Created from smokeless fire before the creation of humans, Iblis stood among the angels in station through his devotion. When God created Adam from clay and commanded prostration, Iblis refused, claiming superiority by nature of his origin. He was cursed and cast out, but was granted respite until the Day of Judgment.
Has no fixed form. Described in some traditions as beautiful before his fall, now monstrous — but most accounts emphasize his invisibility and ability to approach from any direction unseen.
Whispers directly into the hearts of humans. Commands legions of lesser jinn and shayatin. Can appear in dreams. Approaches from front, behind, right, and left simultaneously. Cannot be seen by ordinary perception.
Weaknesses
- mantraAudhu billahi min ash-shaytan ir-rajim
Wards
- mantraReciting Ayat al-Kursi (Quran 2:255)
- ritualAblution (wudu)
ruqyah (Arabic: رقية, transliterated ruqya / ruqyah)
Ruqyah is an Islamic exorcistic practice (also called al-'azm or ṭard al-shayṭān/al-jinn) used to expel or counteract jinn, ghosts, and devils. Sources identify the practice and its purpose and record contemporary audiovisual recitations labeled as ruqyah, but do not provide a detailed procedural text in the supplied excerpts.
Islamic · widespread across Muslim communities (no single region specified in provided sources)
Ta'awwudh (التعوذ — A'ūdhu billāhi min ash-shaitāni r-rajīm)
An Islamic verbal supplication recited to seek refuge in Allah from Shaitan (the devil) before reciting the Qur'an, beginning certain tasks, and as part of the opening sequence of formal prayer (salah). It addresses Satanic influence and is used to protect the forthcoming speech or action from satanic interruption.
Islamic · Global (Muslim communities; taught in curricula for new Muslims)
Djinn
The class of supernatural beings created from smokeless fire in Islamic cosmology — a parallel civilization to humanity, capable of belief or unbelief, with their own prophets, society, and judgment before God.
Shaitan
A class of corrupted djinn who follow Iblis and dedicate themselves to leading humans astray — distinct from Iblis himself, the Shayatin are a species of evil djinn who whisper doubts and temptations into the minds of the living.
Jann
The weakest class of djinn in Islamic tradition, associated with desert winds and taking the form of snakes or whirlwinds, dwelling in empty wilderness and posing little threat to those who know the proper invocations.
Nasnas
A half-human djinn creature of Arab folklore — possessing only half a face, one arm, one leg, and half a torso — descended from the union of a shaitan and a human, moving by leaping and highly dangerous to encounter.
Ifrit
One of the most powerful classes of jinn in Islamic and pre-Islamic Arab tradition — a fire-born being of immense strength and cunning, capable of great works of engineering and terrible violence.
Marid
The most powerful class of jinn in Islamic tradition — beings of the sea, associated with the deep ocean, storms, and the granting of wishes at terrible cost. The classic genie of the Arabian Nights.
Sila (Si'la, Si'lat)
A jinn-like, chiefly female shapeshifting spirit from Arabian folklore, the Sila (Si'la/Si'lat) is associated with desolate desert places where it misleads travellers, seduces men, and may intermarry with humans. Early sources equated it with the ghoul; later traditions treat it as the female counterpart of ghoul-type beings.
Ababil
Ababil (Arabic: أبابيل, romanized abābīl) are miraculous birds mentioned in the Qur'anic account of Surah Al‑Fil. In Islamic tradition they appear as a divinely sent avian host that defended the Kaaba by pelting an invading army with small clay stones; tradition places the event in the year traditionally given as 570 CE.
Abadir
Abadir is a polysemous name attested in distinct cultural contexts: a legendary founding saint and clan ancestor in eastern Ethiopia (Sheikh Abadir Umar Al‑Rida / Aw Abadir), a term applied to cone‑shaped cult stones in Phoenician religious description, and a personal name of a martyr (Abadir/Apater) in the Coptic Synaxarium. The attestations are independent usages of the same name rather than a single supernatural being.
Abdul Qadir Gilani
A historical 11th–12th century Hanbali jurist, preacher, and Sufi shaykh who became the eponym and principal early figure of the Qadiriyya tariqa; venerated in Sunni Sufi traditions as an Awliya (saint) and often given exalted hagiographical ranks such as Muḥi al‑Dīn and Ghawth.
Abel
Abel is the second son of Adam and Eve in the Genesis narrative, a shepherd whose accepted offering and subsequent murder by his brother Cain form the biblical account of the first death. Later interpretive traditions expand his role, treating him as an archetypal righteous victim, a postmortem avenging or adjudicating figure, and in some systems (notably Mandaean) identifying him with an angelic lightbeing.
Abraham (Ibrāhīm) in Islam
Ibrāhīm (Abraham) in Islam is a human prophet and messenger chosen by God, a paradigm of pure monotheism (hanīf), patriarchal ancestor to later peoples and prophets, and traditionally regarded as having helped establish the Kaʿbah with his son Ismāʿīl. He is called Khalīl Allāh ('Friend of God') and is central to rites commemorated in Hajj and Eid al‑Adha.
Abū Lahab
Abū Lahab (ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib) is a historical Meccan figure — a paternal uncle of the Prophet Muḥammad and a Quraysh leader who opposed the Prophet; he is singled out and condemned in Qurʾān 111 (Sūrat al-Masad) and functions in Islamic textual memory as an exemplar of divine punishment for opposition.
Adam (ʾĀdam)
In Islamic theology Adam (Arabic: آدم, ʾĀdam) is presented as the first human being and the first prophet (nabī), created by God from earth/clay, granted life by God's spirit, placed in a paradisal Garden, taught knowledge (the "Names"), tested by divine command, tempted by Iblīs, and ultimately sent to live and die on Earth while remaining eligible for repentance and forgiveness.
Ahmed al-Badawī
Ahmed al-Badawī (Aḥmad al-Badawī, al-Sayyid al-Badawī) was a 13th-century Arab Sufi mystic and founder of the Badawiyyah order. Born in Fes to a Bedouin tribe and later settled in Tanta, Egypt, his tomb remains a major site of visitation and he is regarded as one of the most popular Sufi saints in Egypt (sources emphasize his historical sainthood and pilgrimage cult rather than detailed folkloric attributes).
Aicha Kandicha (Qandisa)
Aicha Kandicha (also romanized Qandisa/Qandisha) is a female mythological figure in Moroccan folklore described as a jinn-like seductress associated with water. She appears as a beautiful woman with hoofed lower limbs who dwells at rivers, springs, lakes and the sea and is said to use sexual allure to seduce men, sometimes driving them mad or killing them.
Aicha Qandicha
Aicha Qandicha is a female seductress spirit in northern Moroccan folklore, often associated with bodies of water and implicated in harmful encounters with men. She appears both as a wild liminal monster and as a named spirit incorporated into local ritual systems (Hamadsha, Zār, Buffi Sufi orders).
Al-Abyad
Al-Abyad (Arabic: al‑Abyad, "the White") appears in modern compilations and anecdotal references as a named jinn or epithet within Arabic/Islamic discourse on jinn. The corpus consists mainly of contemporary lists, forum posts, popular articles, and a polemical anecdote; no coherent classical origin myth or primary ritual tradition for Al-Abyad is attested in the supplied materials.
Al-Jānn
Al-Jānn (jann) is a pre-Adamite, ancestral category invoked in Arabic-Islamic exegetical, hadithic, mystical, and folkloric materials to designate an earlier class of sentient beings—progenitors of later jinn—said to be created of fire, to have once inhabited and sometimes ruled the earth, and to stand in a liminal ontological position between angels and humans.
Community Record
- [1]The Quran. Surah Al-Baqarah 2:34; Surah Al-Araf 7:11-18; Surah Al-Hijr 15:28-44literary
- [2]Satan and Sovereignty: Iblis in Islamic Thought. Awn, Peter J. 1983. Satan's Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology. Brill.academic