet. End

(Ibn Ḥajar said:) and this is to be understood of one who claims to see them in the forms in which they were created. As for one who claims that he sees something of them after they have transformed themselves into sundry forms of animals, it does not impugn him; and the reports have come in succession as to their transforming themselves into forms. (He said:) and the people of kalām have differed over that. It is said that it is mere phantasy, and that no one moves out of his original form. And it is said: rather they do move, but not by any power of their own over it — rather by a sort of act which, when a man performs it, brings about the change, like magic (that is, sleight of hand). (He said:) and this may go back to the first view. End. The verification of their taking of likenesses will come at the beginning of the discussions of the conclusion

Their opinion concerning the companion-spirits of the master poets

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: they claim that with every master among the poets there is a satan who says the poetry upon that master's tongue. And they say that the name of al-Mukhabbal's satan (1) is ʻAmr, and the name of al-Aʻshā's satan is Misḥal (2), and likewise the name of al-Farazdaq's satan is ʻAmr. And al-Aʻshā mentioned Misḥal when Jahannām lampooned him, and said:

I called upon my friend Misḥal, and they called for him — upon Jahannām; such a one is called upon for the blameworthy half-breed

And al-Aʻshā mentioned him and said:

My brother the jinnī bestowed on me — may my soul be his ransom — the ugliest of the evenings' surgings, a thing unpitied

And Aʻshā Sulaym said:

The jinnī of al-Farazdaq was no pattern to follow — and grant that there was among them the like of al-Mukhabbal's stallion There is not among the concealed ones the like of ʻAmr and his shaykh — nor after ʻAmr any poet like Misḥal

And al-Farazdaq said in praise of Asad b. ʻAbd Allāh:

Our praise of Abū al-Ashbāl shall surely reach — whoever is in the lowland or upon the two peaks of Khurāsān as though it were pure native gold, embellished by — the tongue of the most poetical satan God created

And he said

Had you been with me on the day of Qurʼ you would have held me excused — for a day on which his jinn and his deranging spirits befell me

So because of this verse, and because of the saying of the other

When he drove on along the valley (3) and met — God's derangement, out of mankind and jinn

they claimed that the deranger is of mankind. And when Bashshār b. Burd said

Shanqanān called me to the hind part of a young she-camel — and I said: leave me be, that I may be alone and the more praised

that is, I am the more praised in poetry for having no helper over it. And Aʻshā Sulaym said, answering him

When the jinnī grows fond of an ear-ringed ape — then say to the swine of the Jazīrah: rejoice

At that Bashshār grieved a violent grief, because he knew, for all his love-verses, that his face was the face of an ape; and the first that was known of his distress at the mention of the ape, which they saw in him, was when there was recited the saying of Ḥammād ʻAjrad

and O uglier than an ape — when the ape has gone blind

And on the point that with every poet there is said to be a satan, there is the saying of Abū al-Najm

I — and every poet of mankind — his satan is female, and my satan is male

And another said

I, though I am small of years — and though the eye turns away from me yet my satan is a great one of the jinn

As for the saying of ʻAmr b. Kulthūm

The dogs of the jinn have snarled at us — and we have lopped the thorn-tree of whoever is next to us

they claim that the dogs of the jinn are the poets. And among what shows that they say there is a satan with every poet is the saying of their poet

When the boy grows up among us — it is not asked of him, who is he If he is not a lord before the girding of the waist-wrap — then he among us is the one who is nobody And I have a companion of the Banū al-Shayṣabā — n: so at one time I speak, and at another he

And Shayṣabān and Shanqanān are two chiefs, and among the fathers of the tribes in their claim. Abū al-Najm has mentioned them both: for I am Shanqanān and Shayṣabān

Their fancy concerning the jinn of al-Shām and of India

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: the men of charms and seizures and incantations and magic and sleight of hand claim that the number and the strength among the jinn and the satans belong to the settled folk of al-Shām and India; and that the great one of the satans of India is called (Sakūyark), and the great one of the satans of al-Shām is called "Dar Kārāb". Abū Isḥāq mentioned the two of them in his lampoon of Muḥammad b. Bashīr when he laid claim to this craft, and said

By my life, you have gathered of the aṣʻiyāb — and then of the hair of Adam and of the ruins and you have made yourself sole master of the ṭawāliq and the haykal — and the dahtamāt, of every sort and you have learned the names, so as to meet — Saturn and Mars above the clouds and you have stirred up the spirits by the sea, and they come — I declare it plainly, the clear one after the calamity gathering of the subtleties of the dahmasiyyāt — bowls whose description is in a book then you mastered the well-wrought of the karawiyyāt — and the working of the nārīs and the nujāb then there escaped you neither the intriguing nor the service — nor the lavish welcome of those who come seeking with the seal-rings and the kerchiefs and the running — after Sakūyark and Dar Kārāb

Their fancying of the traits of the jinn in human beings

Al-Qaʻqāʻ b. Maʻbad b. Zurārah said of his son ʻAwf b. al-Qaʻqāʻ: by God, what I see in ʻAwf of the traits of the jinn is more than what I see in him of the traits of men. And Bujayr b. Ayyūb said:

A brother of the wastes who allied himself with the jinn and disowned — mankind, until the bonds that joined him were spent He has the human's lineage — his begetting is known — and the jinn have of him his make and his traits

And the other said:

and he became the ghoul's friend after enmity — a bosom friend, and the empty barren wastes reared him He is no jinnī, that his begetting should be known — nor is he a human whom the assemblies hold He passes his day and shows himself for nothing — but he goes abroad (1) when the night is pitch black

Their talk concerning the madness of the jinn and the satan's throwing men down

A bedouin recited:

What is it in you that amazes the jinn — I have known them — while among Asad are horses of theirs and choice mounts Do you saddle a jerboa and bridle a hedgehog? — mounts have indeed run short with them, so far as I know And if the jinn have gone mad, then it is only fitting — and no fault of the decrees; and God prevails and men are nothing but a deceiver and a deceived — and a man of rambling talk, and another a liar

And Daʻlaj b. al-Ḥakam said

And how shall Kaʻb b. Nāshib come to his senses in time — while his satan is thrown into fits at the new moons

And ʻAbd al-Raḥmān b. Manṣūr al-Asadī recited

Your madness is itself mad, and you will not find — a physician to treat a madness of madness

And he recited

They brought me a madman with his spittle running — and my companion is none but the sound, the unimpaired

And Ibn Mayyādah said

And when what Muḥārib say came to me — satans sang out, and their madness went mad and they wove for her, out of what I say, odes — which the tawny Mahrī camels and the black flung far and wide

And he said, by way of comparison

The prime of youth (1) and black hair — so long as no exchange is given for them, are a madness

And another said

She said: I knew you for a madman. And I said to her — youth is a madness whose cure is old age

And how well the poet said

His right hand gave it freely at morning — both of ʻAmr's hands are, this morning, a right hand None gives so freely of the like of it in the like of his case — save a man of noble nature (2), or a madman

And al-Jumaḥī said

And had I got from you no requital — but the spearhead, stabbed with the deadly one Or had I not made a speech — for I had set my mind upon it — with the sword; for the sword's orator is a madman

And he recited

They it was who defended the guarded pasture with a striking — that joined together the scattered kinds of death So the enemies' onset was turned away from them — and they cured madness with madness

What they relate of the fires of the siʻlāh-demons and of the jinn

Abū Zabd recited, of Sahm b. al-Ḥārith

And a fire I kindled a little after the night's stillness — in a place where I wanted no stay nothing but the contriving of a mount, and an eye — which I keep watch over for fear that it sleep They came to my fire, and I said: who are you? — and they said: the jinn. I said: a good dark evening to you I said: to the food! And one of them said — their spokesman: we begrudge mankind the food

Al-Jāḥiẓ said: and this is a blunder, and it is not of this class; rather what falls here is the saying of Abū al-Miṭrāb ʻUbayd b. Ayyūb

So praise be for the ghoul — what a companion she is — for a man of the waste, fearful and shying off She cried out (1) in one strain after another, and kindled — about me fires that sink low (2) and blaze up

The philosophy of what the bedouin claim of the howling of the jinn and the shape-shifting of the ghouls

Al-Jāḥiẓ, may God have mercy on him, said: Abū Isḥāq used to say, of what the bedouin mention of the howling of the jinn and the shape-shifting of the ghouls: the root of this matter and its beginning is that when the people settled in the lands of the wild beasts, the desolation worked upon them; and whoever is alone, and whose stay is long in those lands and in the empty spaces and in the distance from human company, grows wild — and the more so with little occupation and few to converse with, and with solitude: their days are passed with nothing but vain wishing, or with thinking; and thinking is sometimes among the causes of obsessive whispering. More than one past counting has been afflicted with that, such as Abū Yāsir and Muthannā, the son of al-Fanāfir. (He said:) and al-Aʻmash told me that he thought over a problem until his family denied he was in his right mind, so that they confined him and treated him; and that has happened to many of the Indians. And when a man grows wild, the small thing is pictured to him in the form of the great, and he falls to doubting, and his mind scatters, and his humours break up, so that he sees what is not seen and hears what is not heard, and fancies of the small and paltry thing that it is great and mighty. Then they made what was so pictured to them into verses which they recited to one another, and into reports which they passed on by inheritance, and so they increased in belief in it; and the young grew up on it, and the child was reared with it, until one of them, when he comes into the middle of the deserts and the low lands close about him on the pitch-black nights — then at the first desolation or fright, and at the screech of an owl and the answering of an echo, he has already seen every falsehood and fancied every lie. And it may be that in his kind and in the root of his nature he is a boaster and a liar and a man of outcry and terror-raising; so he says of it in verse according to this character. And at that point he says: I have seen the ghouls and I have spoken with the siʻlāh; then he goes beyond that to say: I killed her; then he goes beyond that to say: I kept company with her; then he goes beyond that to say: I married her

ʻUbayd b. Ayyūb said: So praise be for the ghoul — what a companion she is — for a man of the waste, fearful and shying off

And he said

Is this the comrade of the ghoul and the wolf, and the one — who is mad for the ladies of the curtained howdahs, the languid ones

And another said

A brother of the wastes who allied himself with the jinn and disowned — mankind, until the bonds that joined him were spent He has the human's lineage — his begetting is known — and the jinn have of him his make and his traits

And of what increased them in this and lured them on to it and gave them scope in it is that they meet, with these verses and these reports, none but a bedouin like themselves, or a dullard who has never once taken himself in hand to discriminate what requires denial and what assent or doubt, and has never walked the path of suspending judgement and of verifying in these kinds of thing. As for their meeting a transmitter of verse or a man of reports — with them the transmission is such that the more the bedouin lied in his verse, the more elegant he was in their eyes, and his transmission became the more prevailing, and the laughable pieces of his talk the more numerous. For that reason one of them took to claiming that he had seen the ghoul, or killed her, or kept company with her, or married her; and another claims that he kept company with a leopard in a cave, and that he would feed it and eat along with it. Of these in particular is al-Qattāl al-Kilābī, for it is he who says

Shall Marwān the commander send a message — for me to come to him? Then I were indeed a man led astray There is in me no disobedience, nor the distance of a watering-place — but I am in dread out of fear of Marwān And in the open of al-ʻAnqāʼ, or in ʻAmāyah — or al-Awd (1), there is no refuge from the terror of death And I have a companion in the cave — companion enough for you — he is the black one (2), save that he is not to be put off with excuses When we meet, the most of our talk is — silence, and a glance like broad long arrowheads (3), dark-rimmed The mountain-goat ewes (4) have taken upon themselves our food for us — each of us has from them his share and his eating I beat him in the preparing of the provision, in that — I clear the filth from it, while he does not look closely And it was our wont (5) in a land that leads astray — our watering-place: not ⟨...⟩ whoever came first Each of us is an enemy, could he but see in his enemy — a place to cut; and each of us in enmity has his load to bear

And al-Aṣmaʻī recited

We passed the day together, two neighbours guarding against harm (1) — he drinks with me of my leavings and I drink with him

He mentioned a beast of prey and a man who had come to terms, so that each of the two would leave a surplus of what he drank for his fellow to drink. And al-thaʼy is spoiling; and he told that each of the two was on his guard against his fellow

As for all that we have mentioned from them, it is only what they report of by way of eyewitness and verification. And the likeness of this is only the likeness of his saying

Your satan was of those who courted her — and my satan was of those who sought her for a time; and when the two came to grips, he made off with her

And a man grows hungry and hears in his ear something like a droning. And the poet said

The droning of the deserts unsettled him, so that he was as though — struck on the head with a stone (2); and the traveller by night wearies for the light

"Yaʻūdu" means he grows weary. And sometimes the boy says to his master: you called me — and he says: no; it is only that his ears were visited by that, by accident, because he heard a sound

And of this class is the saying of Taʼabbaṭa Sharran, or the saying of the one who says in an ode of his

He spends the day in a waterless waste and the evening in a desert — apart and alone (3), and bareback upon the backs of deadly places and he outstrips the wind's embassy from wherever he bears down — with a rushing blast out of his own overtaking speed When sleep's drowsiness has stitched his two eyes shut, there never ceases — to be a guard for him, out of a heart wide awake and deadly and he makes his two eyes the lookout of his heart — towards the drawing of a keen green blade that severs When he brandishes it into the bone of an adversary, there are humbled — the eye-teeth of the laughing mouths of the dooms He counts the wild things of the waste as human company, and finds his way — wherever the mother of the interlacing stars has found hers

(Al-Jāḥiẓ said): and what points to what Abū Isḥāq said of their settling in the lands of the wild beasts and among the vermin and the beasts of prey is what Abū Mushir related to us from a bedouin of the Banū Tamīm who settled in a district of al-Shām; and there was never a night in which he failed to be bitten, or his child or some of his household to be bitten, by a beast of prey or by some creeping creature of the earth. And he said

Debt and abasement and exile have taken their turns upon me — and a beast's fang and claw have torn my skin And in the land are crawling things and a beast of prey and a raider — and we are prisoners in the midst of it, boring our way through

Then he went on to count up in his ode upwards of thirty kinds, between animals and vermin

— Notes —

[6] (1) plural of ghūl, and it is a satan that eats people — by their claim — or a beast the Arabs saw (Qāmūs)

[6] (2) a maṣdar mīmī, that is, his drawing near

[6] (3) plural of wadhm, on the pattern of sabab and asbāb, and it is a thong bound about the neck

[6] (4) with two fatḥahs: a rope bound about the middle

[6] (5) dhanabahu, yadhnibuhu and yadhnubuhu: he followed him and did not part from his track — the same as istadhnabahu

[7] (1) al-ʻīs, with kasrah: the white camels

[7] (2) that is, he walks the walk of an old man

[7] (3) al-ḥush, with any of the three vowels: the place of relieving oneself

[7] (4) plural of kirbās, and it is a garment of cotton; and al-karbasah is the walk of a man in fetters

[7] (5) plural of ʻārim, and he is the churlish, violent, injurious one

[7] (6) that is, great masses

[7] (7) with fatḥahs: the byname of Ḥudhayfah, the grandfather of Jarīr the poet

[7] (8) plural of jinn

[7] (9) with two fatḥahs: a kind of gait

[7] (10) al-rasīm: fineness of gait

[7] (11) on the pattern of haykal: swift of pace

[7] (12) he came to ḥawb, with fatḥah, and it is sin

[7] (13) al-ʻazīf is the sound of the jinn, and it is a ringing heard in the waterless wastes by night; and al-hadd is the thick, heavy sound

[7] (14) aʻsafa ʻan al-ṭarīq: he inclined away and swerved and blundered on without guidance

[7] (15) al-hām is the plural of hāmah, and it is a bird of the birds of the night, and it is the ṣadā

[7] (16) al-zajal, with two fatḥahs: the raising of the voice

[7] (17) plural of ʻayshūmah, and it is a tree, and whatever has dried up of a plant

[8] (1) al-dawwiyyah: the wilderness

[8] (2) al-yamm: the sea

[8] (3) he spoke in a foreign tongue

[8] (4) aʻrasa al-qawm: they halted at the end of the night to rest — the same as ʻarrasū; and the place is muʻras and muʻarras. And al-surā, on the pattern of hudā, is travelling the whole night through

[8] (5) a land of tīh: one that leads astray

[8] (6) irtamā bihi: he flung him

[8] (7) taṭāwaḥat bihi al-nawā: the distances tossed him about

[8] (8) a disease in the face

[8] (9) al-shatar: the turning over of the eyelid from above and from below, and its splitting

[8] (10) this is like the saying of another, of the moderns, about the Turks: a folk who, when they are met, are angels — in beauty; and when they are fought, are ʻifrīts

[9] (1) that is, my drinking-bowl

[9] (2) that is, the one fastened with the sharaj, which is the loop

[9] (3) al-fall: the notch

[9] (4) birds, when they are upon a tree or upon the ground, are called wuqūʻ and waqaʻ

[9] (5) that is, hold them back

[9] (6) that is, lying

[9] (7) that is, subdue them

[9] (8) on the pattern of rummān: broad thin stones; and al-ʻamad is the plural of ʻimād

[10] (1) al-Ablaq al-Fard: a fortress of al-Samawʼal b. ʻĀdiyā, built by his father, or by Sulaymān, in the land of Taymāʼ. Al-Zabbāʼ made for it and could not take it, nor Mārid either, and she said: Mārid has rebelled and al-Ablaq has grown mighty. And Taymāʼ is a well-known village about ten hours from the station of al-Muʻaẓẓam — one of the stations and halts of the Ḥijāz Railway — belonging to the government of Najd

[10] (2) al-ḥiqbah, with kasrah: a stretch of time with no fixed limit; and the year

[10] (3) on the pattern of Jaʻfar: what a man can lift of stones

[10] (4) that is, firmly wrought

[10] (5) with ḍammah then sukūn: one of the dwelling-places of the Arabs

[10] (6) with fatḥah on its first letter, the last shortened and with tanwīn: plural of saḥāh, and it is a quarter, and a thorny tree

[10] (7) al-khullah, with fatḥah: the small hole, and the solitary patch of sand

[10] (8) al-khamar, with two fatḥahs: whatever screens you of trees and the like; and a mountain at al-Quds, as is in the Qāmūs

[10] (9) that is, churlishness and harm

[10] (10) plural of aghlab

[10] (11) tashadhdhara: he made himself ready for the fight, and threatened and menaced

[10] (12) with ḍammah then kasrah; one says qawm badī, and badā bādūn

[10] (13) al-samk: the rust of iron

[10] (14) with fatḥah on its first and its second letters and the third doubled and with fatḥah: a garment like a coat of mail

[10] (15) a valley and a place in the sands of ʻĀlij, abounding in jinn (Qāmūs)

[10] (16) a place abounding in jinn (Qāmūs)

[10] (17) that is, the lance; and the origin of al-washīj is the trees of which lances are made

[11] (1) al-shamaṭ: whiteness of the head mingling with its blackness

[11] (2) with the rāʼ lightened; in the Qāmūs: they are the lords of the angels

[11] (3) with ḍammah then sukūn; he said in the Qāmūs: he is the brave man of whom it is not known from what side he is to be come at

[11] (4) with fatḥah on the ḥāʼ: a tree resembling the fig, the tree dearest to serpents

[11] (5) on the pattern of dirham: a plant that is not grazed

[11] (6) with ḍammah on the khāʼ: it is haughtiness

[11] (7) with ḍammah, that is, his nostril

[12] (1) that is, upon his chest

[12] (2) al-dāwiyah is the wilderness, and al-sabsab is the far level land, and al-samlaq is the bare flat plain

[12] (3) al-ʻayrānah, with fatḥah, of camels: the one that gets clear with vigour. And al-fanīq is the honoured stallion. And al-āl is the mirage

[12] (4) with kasrah then fatḥah: much given to reviling

[12] (5) that is, single combat; that is, had we met them man against man they would have been overcome — with fatḥah on the bāʼ

[13] (1) one says huwa miḥashsh ḥarb, with kasrah, that is, a kindler of it

[13] (2) that is, she cried out

[13] (3) on the pattern of amīr: a valley

[14] ( 1 ) al-adrās is the plural of dirīs, and it is the worn-out garment

[14] ( 2 ) al-ghabrāʼ: of years, the barren

[14] ( 3 ) plural of basbas, on the pattern of sabsab — or it is its inversion — and it is the empty waste

[14] (4) with kasrah on the first letter: a place

[14] (5) the level, bare land

[14] (6) al-niḍw, with kasrah: the iron of the bridle; the emaciated one of camels

[14] (7) with fatḥah on the shīn, that is, faulted

[15] (1) with fatḥah on the sīn, that is, her back

[15] (2) with fatḥah on the dāl: it is the she-camel's young, defective in make

[15] (3) ḥaḍaʼa al-nār: he kindled the fire

[15] (4) the diminutive of baʻd

[15] (5) that is, he hurried upon a she-camel. And al-laʼy is hardship, and al-isālah is running, and al-iʻāmah is the marching of camels

[16] (1) al-ṭarīf is what is newly acquired and al-talīd is the old and inherited

[17] (1) al-riʼī, on the pattern of ghanī, and it is also said with kasrah: a jinnī who is seen and so is loved; or the form with kasrah is for the beloved among them (Qāmūs)

[17] (2) Ibn al-Athīr said in al-Nihāyah: the kāhin is the one who undertakes to report about what shall be in time to come, and who claims the knowledge of secrets. There were among the Arabs soothsayers, such as Shiqq and Saṭīḥ and others; among them were those who claimed to have a follower of the jinn and a familiar who cast the reports to him, and among them were those who claimed to know matters by the premises of causes from which they inferred where they would fall — from the speech of the one who questions him, or his act, or his state. This last they set apart by the name of al-ʻarrāf, like the one who claims to know the stolen thing and the place of the strayed beast and the like. End. And he also said: al-ʻarrāf is the astrologer, or the diviner who claims the knowledge of the unseen, which God, exalted be He, has reserved to Himself

[18] ( 1 ) al-ʻiyāfah is the driving of birds and the taking of omens by their names and their cries and their passing; and that was much a custom of the Arabs, and it is frequent in their verse. One says ʻāfa yaʻīfu when he drove off and conjectured and surmised. Ibn al-Athīr supplied this. And he also said: the driving of birds is the taking of good and of ill omen from them and the drawing of auguries from their flight, such as the sāniḥ and the bāriḥ; and it is a kind of soothsaying and bird-augury

[21] ( 1 ) al-dhuhlūl, with ḍammah: the swift horse; and perhaps what is meant by it here is the sword

[22] ( 1 ) that is, he decreed

[22] ( 2 ) in the Qāmūs: istahwathu al-shayāṭīn — they carried off his desire and his mind; or they made him wander and bewildered him; or they made his desire seem fair to him

[23] ( 1 ) khadlajah, that is, full-fleshed

[23] ( 2 ) with ḍammah on the undotted ḥāʼ; in the Qāmūs: al-Ḥawsh is the land of the jinn, or the stock of the jinn

[23] ( 3 ) al-daw — and al-dawwiyyah — and al-dāwiyah — and it is also lightened: the wilderness; and dawwā, tadwiyah: he took to the Daw

[23] ( 4 ) al-Ṣammān: every hard stony land beside sand; and a place in ʻĀlij

[23] ( 5 ) al-Dahnāʼ: the wilderness, and a place belonging to Tamīm in Najd

[23] ( 6 ) and it is also said Abrīn. He said in the Qāmūs: sands whose limits are not reached, to the right of the sunrise, from the Ḥajar of al-Yamāmah

[24] ( 1 ) the root of al-ṭāʻūn is stabbing and killing with lances; then it was applied to the general disease and the epidemic in which deaths are many

[25] ( 1 ) al-hāmah is the name of a bird by which they took ill omens; and it is of the birds of the night, and it has been said that it is the owl. The bedouin used to claim that the spirit of the slain man whose blood-vengeance has not been exacted becomes a hāmah and says: give me to drink; and when his vengeance has been exacted it flies away. And it is said that they used to claim that the bones of the dead man, or his spirit, become a hāmah and fly, and they call it al-ṣadā. Islam abolished it and forbade it to them (End, Nihāyah)

[26] ( 1 ) on the measure of a passive participle

[26] ( 2 ) on the pattern of minbar

[26] ( 3 ) that is, he drew it to himself

[28] (1) that is, he goes out

[29] (1) that is, its beginning

[29] (2) with kasrah on the dotted khāʼ: the natural disposition and the nature

[30] (1) that is, she made a sound

[30] (2) that is, they subside

[31] (1) al-Awd, with ḍammah: a place in the desert

[31] (2) that is, the black one

[31] (3) plural of miʻbalah, with kasrah then sukūn, and it is the broad long arrowhead

[31] (4) with ḍammah on the hamzah: the female of the mountain goats

[31] (5) with kasrah, that is, a custom and a way

[32] (1) on the pattern of al-tharā: spoiling; and he will mention it

[32] (2) al-umaymah, on the pattern of Juhaynah: the stones with which heads are crushed

[32] (3) al-jaḥīsh, on the pattern of amīr: the separate part, and the side