Experience vs. Explanation: Jinn and Demons in Islam and the Desert Fathers as a Case Study in Spirituality

Abstract

The discipline of spirituality can be described as the study of human experience of encounter with the transcendent and our lived response to that encounter. There are commonalities to our experience of transcendence that cross the divides of culture and language, commonalities which are often obscured when we theologize about our experience. If we examine the concept of jinn, both among pre-Islamic peoples and in the Qur’an and Hadith and compare this to the demons described in The Life of Antony and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, we see remarkable similarities. These similarities give evidence that the beliefs in jinn in early Islam and in demons among the Desert Fathers are grounded in a common desert experience. As the centers of theological activity move away from the desert, we find this experience explained by Christianity and Islam in diverse ways. The contrast between descriptive narrative and the subsequent theologizing exemplifies a movement from common spiritual experience to differing theological interpretation.

1. Introduction: Spirituality as Springboard for Dialogue

How do we begin speaking to one another on matters of faith? This is a timely and necessary question, particularly as it pertains to dialog between Muslims and Christians, a dialog that is vital to today’s world. Such a dialog often starts by comparing theological doctrines. But this might not be the most fruitful place to begin. Why does Rumi speak across a divide theologians find difficult to cross? His poems speak of experience but frequently leave interpretation of the experience up to the reader; they represent spirituality rather than a systematic theology. Sandra Schneiders describes the discipline of spirituality as encompassing the study of both the human experience of encounter with the transcendent and our lived response to that encounter (Schneiders 1989, p. 676). Schneiders notes: “Although spirituality and theology in the strict sense are mutually related in that theology is a moment in the study of spirituality and vice versa, theology does not contain or control spirituality” (Schneiders 1989, p. 687). There are commonalities to our experience of transcendence that cross the divides of culture and language, commonalities which are often obscured when we theologize about our experience. Dialog that centers on theology or doctrine is beginning with the wrong end of the stick. In descriptions of our experiences, we are more likely to find common ground.

Our experience of the transcendent God is often ineffable and our attempts, given their lacunae, are too often seen as disrespectful. But there are spiritual experiences less transcendent and daunting than encounters with the deity. This paper will examine the contrast between experience and explanation through a study of jinn, as described by pre-Islamic peoples and in the Qur’an and Hadith, and demons, as described in The Life of Antony and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. While descriptions of encounters with jinn and demons show remarkable similarities, which are likely grounded in a common desert experience, later Christian and Muslim theologians, who did not live in the desert, explain these experiences in varying ways. In both traditions, writers close to the time they describe present clearly physical encounters. Those writing 100 years later move away from simple description toward theologizing these encounters. Muslim thinkers relegate jinn to a parallel world, while later Christian writers internalize and psychologize demonic encounters. In this, both are deeply influenced by their respective scriptures. Thus, jinn and demons provide a case study showing how common experience, interpreted through differing theological lenses, can lead to remarkably different interpretations.

2. A Similar Experience: Jinn and Demons as Encountered in the Desert

Descriptions of both jinn and demons show many commonalities. Both are creatures that cause trouble, make mischief, and have a sense of humor. Although they are embodied, their embodiment can be unusual or insubstantial compared to humans. Yet they speak, eat, drink, and interact on a personal level. They can also act on a larger scale, influencing the weather or terrain. In general, they are forces or entities that explain unexplainable or unusual aspects encountered in desert life.

Encounters with Jinn

Descriptions of jinn predate Islam, though sources are minimal. However, the Qur’an, the Hadith, and various jurists comment on pre-Islamic experiences (Henninger 1963, p. 298; see also Wellhausen 1897; Zbinden 1953). These sources show that the ancient Arabs believed in a variety of spiritual beings. Among these was a class of nature spirits, referred to as jinn (sing. jinni, fem. jinnaya).1 Though often invisible, jinn were still embodied.2 When invisible, their passing could be seen in the dust devils or mysterious tracks encountered in the desert. As visible embodied creatures, they could eat, drink, and propagate (Lane 1913, p. 46; see also Henninger 1963, pp. 298–29). They could also take on a variety of visible forms, most notably those of serpents, birds, or wild animals, such as jackals, panthers, dogs, or wolves.3 Jinn could also appear in mixed forms, such as part wolf, part hyena (Henninger 1963, p. 300). When in human form, they might have some distinguishing feature, such as feet turned backwards, or they might be quite indistinguishable. While some were limited to a single form, others could shape-shift at will.

Jinn were most frequently encountered in the open desert, deserted ruins, graveyards, and places considered unclean, such as latrines.4 They could inhabit the ground itself; thus, one might unearth jinn when cultivating new land, digging a well, or setting a foundation for a house (Henninger 1963, p. 301). Jinn were also encountered at sources of water, among trees, and in forests.5 In short, they were creatures found in new, unfamiliar, or uninhabited terrain.

They were considered the cause of any abnormal event and thus blamed for a variety of mishaps (Waardenburg 1984, pp. 263–64). Their workings could be seen in unusual weather, such as sandstorms or whirlwinds (Smith 1969, p. 134; see also Lane 1913, pp. 47–48). Jinn were also responsible for unexplained loud noises. When bothered by humans, they could cause sickness, epilepsy, impotence, or barrenness. They accomplished much of their work in darkness. According to the Hadith, one is advised to “cover your utensils and tie your water skins, and close your doors and keep your children close to you at night, as the jinn spread out at such time and snatch things away. When you go to bed, put out your lights, for the jinn may drag away the wick of the candle and burn the dwellers of the house” (Hadith Sahih Bukhari 4:533).

Jinn were blamed for leading people to stray in the desert (Henninger 1963, p. 302). But they could lead people astray in other ways. The final chapter of the Qur’an (114) commands: “Say: ‘I take refuge with the Lord of Mankind, the King of Mankind, the God of Mankind, from the evil of the slinking whisperer who whispers into the hearts of mankind—[from] among jinn and [from] among Men’” (El-Zein 2009, p. 43). Not all of their whispers were malicious; jinn were also seen as one source of the wisdom of the Kahin, or seers, who were thought to have a personal jinni who could eavesdrop on the heavens and report what they heard: “He would empty the secret heard from heaven into the ear of the soothsayer the way you empty a bottle of its contents” (El-Zein 2009, p. 83).

Encounters with demons, as described in the sayings of the Desert Fathers, are quite similar. Like the jinn, demons haunted ruins, pagan temples, wastelands, and roads or crossroads.6 They appear in a variety of guises—animal, human, or a mixture of the two (Athanasius 1980, p. 53). They are clearly embodied, as they give and receive physical blows (Athanasius 1980, p. 37). They speak, and in groups, they make the noise of a clamoring mob, “the sort of loud disturbance one might expect from tough youths or robbers” (Athanasius 1980, p. 58). Encountered most often at night, demons frightened monks by making crashing sounds and laughing madly (Athanasius 1980, p. 51). Athanasius describes a mob of demons that appeared to Antony, as follows:

The place immediately was filled with the appearances of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, and serpents, asps, scorpions and wolves, and each of these moved in accordance with its form. Struck and wounded by them, Antony’s body was subject to yet more pain… but being in control of his thoughts and as if mocking them he said: “If there were some power among you, it would have been enough for only one of you to come”.

(Athanasius 1980, p. 39).

As in this story, demons frequently appeared in mobs and sometimes even in battle formation (Carpenter 1980, p. 186). The monks describe their surprise at the sheer numbers (Cassian 1959, VIII.12).

Like the jinn of Arabic literature, demons were denizens of the desert. Their presence there was given as one reason the earliest monks retreated to the desert—not only to avoid the temptations of the city but also to have the opportunity to engage in spiritual struggle with the demons, to meet them “eye to eye” (Cassian 1959, XVIII.6). While never good, the demons encountered by the Desert Fathers were not necessarily totally evil. Athanasius writes that Antony told his followers to pray for the gift of discernment, in order to recognize “which of them are less wicked, and which more” (Athanasius 1980, 48). As with the jinn, some of the demons’ actions appear more as pranks. One monk complained of a demon who kept causing the baskets he wove to become invisible (Stewart 1986, p. 27). Athanasius recounts that Antony, too, had trouble with his basket-making. One day, it seemed he was making little progress. He noticed a strand running from the bottom of his basket out the door and there found a demon, half man, half ass, pulling on the strand to unravel his work (Athanasius 1980, p. 70).

Like the jinn, demons could whisper evil thoughts and “filthy pleasures” to a monk (Ward 1984, p. 170). They “pretend to prophesy and predict things to come” by eavesdropping or observing events and running on ahead to tell others (Athanasius 1980, p. 48). Ward recounts a story of two monks whose donkey died on their way to visit Antony. After they had been speaking with Antony for a time, he asked them why their donkey had died. At their amazement that he knew of this, he told them that the demons told him what had occurred (Ward 1984, p. 3) They sometimes deceived a monk by reciting Scripture, awakening the monk for prayer at the wrong time, or inciting him or her to stricter asceticism than would be wise7 Through this and other methods, they sometimes caused sickness, anxiety, or even madness (Ward 1984, p. 6).

The extent of the demons’ bodily nature is somewhat unclear. That they were considered by some to be corporeal and not phantasms is clear from the number of stories in which a demon and a monk engage in physical combat. It is recounted that Abba Theodore wrestled with, and physically bound, three demons to keep them from entering his cell, and Abba Macarius was even attacked by a demon wielding a knife (Ward 1984, pp. 78, 136) Unlike jinn, however, the demons of the Desert Fathers did not eat, drink, or sleep (Ward 1984, p. 84) They also did not copulate with humans; Cassian states that, although the demons “delight in the pollution of lust,” he thought it inconceivable that they could engage in actual intercourse since they incited men to do so when they would surely have preferred to do it themselves, were they able (Cassian 1959, VIII.21).

Despite these differences, it is easy to see considerable similarities in descriptions of jinn in pre- and early Islamic Arabia and demons in early Christianity as a part of the desert experience. Both represent a class of spiritual beings, akin to minor deities or nature spirits, generally unnamed and impersonal, who inhabit unusual or wild places. They function as minor “gods of the gaps,” providing explanations for things that seemed otherwise unexplainable. They could influence both humans and nature, and much like the deities of polytheistic times, both were neither morally good nor bad but capricious, to be avoided whenever possible or struggled with when unavoidable.

3. Different Interpretations: Demons and Jinn as Explained

To urban dwellers, these descriptions must have seemed like flights of imagination, or perhaps manifestations of the mind, existing at the margins of sleep or madness. Unable to ignore jinn or demons entirely, as the references were too frequent and too often in otherwise esteemed sources, later Muslims and Christians sought to both minimize and explain them, as they no longer seemed to be part of any general spiritual experience. Thus, theologians in both traditions, following differing paths as they attempted to harmonize these experiences with their scripture and their evolving culture, provided theological and ontological explanations that veered in different directions. While Muslim scholars relegated jinn to a parallel plane of existence that only rarely intersects with our own, Christian scholars internalized demons, slowly conflating them with the drives and passions of our minds.

3.1. Jinn Explained as Other

Muslim thinkers could not deny the real existence of jinn, since they are referred to multiple times in the Qur’an. The term jinn appears thirty-one times, though they slowly disappear, and are mentioned only in Surahs dating from the Meccan period.8 In general, the Qur’an affirms the experiences of the pre-Islamic peoples, unambiguously proclaiming the existence of the jinn as real physical beings, a separate species created by Allah before humans, “from the fire of a scorching wind” (15:27) or a “smokeless fire” (55:14–15).9 The jinn are no longer rulers of the wasteland but co-servants, with humans, of Allah (51:56), whose commands they learn from their own messengers (6:130), whom they can choose to follow or to ignore (72:11). It is recounted (Surah 72) that Mohammed himself recited the Qur’an to a company of jinn, who listened in awe and converted to Islam.10 In a rather lengthy discourse by the jinn, they identify themselves as morally neutral: “There are among us some that are righteous, and some the contrary: we follow divergent paths” (72:11,14). Surah 55:31 uses the term thaqal, meaning weighed down, to refer to both jinn and men as the two beings burdened with the responsibility of choice. Like humans, jinn hold a middle position in Islamic cosmology, where they can choose either good or evil and will be judged accordingly (72:15, 37:158).11 While it is clear the jinn will share Gehenna and the fire with mankind (7:179, 7:38, 11:119, and 32:13), they are not mentioned by name in any description of Paradise.12 While officially morally neutral, jinn are described more frequently negative ways, as liars and enemies of the prophets (6:112 who “whisper evil into the hearts of men” (114:5–6) lead others astray (41:29) and into acts of folly (72:6). Their previous role as mediators of divine knowledge is denied; they no longer are thought to eavesdrop on any heavenly counsels (72:8–10).

The Qur’an recognizes a pre-Islamic association between gods and the jinn. It strengthens the association by asserting that the false gods of the pagan Meccans were, in fact, merely jinn. Surah 37:158 links the “daughters of Allah,” considered goddesses by the Meccans, with the jinn, suggesting that the Meccans “invented a blood-relationship between Him and the jinn: but the jinn know (quite well) that they have indeed to appear (before His judgement seat).” The jinn are presented as powerless in their false guise of deity, and to worship them is worse than to worship angels: “[H]e will say to the angels: “Did these people used to worship you?” They will say: “Glory be to You! You are our protector, not them. Rather, they used to worship the jinn. Most of them were believers in them’” (34:40–41).

While the above verses of the Qur’an identify the pagan gods as jinn, later verses identify those gods as shayatin, translated as satans or evil ones (2:14, 7:30). Satans are not a separate species but seem to be a subgroup of both jinn and men who choose to do evil: “Likewise did We make for every Messenger an enemy--evil ones (shayatin) among men and jinn, inspiring each other with flowery discourses by way of deception” (6:112). 13 But jinn and satans are sometimes confused; spiritual beings who served Solomon as builders and divers are called satans in 21:82 and 38:57, while in 34:12 and 27:17,39 they are jinn.14 Similarly, satans are cited in later Surahs (e.g., 6:71) as a cause for madness, a function earlier attributed to jinn. Valentina Grasso suggests that this later merger of jinn with satans was influenced by Jewish and Christian scriptural literature, plausibly through Ethiopian sources such as the apocryphal Enoch and Jubilees, as it reflects the much more evil connotation given to demon in the Gospels and by later Christian writers (Grasso 2023, p. 180).

The jinn disappear from the Medinan revelations of the Qur’an, but their lore continues and is expanded by medieval writers and in folk literature. Here they revert to being strongly physical in nature. In particular, the jinn become individualized. In the Qur’an, jinn are always referred to in the plural, as an anonymous mass (Martin 1989, p. 363). Later stories name individual jinni and allocate to them particular functions, such as Zelemboor, the jinni who presides over crossroads and places of traffic, and Dasim, who causes hatred between husband and wife (Lane 1913, p. 46). Another sign of increasing individuality is seen later stories of love and intermarriage between human beings and jinn.15 Though the possibility of good jinn is acknowledged, most stories continue to focus on malicious jinn, who tempt humans to sin and lure them with lies and visions.

In summary, the Qur’an reaffirms the existence of jinn. However, they become distant, inhabiting a separate plane from humans and only occasionally crossing over into our own. Increasingly identified with the satans as tempters and liars, their influence on humans becomes far less physical, eventually disappearing altogether in Qur’anic revelations after the Battle of Badr. Jinn play a diminished role in later Islamic cosmology. Only in folklore do they retain their physicality and association with the unexplained. As one Sufi story puts it: ‘Once there was a dervish. As he was sitting in contemplation he noticed a devil near him. The dervish said, “Why are you just sitting there, making no mischief?” The demon raised his head wearily, “Since the theoreticians and would-be teachers of the Path have appeared in such numbers, there is nothing left for me to do.”’ (Shah 2018, p. 186).

3.2. Demons Explained Away

Theologizing demons makes a similar move away from the physical. However, rather than moving demons into a realm of their own as Muslim thinkers do, the Christian monastic tradition exhibits an increasing internalization, interpreting demons as psychological rather than phenomenological forces. We see hints of this in the sayings of the Desert Fathers. While demons are most likely to accost monks physically, we find intimations of this psychological move. Abba Poemen, for example, notes: “The demons fight against you? They do not fight against us at all as long as we are not doing our own will. For our own wills become the demons, and it is these which attack us in order that we may fulfil them” (Ward 1984, p. 176). In the Letters of Antony (d. 373) and the writing of Evagrius (d. 399), we find a similar mix. While demons are still regarded as separate entities, they have no physical substance and are seen only through their influence on human thoughts and actions. The author of the Letters of Antony writes regarding demons that “you will not find their sins and iniquities revealed bodily, for they are not visible bodily. But you should know that we are their bodies, and that our soul receives their wickedness.”16 Evagrius writes that the demons rule over the passions and are found in the human soul (Evagrius 1981, pp. 34, 36). He considers the seeing of demons to be a hallucination (Evagrius 1981, p. 14). Not everyone, however, was quite so ready to dismiss demons’ physicality. Cassian, the bringer of the desert tradition to Europe, notes the discrepancy between the understanding of demons as inner forces, as portrayed by Antony and Evagrius, and the outward encounters described by Athanasius and in earlier sayings; he regards this difference as rooted in the spiritual superiority of the early monks as compared to the monks of his day, a superiority which elicited demonic attacks that were both fiercer and more physical (Cassian 1959, VII.23).

For a time, we find physical and psychological understandings of demons going hand in hand. Consider the story of Abbot Shenoute, who led a large monastery in Upper Egypt in which some of the monks had sinned against their brothers and were being held in seclusion. As Shenoute paced the corridors, wondering if he should expel these monks from the monastery, he encountered an Egyptian official who attacked Shenoute in their defense. The official wrestled in silence with Shenoute, who ultimately prevailed, at which the demon disappeared (Brakke 2006, p. 3). While this story fits the pattern of physical combat with a demon, it goes on to say that Shenoute realized from the appearance of an official that he was hesitating to expel the monks because they came from families of high status. Thus, his combat is later interpreted as a manifestation of his own internal struggle (Brakke 2006, p. 5).

This is not to say that later Christian interpreters anticipated modern psychological ideas such as repression, sublimation, or understanding of the subconscious. Still, as David Brakke points out, the association of demons with one’s thoughts and passions “gave monks a vocabulary and set of strategies that enabled them, in our terms, to talk about their feelings and to analyze them from a distance. The monk could talk about his feeling of resentment toward a brother because, in the end, it was not so much his feeling as a demon’s suggestion” (Brakke 2006, p. 78).

Demons could not be dismissed as fully imaginary. As with Muslim scholars, Christian writers had to admit the frequent appearance of demons in the gospels. However, except for Jesus’ encounter with Satan in the wilderness (Mt 4:1–11, Lk 4:1–13), the demons described in the gospel stories are never encountered as physical entities; they are, rather, within the body of a human being whom they have possessed.17 Thus, it was easier for Christians to psychologize demons as mental infirmity or psychological states, strictly internal to the monk.

The primary concern of the monastic writers was the spiritual guidance of their fellow monks, while the Qur’an’s concern is guiding ordinary people in their day-to-day lives. Rather than expounding on the identity and traits of demons, monastic writers spoke of the ways a monk could grow in the spiritual life. Unlike Islam, the Desert Fathers did not speculate on the demons’ origin; Athanasius states only that they must have been created good, since God could create nothing bad, and had fallen “from heavenly wisdom” to wander the earth.18 On the question of whether the demons have heard the Gospel or could ever be saved, the tradition is mute.

By the sixth century, the center of monasticism had moved from the Egyptian desert to the area around Jerusalem and then to the European continent. As monasticism moved away from the desert, this original conception of demons fell away in two stages. First, demons lose their physicality and connection with specific places, while remaining separate entities. Later, a psychological understanding of demons predominates, eventuating in the denial of any separate reality to the demonic. While Evagrius and Antony still see demons as distinct spiritual entities, manifested in human thoughts and passions, by the late sixth century, the Palestinian monk Barsanuphius writes, “the demons … they are the passions” (Leloir 1989, p. 321). Demons, no longer encountered as external reality, become mere symbols of inner temptation. Peter Brown summarizes this shift by noting that the demonic comes to be “sensed as an extension of the self. A relationship with demons involved something more intimate than attack from the outside; to be ‘tried by demons’ meant passing through a stage in the growth of awareness of the lower frontiers of the personality. The demonic stood not merely for all that was hostile to man; the demons summed up all that was anomalous and incomplete in man” (Brown 1978, 90). As the psychological understanding gained ascendancy, reference to demons was increasingly replaced by reference simply to the passions or to sinful thoughts and desires. While Cassian writes of demons as both interior and exterior enemies, Benedict, one generation later, never mentions demons once in his Rule.19 Like the jinn, by the end of the sixth century, demons had all but disappeared from monastic literature.

4. Similar Experiences, Differing Explanations

While there are remarkable similarities in the descriptions of encounters with jinn and demons in early Islamic and Christian monastic literature, the two traditions differ in terms of the origin, nature, both physical and moral, and final destiny of these beings (about much of which the Desert Fathers are silent). While the Islamic tradition claims jinn as a separate species, the Christian tradition interiorizes demons, though their existence is never officially denied. In other words, while the two traditions describe experience in much the same way, once they theologize about that experience, they diverge. Thus, they provide a good case study supporting interfaith encounters grounded in experience rather than doctrine.

While on retreat at a monastery in the desert of New Mexico one summer, I listened to unidentified laughter echoing through the canyon, found myself stricken with sickness, and felt an unexplainable heaviness of heart. Pictures seemed to fall off my cell wall of their own accord. Each of these experiences may well have a separate and scientific explanation; however, it was easy for me to understand the desire to personify the forces one feels that make one vulnerable within the vast solitude of the desert. Indeed, belief in jinn remains strong among those who live in the deserts of Afghanistan and Somalia, particularly among rural women. But clerics encounter them as well, describing a range of jinn, from the saintly to the demonic, that fly, crawl, shape-shift, or simply plod up to one on a desert track in human form (recognizable as jinn because their feet are turned backward) (Born of fire; Jinn 2006).

Even if jinn and demons are merely mental constructs, they still have their uses. For those with an intimate connection to a physical landscape and the natural world, these beings form a means of articulating and honoring that attachment. Both Muslim and Christian Palestinians speak of springs as guarded by the spirits of saints or satans (Canaan 2022, p. 158). Palestinians speak of jinn resisting the bulldozers of the Israeli occupation or assisting or averting antiquity poachers (Al-Qubbaj et al. 2024). Though such references are sporadic, the idea of hidden forces intervening on their behalf can comfort a people who feel forgotten by the global community.

Such needs and experiences would seem foreign to neither the Desert Fathers nor the early Muslims. The commonality seen in the stories of jinn and demons stems from a commonality of experience. Both the Desert Fathers and the Arabian traders and nomads spent long nights in the solitude of the wilderness. Nor were they without opportunities to share their experiences. It is said that Antony was led to his final hermitage at the Inner Mountain by a caravan of Arabian traders (Athanasius 1980, p. 68). The Prophet Mohammed, too, was no stranger to the Christian hermits living in the Arabian desert, heirs of the Egyptian monastic tradition.

In Western culture and the light of modern science, it has become difficult to speak of jinn or demons as anything other than fantasy. While among Christians, the progression from real physical entities to psychological powers to imaginary beings is more or less complete, Islam’s suggestion that such beings exist on a different plane presents one way to bring the differing interpretations together. Amira El-Zein suggests we see jinn as part of a world of overlapping physical and mental realms, a reality that is a part of all religions. She writes:

Quantum physics and traditional societies teach us the world of mental meaning and that of physical reality are not separate. They flow into each other. This is what Hinduism refers to as the Vedanta, which is a state of non-duality, of awareness, achievement, and cosmic consciousness. In such a condition of alertness, the human knows and lives the absence of borders between the external powers of the universe and the internal powers of the psyche. He/she understands there is only one sentience common to both the Self (Atman) and the Source of All Things (Brahman).

(El-Zein 2009, p. 156)

To begin an interfaith dialog with a theology of jinn and demons would be to begin in conflict. But to begin with the admission that there is much that remains inexplicable regarding both our universe and our own minds, as well as the interaction between them, could prove more fruitful. As Schneiders suggests, a focus on our experience of the liminal and the transcendent “represents, on the whole, a profound and authentic desire of … humanity for wholeness in the midst of fragmentation, for community in the face of isolation and loneliness, for liberating transcendence, for meaning … [in our] paradoxical condition” (Schneiders 1989, p. 656).