I know that there are mythological differences. In Islam, djinn already existed prior to the rebellion is Iblis, and that Iblis was himself originally a djinn. God made the djinn from smokeless fire and gave them free will. They weren’t necessarily evil, but it’s clear that there were “issues” between them and man kind.
The demons of Christianity were originally angels who fell from heaven because they followed Lucifer. They then set out to lead man away from god. So as far as the Christian dichotomy goes, that makes them inherently evil. However, I know that Christianity has borrowed from other cultures, and that the Bible has went through different editions, each being a rewriting to fit the current culture or miss interpretations.
I know that many so called demons and fallen angels in judio-Christianity also bleed into Islam as Djinn. So I’m wondering are demons/daemons the same as djinn. If not how do they differ?
I couldn’t find the post where this came up last, and it was inconclusive, but I’m still of the opinion that while the high level daemons from the Goetia etc are re-labeled deities and very high dimensional beings, the djinn are “of the Earth”. Daemons, whether labeled angel or demon are not of the Earth.
Anything of the Earth is essentially a kind of planetary or nature spirit, closer to the unseelie fae, spirits of place and guardians, even cryptids, but Djinn are thier own species.
So when you evoke a daemon, you tend to get an aspect of that entity, it’s omnipresent and can appear to multiple occultists at the same time.
A Djinn, from my experience is less so, and can bi- and multi-locate like humans can, but it’s harder, and I don’t feel that they are omnipresent.
In my own dealings with djinn, they have appeared to me much more like highly evolved black elves in feel and aspect than anything else, with thier own realm and families, that that is partly what I base this opinion on. But that could just be me.
I never approached them from the cultural bias set in the quaran, however, I started with The Book of Smokeless Fire and let them tell me how they wanted to be seen, and it wasn’t as ugly, bloodthirsty, monsters filled with mindless rage. I can see a parallel here with the medieval treatment of Goetic daemons vs today’s demonolatry. But very little work has been done to earn specific Djinn’s trust and friendship comparatively speaking, so they are still fairly angry and volatile by default compared to the higher minded daemonic entities, and they are still trapped and abused by dualistic religion in the East so I can’t really blame them.
Djinn and demons are different. If you look more into the Pre-Islamic stuff they were seen either as nature spirits or minor deities.
Before Islam, people would have similar traditions as those who worked with the faery in other traditions. In Pre-Islamic times, people would typically give offerings to the djinn as a way to get permission to co-exist with them on the land in which they lived and asked them to keep their land prosperous for good harvests and things of that nature.
Persian’s called the land of the djinn “Peristan” which literally translates to “realm of the faery” in their language which is another interesting parallel to add as well.
Djinn were not typically viewed as demons up until Islam. Prior to this religion they were considered to be neutral spirits although there were certain types of djinn that were seen as more malicious like the Ghul. The Ifrit didn’t really become a violent type of djinn up until Solomon enslaved them and used them to dethrone The Queen of Sheba.
