Sent to All the Jinn and the Whole of Humanity

Wa huwa al-mabʿūthu ilā ʿāmmati al-jinni wa kāffati al-warā bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-l-hudā, wa bi-l-nūri wa-l-ḍiyāʾ. He is an emissary to all the jinn and the whole of humanity, with truth and guidance, light and radiance.

One distinctive factor of the Prophet (peace be upon him) over many other prophets is that his prophethood is not going to be limited, except by the end of this world. His prophecy extends all the way from his time, through the 1,400 years that have passed, and all the way until the Last Day. And it is to all people, and to all creatures; so it is to the jinn as well. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said that he has been sent to everyone, to all. He is the emissary to all of the jinn and the whole of humanity, with truth and guidance, light and radiance.

What is a jinn? That is part of our ʿaqīdah: to believe in that creation of Allah (swt). They are made from a special fire, just as angels are made from a special nūr, a light. We are considered to be created from soil, though we don't really see soil as part of us. It is our origin, but now it looks different, just as with bread: try to take the flour out of bread once it's baked. It is a similar kind of thing.

So it is a special type of fire that the jinn were created from, and a special type of light that the angels were created from. But their origins alone tell us the nature of those things: the angels and their angelic qualities (light is a purer thing than fire, for instance), and the human being from soil. That's why we need humbleness and humility.

One of the definitions of jinn is: wa hum ajsāmun ʿāqilatun khafiyyatun yaghlibu ʿalayhim al-nāriyyatu wa-l-hawā. These are subtle bodies that have a form of intellect, but fire and hawā, desire, are dominant in them.

What the scholars who have studied the jinn say about them is that they have a very high imagination. That is why, if jinns convey anything, it really, really has to be taken with a grain of salt, indeed with a lot of salt, because they have a huge imagination, so they would blow the reality out of proportion, and may say something.