In our story Sulayman and the Green lamp the most colourful villains are from jinn, or rather unbelieving jinn.  What is revealed over time in the story is that there are politics in the world of the unseen that the human world is unaware of and part of that has to do with the difference between believing and unbelieving jinn.

But what do we really know about the jinn?  Over the last few months I have been looking into the topic more and there is credible information from the Quran and the sunnah regarding the jinn.  There is even an entire chapter devoted to the jinn in the Quran.

[image error]Idris (as) passing the bridge over Hell where he sees many frightening beings.

People who are not Muslim might have heard of genies and written them off as pure Arabian Nights fiction but in the Muslim world jinnare an all too real part of the unseen world, like angels.   The Quran refers to the unseen in many verses.

With Him are the keys of the unseen. No one knows them other than Him. He knows what is in land and sea. No leaf falls but He knows it; nor there is a grain in the darkness of the earth or a green or dry thing but in a manifest Book. (6.59)

When reading Sulayman and the Green Lamp you might ask yourself if you are among those who believe in the existence of beings you cannot see or you are not.  Do you believe that things you cannot see can affect your life?  Do you hear things that go bump in the night?  Have you ever had an experience that led you to believe that there was something you could not see but knew was there all the same?

Among the things we do know are that the jinn are said to be made of smokeless fire; the jinn can be burned with water; the jinn live a very long time; the jinn can believe in Allah or they can be disbelievers because they have free will like man and some jinn can change their shape, and even be visible to some people.

Part of the fun of the Sulayman series is that we will learn more about the world of the jinn and over the course of the series speculate more about their dominion.  Many works of  literature mention jinn, like the Arabian Nights, but not many attempt to describe their world in any detail.  This is partly because little is known.  As a reader what I love the most is fiction that gives you a peak into what might be the world behind the myth, a story that touches upon what we know, and what may be.