The Jinn Who Believed

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had to leave al-Ṭāʾif, rejected by its people, and as already recounted, with difficulty comes ease:

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) went through a difficult time, a hardship, at al-Ṭāʾif, and Allah (swt) followed it with a blessing. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was reciting Qurʾān in the desert, and some jinn happened to be in the area; the words of the Qurʾān attracted them, and they came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and learned from him verses of the Qurʾān, and ended up becoming Muslim.

What are jinn? Jinn are a world of creatures possessing intelligence, living on Earth alongside mankind, with a similar structure and life to human beings. They have clans, families, tribes and nations. They speak different dialects and languages and follow different religions, so they are quite similar to human beings. The difference is that they were created from fire, while mankind was created from clay. They see human beings, but human beings do not see them. There are jinn who are Christian, Muslim jinn, Jewish jinn, jinn who speak Arabic, jinn who speak English, jinn who speak Russian, and they may even follow the customs of the land in which they live. Many of the supernatural or strange events that appear on the front pages of tabloids — the sighting of a UFO, and other such interesting things — might easily be explained as this: jinn, an intelligent world living on Earth alongside mankind. These haunted places and all of this can be explained easily by Muslims; it is not a big deal, though there is a whole mythology surrounding these supernatural events and a whole entertainment industry that is based on it — movies and stories and Halloween and all of that — when there is a simple thing behind it, and that is that there is a world of creatures living alongside mankind that cannot be seen. Sometimes there might be sightings of them, but most of the time there are not, while they have access to human beings and can see them.

Jinn came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and accepted Islam. There may have been more than one such occasion, since the matter is mentioned twice in the Qurʾān: once in Sūrat al-Jinn, and once in Sūrat al-Aḥqāf.

Mention is made of when a group of jinn were directed toward the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), listening to the Qurʾān; when they attended it, they said to each other, "Listen quietly." When it was concluded, they went back to their people as warners, saying: "O our people, we have heard a recital sent down after Mūsā, confirming what was before it, and guiding to the truth and to a straight path."

One commentator of the Qurʾān who gave tafsīr raises a question: how did the jinn come to say that they had heard something revealed after Mūsā, and not mention ʿĪsā? His explanation was that these jinn were Jewish, following the message of Mūsā, so when they heard the Qurʾān they said, "This is a revelation coming after the revelation given to Mūsā." This commentator says these jinn were in fact from Yemen, where there were some Jews. That is one way of reading the verse; it is not necessarily the only view, but it is also an indication that jinn follow the customs of the people among whom they live. They said: "O our people, we have heard the recited Book sent down after Mūsā, confirming what was before it, and guiding to the truth and to a straight path."

"O our people, respond to the call of Allah and believe in Him: He will forgive you your sins and protect you from a painful punishment. But he who does not respond to the call of Allah will not cause failure to Him upon the earth, and he will have no protectors besides Him. Such people are in manifest error."