Djinn

A jinn (Arabic: جن), also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genie, is a class of sentient beings according to Arab culture. In Islam, they are believed to be a third category of intelligent life alongside angels and humans, occupying the intermediate space between the spiritual and physical, for which reason they are invisible entities with the ability to shape-shift. Like humans, they have the free will to be either good or evil in contrast to angels, which are intrinsically perfect at the cost of free will. Unlike humans, who are thought to have been made of clay, djinn are said to have been created from "smokeless fire" and "scorching winds".^[1]

Stories of djinn's interactions with humans are replete throughout the Quran and works of folklore like One Thousand and One Nights. Among these are accounts of djinn being captured and enslaved by humans.^[1] The Levantine Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad alluded to such tales in 1190 when he told Ayman, a man he was interrogating, that he was not a "djinn for [him] to order around".^[2]

Diseases and disorders of the mind have also been attributed to attacks by malicious djinn as though they were malevolent spirits taking possession of the body.^[1] In the 9th century, the young thief-turned-Hidden One Basim Ibn Ishaq struggled with nightmarish visions of a djinn,^[3] which were later revealed to be repressed traumatic memories of his past life as the Isu Loki, who had been imprisoned and tortured in the vault that would later come to be known as the Alamut Temple.^[4]