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  • Essay / Angels and jinn: origins and roles in the Islamic faith

    According to the Quran, God created man and the jinn so that they might worship him (adh-Dhariyat 51:56). Jinn cannot be perceived by the senses and an angel and a jinn are associated with every man (Ali, 1950). While the angel promotes good deeds and noble ideas, the jinn promotes the baser passions (Ali, 1950). Although these lower passions are necessary for life, they can become a stumbling block to spiritual progress and therefore a man must control his jinns as the Holy Prophet had done: when asked if he had a djinn associated with him, he replied yes. but that Allah had helped him to defeat the jinn so that he would submit to Muhammad and “command me only good” (Ghazālī, 2000). In fact, in the Quran (al-Jinn) it is said that some jinn adopted the teachings of Muhammad and therefore it is believed that there are virtuous individuals among the jinn (Gulevich, 2004 and Ghazāli).̄,