Praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the Worlds, to Him belong the endowments and proper commendations. May Allaah increase the honor of Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ^alayhi wa sallam, raise his rank, and protect his nation from what he fears for it.
Thereafter, it was said:
I ask Allah to grant us the sincere intentions the ability to understand and the reward in the Hereafter. Ameen.
Thereafter know that Allah revealed in al-Qur’an:
وَخَلَقَ كلَّ شَىۡءٍ
Allah Created absolutely everything. Allah, the Lord of the worlds, Created the human beings, the jinn, the angels, the animals that walk the earth, the birds that fly in the sky, and the fish that swim in the deepest of oceans. Allah subhanahu wa ta^ala Created everything from the smallest particle to the largest body, which is the ^Arsh. He is not in need of anything. He is free of all need, not like His creation. Whatever He Wills, happens. What a person is due to catch, they will never miss it; and what they are due to miss, they will never catch it. One needs to busy themselves with doing the good deeds for the sake of their Hereafter. All of this, its basis is the acquisition of the religious knowledge. How does a person do good deeds, except by acquiring religious knowledge?
The jinn are nothing to be feared. The jinn are a creation just like we are a creation and Allah is our Creator. The first amongst them was Iblees1, the devil. The jinn are Created from a fire without smoke; it might be said, “a smokeless fire.” Amongst them are Muslims and amongst them are kafirs. The kafirs amongst them are called shayateen (devils); they are kafir jinns. They see us but we don’t see them in their original shape; unless they take on another shape. For example, if they take the shape of a snake, a dog, or even a human2 then we would see them; otherwise, we don’t see them.
They generally live in deserted places. So, they generally don’t live where humans are. Some mentioned that they live around the seafront, in which you don’t generally find people living there. Some also say that they live in grave yards. Generally you don’t find people living there.
Some of them live for a very long period of time, like Iblees. He’s been around for a long time. Another example is that jinni who saw some people traveling at night, around the time that Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu ^alayhi wa sallam, had received his revelation; but it hadn’t been that long after the first revelation. His message wasn’t that wide spread in the Arabian Peninsula yet.
It was related:
Four people were traveling from Yemen to Makkah. At night, while they were in a forest, they stopped to rest for the the night. So they slept outside. They all slept except for one of them. His name was Ja^ad Ibn Qays al-Muraadi. He heard someone saying some things to him. He couldn’t see them but he could hear the voice.
It said what means: Oh you travelers settling at night, once you have reached the Hateem in Zamzam (a place near the ka^bah) send a salutation from us to Muhammad, who is sent as a Messenger, and tell him we will accompany him to wherever he goes and aims for and say to him we are supporters of his religion; and this is what al-Maseeh (^Isa the son of Mary) commanded us with.
This was a jinni that was alive at the time of Prophet ^Isa, ^alayhis-salaam, and who was also alive at the time of Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu ^alayhi wa sallam.
Amongst the Jinns are Muslims, knowledgeable and pious people, studying the religious knowledge. Some of them would even attend a session of knowledge like this to learn. It was related how there was a jinn and it possessed3 somebody. Somebody spoke to it for a long time and so it came out. The person then encouraged it and it embraced Islam. Then it used to attend the Fardu ^ayn classes, the personal obligatory knowledge classes. This was in Australia.
Once a jinn possessed one of the companions and it affected him. So, the Prophet, sallallahu ^alayhi wa sallam, went up to that person and he tapped him on his chest. He said, which mean, “Come out O Shaytaan for I am the Rasool of Allah subhanahu wa ta^ala.” Immediately the shaytaan came out of that person and left.
Those of the jinnis who disobey Allah will be punished in Hellfire. Even though they are made out of fire, they will be punished with the fire and the fire will hurt them.
The Shayateen can harm people but no harm comes to anyone except that which Allah allows for it to come to them. As for the Shayateen, we have something more powerful to defend ourselves with than they have to hit us with. So the jinn, the Shayateen, can harm us but we have something stronger to defend ourselves with than they have to harm us with. So no matter how much they try to harm us; there are ways in which we can defend ourselves from them.
In the next session, we will talk about these defenses…inshaa’ Allaah.
1 Iblees is not an angel, as some misguided people claim. Iblees is a jinn.
2 The Jinn might come in the shape of a human being. The devil, Iblees, when he used to come sometimes to misguide the people at the time of the Prophet, sallallahu ^alayhi wa sallam, he used to come in the form of an old man from Najd. An-Najd is a place in Arabia from where a lot of bad things came. It doesn’t mean that everything that came from there was bad because there were some scholars from there. There were even some awliya’ from there. However, a lot of bad things also came from there. Like Musaylima al-Kadhdhab, the liar who claimed to be a Prophet. Also, Muhammad Ibn ^Abdil Wahhaab, a misguided person who claimed to be a Mujadid, which means a re-newer taking people back to the original. Rather, he was a re-newer in the sense that he came up with something new; he came up with his own religion. May Allaah protect us from their evil. Ameen.
3 It is haram for the jinn to possess a person. They are not allowed to do that. They are sinful for doing that; but amongst them are the pious ones and amongst them are the kafirs. Also, amongst them are the sinful Muslims.
