| rdfs:comment | - In Middle Eastern folklore and Islam, genies (jinn, Arabic for "hidden") were created out of the Four Elements by God before he created the First Man from all the elements. They are (usually) invisible beings that are actually more like humans than we realize -- they're born, grow up, marry, have children and eventually die. They are said to be made of "smokeless fire", perhaps something along the lines of energy beings. They're also extremely long-lived and highly skilled in magic. However, they can be killed by rather mundane means, if the Arabian Nights is any indication. (At least a couple of genies have been done in by a rock to the head.) They were sometimes trapped in a bottle. They might grant you a wish if you let them go. Or they might have been bound to something like a ring or
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| abstract | - In Middle Eastern folklore and Islam, genies (jinn, Arabic for "hidden") were created out of the Four Elements by God before he created the First Man from all the elements. They are (usually) invisible beings that are actually more like humans than we realize -- they're born, grow up, marry, have children and eventually die. They are said to be made of "smokeless fire", perhaps something along the lines of energy beings. They're also extremely long-lived and highly skilled in magic. However, they can be killed by rather mundane means, if the Arabian Nights is any indication. (At least a couple of genies have been done in by a rock to the head.) They were sometimes trapped in a bottle. They might grant you a wish if you let them go. Or they might have been bound to something like a ring or a lamp and forced to obey the orders of anyone who summoned them. Genies are creatures of free will; they can be good or evil and may even be religious. Belief in genies is still common in the Middle East today. God told the Djinn that they should bow to man's superiority, but their leader, Iblis, refused to do so; thus they ended up imprisoned in lamps and such and forced to grant wishes. Genies in Islam can also possess humans for a variety of reasons -- they might have a crush on the human, or they might just be a jerkwad. During exorcisms, the genie is given the option to convert to Islam, leave the body of the human or die. Iblis, by the way, never repented, and in fact swore that he would corrupt mankind... in other words, he's their version of Satan (and in fact is sometimes called Shayṭān). In popular Western media, genies are immortal beings almost invariably trapped inside a lamp or a bottle, often materializing through a puff of smoke. (Originally, at least part of those items only acted as a means to summon the genie and didn't actually contain it.) They must grant you three wishes, which they may or may not screw up horribly. (In the Arabian Nights, this number ranged from one to infinity.) Also, Genies are extremely likely to be an Amazing Technicolor Population and to have Fog Feet. The correct Arabic grammar is "one djinni", "two djinn" (also spelled jinn(i)). Don't expect the average viewer or writer to get this right. (More trivia: The English word "genie", used to translate "djinni", is completely unrelated but has a similar meaning. The Dutch word "genie", genius, is spelled the same, but has nothing to do with it and is pronounced completely differently.) See also Genie in a Bottle, Benevolent Genie, Literal Genie and Jackass Genie. Examples of Our Genies Are Different include:
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