They are a species of intelligent beings who live secretly among us. They often appear humanoid or even human, but they possess amazing powers that we lack. They can change their shapes, and can even render themselves invisible. They watch us, and react to us. Occasionally they abduct humans, and even mate with them, producing hybrid offspring.

In today's Western countries, when people talk about such beings, they call them "aliens." In Africa and Asia, they call them "jinn."

Educated persons in the West are often unwilling to concede the existence of genies, or jinn (singular jinni), as they are called in Arabic. This reluctance is grounded partly in the rationalist tradition, which rejects the existence of things people cannot see with their eyes; in Western culture's collective experience, very few people have ever claimed to have seen a jinni. Westerners also refuse to admit jinn exist because they view them as an element of fantasy literature, an imaginative Arabian Nights creation that has entertained children for generations but has no basis in fact. Aladdin's magic lamp is considered a storyteller's figment, not a part of the concrete world.

It may come as a surprise to many Americans and Europeans to learn that jinn are regarded as real, tangible beings by a large segment of the world's population. Millions of people in North Africa, the Middle East and other Islamic regions have been brought up to consider jinn as a normal, natural part of the world around them. Admittedly this belief has eroded somewhat, as certain educated elites in Muslim countries have come to view the jinn as an essentially spiritual or even metaphorical concept.

NOTE: The image at upper right is a detail from an album painting depicting five animal-headed jinn dancing and playing musical instruments amidst the clouds. 1590- 1600, Mughal. From the British Museum.

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