The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments
General
The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
It is said that God created the Jánn [or Jinn] two thousand years before
Adam [or, according to some writers, much earlier]; and that there are
believers and infidels and every sect among them, as among
men.[61]--Some say that a prophet, named Yoosuf, was sent to the Jinn:
others, that they had only preachers, or admonishers: others, again,
that seventy apostles were sent, before Moḥammad, to Jinn and men
conjointly.[62] It is commonly believed that the preadamite Jinn were
governed by forty (or, according to some, seventy-two) kings, to each of
whom the Arab writers give the name of Suleymán (or Solomon); and that
they derive their appellation from the last of these, who was called
Jánn Ibn-Jánn, and who, some say, built the Pyramids of Egypt. The
following account of the preadamite Jinn is given by El-Ḳazweenee.--"It
is related in histories, that a race of Jinn, in ancient times, before
the creation of Adam, inhabited the earth, and covered it, the land and
the sea, and the plains and the mountains; and the favours of God were
multiplied upon them, and they had government, and prophecy, and
religion, and law; but they transgressed and offended, and opposed their
prophets, and made wickedness to abound in the earth; whereupon God,
whose name be exalted, sent against them an army of Angels, who took
possession of the earth, and drove away the Jinn to the regions of the
islands, and made many of them prisoners; and of those who were made
prisoners was 'Azázeel [afterwards called Iblees, from his _despair_];
and a slaughter was made among them. At that time, 'Azázeel was young:
he grew up among the Angels [and probably for that reason was called one
of them], and became learned in their knowledge, and assumed the
government of them; and his days were prolonged until he became their
chief; and thus it continued for a long time, until the affair between
him and Adam happened, as God, whose name be exalted, hath said, 'When
we said unto the Angels, Worship[63] ye Adam, and [all] worshipped
except Iblees, [who] was [one] of the Jinn.'"[64]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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