Questions on the People of the Book, and the Jinn

Another question, read from a note, concerned eating at the homes of Australian friends — a courtesy accepted in return for their hospitality, usually white meat, chicken, and sometimes red meat, beef or lamb: could this be ḥarām? The subject deserved a lecture of its own, given the concept of Ahl al-Kitāb, the People of the Book. Allah (swt) says in the Qurʾān:

"...and the food of those given the Book is lawful for you..." — and elsewhere the Qurʾān directs that only what has had Allah's (swt) name invoked over it should be eaten. Without offering a personal ruling here — since a private opinion counts for nothing, being neither a shaykh, nor an ʿālim, nor a muftī — the evidence on both sides deserves to be set out properly, the conclusion left to the listener, and the subject treated thoroughly as this course of learning continues, drawing only on reliable, muʿtabar books of the fuqahāʾ and the ʿulamāʾ, never on conjecture. In the meantime, whoever feels genuinely doubtful on the point would do well to stop eating at the homes of neighbours and friends — Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, whatever they may be — until the matter is settled with proper care.

A further question asked whether the jinn have their own Shayṭāns assigned to them, in the way every human being is given one from puberty onward. The honest answer is that this is not known — no jinn has ever been seen, let alone asked, and nothing in the sharīʿah touches this particular point. Shayṭān himself is of the jinn, of the same nature as they are, hidden from human sight; they were the first species to inhabit the earth, remaining among us long before human beings were created — the ancients of this earth, still here, while human beings are the newcomers to it, present, by comparison, not many years, even reckoned in thousands — and their nature beyond what the Qurʾān itself teaches — that they are hidden — is known to Allah (swt) alone. Whether they are assigned Shayṭāns of their own is simply not known, and there is no shame in saying so plainly.