Ok.
Good. 
In pre-Islam, the jinn (Romanized: djinn. Anglicized: genies) were understood to be Arabian nature spirits, similar to satyrs or nymphs in Greek mythology. Perhaps even sinilar to the fae. They were known to inhabit the deserts, and associated with the wind. While the people generally feared their tricky nature, the nomads who often roamed the isolated lands were in cooperation with the jinn.
Devils/demons/fiends have varying origin stories, mainly found within Islam. Pre-Islam has jinn and fiends regarded as the same. The latter being those with a wicked nature. In Islam, devils/demons are known as shaitans. As I mentioned, there are multiple viewpoints of what exactly they are; a common issue in Islam. While some say that they are their own distinct kin- created from smoke or hellfire- others believe they are a type of jinn. It’s not really about which is more powerful, but more so that they have different ways of being.
I personally don’t subscribe to the idea of Azazel being a jinn or related to the jinn at all. Islam tends to lack a solid definition for some major aspects of their belief. I believe the reason Azazel is placed as the main transgressor in one of the stories of Islams rebellion story comes from Enoch 10:12:
“All the earth has been corrupted by the effects of the teaching of Azazel. To him therefore ascribe the whole crime.”
And jinns already being altered by Islam as a major class of spirits in their faith, his ties to them followed. Later on being increased by occultists.
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That makes sense. So basically nature related spirits that through Islamic belief/religion became djinns?
They’ve always been jinn. It’s more so that they have been warped by Islam into spirits who take root in their theology. In other words: they were borrowed and incorporated into Islam
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Hmm okay. Kinda what other religions/cultures do to other spirits as well.
Exactly
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They’re all jinn lol
They’re not though.
Demon and devil I’d hold roughly synonymous for spirit cast into the underworld rather than inherently of it. Djinn are a whole different fuckeroo, the claim being that they’re of our world.
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Exactly. There’s different types of jinn. I say use the term that makes you comfortable
Djinn date back to Sumer as nature spirits, Jinn alone are shown to have various species within them.
All of the above are spirits of some sort, the distinction between them is academic at best and hotly debated. It is a bit like Christian Demonology and Angelogy, where wars have been fought about the question of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.
Since Azazel was mentioned, I must point out that in Islam, Azazel (or Azazil) is believed to be Satan (Shaitan), the Angel that rebelled against God and was thus cast into the Abyss, along with the angels that rebelled with him. It gets more complicated still, because according to pre-Islamic belief, which survives to this day, the Azazil were goat-headed demons that lived in the desert.
I have seen Azazel’s true form and I can confirm that he is indeed a goat-headed chimera and that he does live deep underground. It is also interesting to note, that if he is indeed a fallen angel, leader of the watchers, as is commonly believed, that there is an entire class of angels in Judaism (one of four), which is made up of chimeras, human-animal hybrids, with the most common being Sphinx-like beings or winged angels with eagle heads. This of course all comes from Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythology.
Good luck sorting all of that out…
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I dont think the distinction is purely academic, different race of beings isn’t really just academic. There’s a variety of difference between them. Though Azazel has been linked back as far as Sumer atleast academically but he has always been tied to goat-like nature spirits, goat-like demons, and various djinn of the Sumer lore.
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Of course there are differences between the various spirit races, but my point is they are all still spirits and we don’t even know what that is…
In the popular imagination spirits are disembodied beings, but to anyone who has seen them in the Astral, it is clear they have bodies just like us, though it seems that perhaps it is made of a different kind of, subtler matter.
These beings do not exist in the same reality as us, whether they are shifted to another, perhaps higher dimensional spacetime construct, are phase-shifted, in a parallel universe, or something else entirely is anybody’s guess.
I suspect that in the end, it all has to do with vibration and they simply exist in a realm that does not vibrate at the same wavelength as our own, is therefore not accessible or even visible to us under normal circumstances, yet it is actually very close to us both vibrationally and in terms of physical distance.
The laws of physics and biology are likely very different in these other realms, hence we can witness such strange effects as being able to fly / levitate with ease or find many different kinds of humanoid bodies and human-animal hybrids.
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I don’t really consider them spirits, just as people call their plane the spiritual plane it’s only called that by most people because it’s not part of our physical. However, for them their plane is their physical, to each other they are solid/solid-esque for elementals and we are spirits. So in the end they’re not spirits outside of people’s choice to call what isn’t part of our own physical “spirits” which is how I see it anyway.
Although, they do have flesh and blood, angels I’ve seen bleed though their blood is not red, dragons I’ve seen bleed red, elementals I’ve seen bleed energy. Their plane simply vibrates on a different density but to be there they and those who project there are part of that density and thus they are able to interact with it. Though my view on the astral is the plane of imagination and collective unconscious so us and other entities go there for various reasons rather than actually live there.
But I do believe our laws are very similar as above so below to that degree, except their laws are not as dense as our own due to our vibrational density vibrating much slower than theirs, etheric plane their home vibrates faster than our own, but we are all linked in a way through the collective unconscious/astral which vibrates faster than both which allows and is the reason why the imagination manifests on a whim there.
Because in their plane those things require practice just as they do here, in the astral/mental you can without even putting any practice in.
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Interesting points…
In at least one way, their realm is very different and that is in their relationship to time. Again, I’m simplifying, because there are probably many different realms, but the one closest to our own is generally called the Astral.
I’m not sure I subscribe to the whole density classification, it seems to me it is based on a misunderstanding of how higher dimensional realms operate. As far as I can tell, there are different states of matter than here, including one known as liquid light, an impossibility in our realm, pretty much. Those examples would indicate a completely different set of natural laws, not to mention the fact that people can fly around and do all sorts of miraculous things that would contravene the laws of nature in our reality.
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I personally reject the idea of higher and lower planes, to me they all exist in the same space but vibrate faster or slower in their own spectrum. I find the concept of higher and lower always is followed by the new age idea of high=good and divine and low=hellish and demonic but in the astral where you don’t need to practice to do anything and just need your imagination is often a good place to start for new projectors and I personally use it for an astral temple with a few thoughtforms, but eventually I’ll try and get a temple on our energetic layer as well as in the etheric with the right stuff.
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I agree. Higher and Lower actually refers to frequency here. Not that one is better than the other, a deep tone can be just as pleasing, even more so, in fact, than a higher tone.
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You are oversimplifying things a bit. Iblis was considered to be a jinn prior to his ascension as Al Harith (Azazil). Even after his ascension, there is a varying belief that he was still jinn just was granted more authority over the holy land due to being in Allah’s favor.
In early Islam, jinn were not considered to be demons. Jinn were initially considered to be neutral spirits that leaned more towards nature. Some jinn were good, some jinn were bad, and then you had those that were neither.
As time went on though, Islam incorporated more Jewish ideals into their religion which in turn painted jinn in a more different light, now jinn were considered to be synonymous to demons.
Yes I know that Iblis did fall, but in early Islam shaitan was not just a title or label for one being, it was used for any jinn that was rebellious or malevolent in nature.
Also, Azazil isn’t the proper term for the goat spirits you are talking about. The beings you are talking about are known as se’irim. Azazil was said to be the chief of them and they really weren’t considered to be demons until Jewish influence. If I remember correctly, the se’irim stem from the shedim and the shedim stem from the lamassu who were considered to be Mesopotamian protection spirits that were associated with the flying class of jinn/genii.
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