Firewood for Hell
If you ever loved Al-Qadim, check out the Economist's article on Islam and the real-world take on the mythos of the jinn. Sample from the lead-in:
The Koran states that Allah fashioned angels from light and then made jinn from smokeless fire. Man was formed later, out of clay. Jinn disappointed Allah, not least by climbing to the highest vaults of the sky and eavesdropping on the angels. Yet Allah did not annihilate them.No flood closed over their heads. Jinn were willed into existence, like man, to worship Allah and were preserved on earth for that purpose, living in a parallel world, set at such an angle that jinn can see men, but men cannot see jinn.
Tons of magical thinking here, the more heart-rending because of the tragic superstitious fallout, such as a woman killed by the Ugandan police for being a jinn, and the belief that jinn whisper into the ears of suicide bombers. Other points of interest to AQ gamers: menstruating women can bear a jinn child, Mohammed supposedly converted a few jinn to Islam, jinn may beg favors from mullahs, and islamic courts hold marriages between humans and jinn to be lawful. Some theologians and religious scholars believe they are thoughts that existed in the world before the coming of men.
Those all sound like story ideas to me. But the fact that anyone believes this is deeply sad.
The Koran states that Allah fashioned angels from light and then made jinn from smokeless fire. Man was formed later, out of clay. Jinn disappointed Allah, not least by climbing to the highest vaults of the sky and eavesdropping on the angels. Yet Allah did not annihilate them.No flood closed over their heads. Jinn were willed into existence, like man, to worship Allah and were preserved on earth for that purpose, living in a parallel world, set at such an angle that jinn can see men, but men cannot see jinn.
Tons of magical thinking here, the more heart-rending because of the tragic superstitious fallout, such as a woman killed by the Ugandan police for being a jinn, and the belief that jinn whisper into the ears of suicide bombers. Other points of interest to AQ gamers: menstruating women can bear a jinn child, Mohammed supposedly converted a few jinn to Islam, jinn may beg favors from mullahs, and islamic courts hold marriages between humans and jinn to be lawful. Some theologians and religious scholars believe they are thoughts that existed in the world before the coming of men.
Those all sound like story ideas to me. But the fact that anyone believes this is deeply sad.