Solomon and the Jinn in Classical Islam

Solomon: mighty king, wisest of men, master magician, lord of 1000 jinn. Solomon plays a much larger role in Islam than he does in Christianity where his role as a magician is largely understated. The major focus of his magical work was on the jinn, spirits whose primary essence is fire. The relationship between Solomon and the jinn plays a role in Islamic theology, magic and literature. This relationship appears in numerous aspects of classical Islamic life and is therefore worthy of examination. The submission of the jinn to Solomon is a realization of the first interactions between Adam and the jinn. Solomon ruled the jinn justly and wisely, demonstrating the wisdom and power that can be given to those who submit to the will of God. The Islamic Solomon could not have been who he was without his work with the jinn and the jinn were forever afterwards shaped by the man who commanded them all.

Solomon was the son of David by Bathsheba and ruled the Israelites in the mid-10^th century BCE. He received many gifts from God for his piety including an understanding of all the languages of the world, including those of all the animals. He also received the gifts of wisdom, dominion over human kings, and control over the jinn. He used the jinn in a number of ways, both for transport and for the construction of public works. The jinn carried Solomon on a magnificent carpet whenever he traveled and when he demanded the presence of Bilquis, the Queen of Sheba, it was two ifrits who conveyed her throne to Jerusalem. The jinn also played a major role the the public works that Solomon constructs in Jerusalem, most prominently the Temple. In the Islamic tradition the Temple in Jerusalem was built with jinnic and demonic labor. While Solomon commanded both jinn and demons to work on the temple, the jinn did not perform the menial tasks of quarrying and preparing the stone. The jinn were primarily craftsmen; they worked on the metal domes and the art work of the Temple. The jinn were known for their skill with metal, unsurprising for spirits of fire. The jinn had many associations with metalworking, both artistically and functionally. In fact, there are several places in pre Islamic poetry where legendary swords are attributed to jinn craftsmen.

Officially Solomon is not described as a magician; that term has a negative connotation in orthodox Islam. This is because of the problem of reconciling the power that a magician has with the submissive attitude that is central to Islam. This negative association with magic was shared by the other two Abrahamic religions in the Middle Ages and prejudices against magic exist to this day.  The conflict between magic and religion arises from the different attitudes that are required for magic and religion. Generally, religion is more passive, things happen to a believer, and magic is more active, a magician acts upon the world. However, as Solomon demonstrates, it is possible to reconcile the two worldviews.

Solomon, as a prophet and one who is beloved to God, is aware of where his power originates and therefore avoids those negative aspects that Muslims associate with magic. His faith is reinforced by several Qur’anic stories, including the period in which he was temporarily deposed by Sakhr the Rebellious, a jinni who caused problems at several points throughout Solomon’s reign. These instances, particularly when Solomon is temporarily deposed by Sakhr the Rebellious, in which God reasserts Solomon’s humility serve as a reminder that even those to whom God gives many gifts must be as submissive as every being in the universe.

The state of submission is central to Islam and Solomon provides a wonderful example of the struggle for submission. Bowing completely to the will of another being, even the almighty ruler of the universe is incredibly difficult and requires a lot of will power. Solomon’s struggle and his occasional failures must have struck a chord with many early Muslims. Their own struggles with the demands that God had placed on them must have seemed more bearable when there was an example of one of God’s beloveds who likewise had difficulties with submission.  Solomon’s eventual triumph, reclaiming the throne in Jerusalem, demonstrated the rewards that God bestowed on those with the willpower and submissive attitude demanded in Islam. In many ways, that makes Solomon a more human figure than some of the other prophets who were more perfect in their devotion.

            Solomon’s role as a magician also plays a major role in medieval Judeo-Christian magic, particularly in the grimoire tradition of high magic. A grimoire is a magical text, an instruction manual for performing spells and working magic. Grimoires are a major primary source that scholars have for studying magic in the Middle Ages, both in Europe and the Islamic world. Manuscripts in Greek, Latin and Hebrew from the 14^th- 17^th centuries claim to be transmissions of magical texts written by Solomon. While these manuscripts could not have been penned by Solomon, there are textual conventions that would not have been used in 9^th BCE century Israel. However, their existence is indicative of a tradition in medieval Europe that links Solomon with magic. One of the latest of these manuscripts is the Lesser Key of Solomon, which first appeared in the 17^th century. The Lesser Key of  Solomon is a manual for raising spirits and binding them to the service of the magician. The Lesser Key of Solomon is particularly similar to the Islamic stories in which Solomon binds some rebel jinni in a jar or other vessel. The Lesser Key describes 72 spirits that Solomon trapped in a vessel of brass.

            While the European text does not describe the spirits as jinn, they are as close as a Christian context allows. The spirits in the Lesser Key are goetic spirits, beings that can be conjured by “goetia” or magical techniques that use material elements to persuade spirits to do the bidding of the magician. They are among the nobility of Hell, spirits who inhabit the realm of flame. The similarities between the entities named in the Lesser Key and the jinn are strengthened when one looks at the social structures in place in jinnic and goetic societies. Like the goetic spirits, the jinn live in a monarchial society, under the leadership of 10 kings of the jinn. For example, in “The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman” the jinniyah Maymunah is a daughter of al-Dimiryat, a “renowned King of the Jann” (Burton 171).While the goetic spirits in the Lesser Key are demons, the jinn are not. It is important to understand that using the term “demon” to describe the jinn is a misnomer. While the Greeks used the word to describe all spirits, good and evil, our understanding and the one that occasionally appears in translations of the Arabian Nights associates the word with exclusively wicked spirits. As we have seen, this is not the case with the jinn. An unnamed jinniyah in “The Tale of Nur al-Din Ali and his Son Badr al-Din Hasan” is a Muslim, a “True Believer”. Therefore, the jinn are not bound to evil or iniquity, but rather possess free will as humans do and can be good or evil. Just as a fire can protect or destroy, so can the jinn be good or evil. A tendency to assign malignant terminology to these spirits represents a fundamental misunderstanding of their essence and cosmological role in the universe. There is a clear distinction between demons and jinn in classical Islamic writings.  In fact Lives of the Prophets, the text that I used for Solomon’s biography makes clear the distinction between jinn and demons by seating the jinn on iron benches and the demons on brazen benches at Solomon’s table.

The relationship between Solomon and the jinn extends beyond the realms of the theological and magical. Solomon plays a major role in many of the stories that feature jinn in 1001 Arabian Nights. It is important to realize that works of literature and folklore can prove just as valuable as Qur’anic and hadith literature in the study of the jinn. Arabian Nights serves as one of the most valuable sources of knowledge about the jinn. Like most fairytales, the stories in 1001 Arabian Nights were composed anonymously and were only collected because they were so widely told. They are the Grimms’ of the Islamic world and represent public understanding about the jinn, magic, and the fantastical. In that light, they are an invaluable asset in any study of the jinn and the role they played in classical Islam.

The jinn appear in a particularly major role in the frame narrative told by Scheherazade, “The Fisherman and the Jinni”. In this tale a fisherman draws a brass vessel sealed with lead and marked by the Seal of Solomon. When he opens the jar a huge jinni emerges. This unnamed jinni, an ally of Sakhr, the jinni who initially refused to serve Solomon, was one of several that Solomon locked up as punishment, similar to the 72 spirits detailed in the Lesser Key of Solomon. Solomon’s assessment of the spirit seems to have been accurate: the jinni’s plan is to kill the first person he sees after being released. While the unnamed jinni claims that in the first 500 years of his imprisonment he would have been merciful to his liberator, the next 500 years have pushed him over the edge. Luckily, as all too often happens in literary and folkloric interactions between humans and jinn, the fisherman is able to use his wits and escape the jinn, using the same techniques that Scheherazade uses to preserve her own life: guile and storytelling.

“The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman” also shows one of the aspects of the relationship between Solomon and the jinn. When Maymunah calls the Ifrit Dahnash ibn Shamhurish, he beseeches her to be merciful in the name of God as it appears on the seal of Solomon’s signet ring. The ring was used to bind many jinn into the service of a human king. Beyond the mystical power it commanded, the ring served as an emblem of power, but more importantly of the grace and mercy of God as seen through his servant, Solomon. This means many Muslims, the people who would have heard the tales and retold them shaping them into the collected work 1001 Arabian Nights held that Solomon was as just as he was wise.  The tales demonstrate that he treated even his slaves with the dignity that their power merited.

As “The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman” indicates, much of Solomon’s power is tied to his ring. Solomon’s ring appears throughout the Islamic-Judeo-Christian world. The grimoires described the ring as being adorned with a seal that bears several names of god. The Islamic description of the ring is similar; that ring has a four pointed seal, each side of which bears a different name for God and represents a different aspect of Solomon’s dominion. The sides show his dominion over the jinn, animals, human kings and creatures of the sea.

There are rings other than Solomon’s that have power over the jinn in Islamic folklore, including a ring that plays a major role in one of the most well-known of the tales in Arabian Nights. No discussion of the jinn would be complete without a treatment of the tale of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp”, which is among the most popular and misused tales in the Arabian Nights. In the original tale, there are two jinn, one bound in a ring and a more powerful jinni bound in an oil lamp. These jinn are bound to serve their master completely without the “three wishes” limitation that has appeared so often in popular culture in recent years. In the original story the jinn play a similar role to that played by the jinn in building the Temple of Jerusalem. These jinn obey their master without question or impudence.

 It is interesting to look at the differences between the jinn in “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” and the jinni in “The Fisherman and the Jinni”. The two jinn in “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” are not released from imprisonment when they leave their vessel. This likely represents a different binding used by the magician who bound these jinn in their respective prisons. It would seem that the unnamed magician or magicians responsible for those bindings was not a merciful as Solomon, who despite trapping the jinni in the vessel of brass for 1,800 years, did not bind him to the vessel perpetually as these two jinn seem to be. The tale does not address either of their fates or indeed their origins and how they came to be bound in the ring and the lamp. The temporary punishments that Solomon uses on rebel slaves speaks to the mercy that he exhibits toward that jinn in his service. While there are some who are punished for misbehavior, by and large Solomon seems to have treated the jinn justly.

Having looked at the relationship that Solomon had with the jinn, it is also important to look at what the jinn are and their larger role in Islamic cosmology. This adds dimension to the relationship.  First and foremost, the jinn are not material in the same way that humans are. Their fundamental essence is of smokeless fire. The jinn possess free will, but are more proud than humans are. That is in part why they are sometimes described as demons. Most resent submitting to humans and only do so under duress or at the command of God and his prophets. For a parallel within “western” culture, the jinn are most similar to fairies in Celtic mythology. Both are understood to be whimsical and mischievous, both are very dangerous. Both are maligned as wicked and have now been made nonthreatening in popular culture.

There are several classes of jinn, including most prominently the Ifrit and the Marid. The Ifrit, huge jinn who almost exclusively manifest as giants, are mentioned once in the Qur’an, Solomon tasks one with bringing the throne of the Queen of Sheba from Sheba to Jerusalem. Marids frequently appear in extra-Qur’anic stories featuring Solomon, particularly those in 1001 Arabian Nights. It seems that jinn can belong to both classes as the jinni released by the fisherman in “The Fisherman and the Jinni” is referred to as an Ifrit, but the fisherman addresses him as a Marid. It is unclear whether the fisherman is unaware of a difference between the classes, is attempting to use the term as an honorific or whether the jinni is both a Marid and an Ifrit. There are also ghuls and shaytans, which are in the camp of Iblis and are almost exclusively described as wicked.  The ghuls are desert scavengers who will fall upon wayward travelers and the shaytans are tempters, who work to draw believers away from Islam.   

Not only do the jinn have monarchies as humans and the goetic spirits do, they also live lives very similar to humans in a number of other aspects. The jinn are mortal, as are all beings other than God, though they are incredibly long lived. They marry and have children. They have jobs and wage wars and create works of art. This is a far cry from the free will lacking angels who spend the whole of their existence perpetually singing the praises of God. There is even a tradition in which every person has a three doubles in the universe: a star in the sky, a leaf on the Tree of Life and a jinni known as a qarin. Purportedly, your qarin’s life will double yours exactly, they will have children when you have children, and will die when you die. Some traditions claim that your qarin is in the camp of Iblis and is a personal tempter, but others just acknowledge the existence of these spirit doubles without attaching any moral judgment to them.

The smokeless fire of which the jinn are composed also affects the interactions between humans and the jinn. For example, the consensus of the stories in 1001 Arabian Nights is that humans are better than the jinn, for all their power. Humans inevitably come out as the victors in a conflict. Even if the jinni or jinniyah in question has had many other victims of his or her ire, the clever hero will be able to outwit or overcome the jinni.  The tendency of humans to outwit or overpower jinn is usually explained by the use of water in the creation of mankind. Humans, made of earth or mud, possess the power to quench the smokeless fire of the jinn. In a desert culture, water is life. For all of the power and awe that fire can inspire, water is the source of all life and is the most valuable resource a society can have.

Popularly, at least according to 1001 Arabian Nights, there are jinn who are also Muslims. In “The Tale of Nur al-Din Ali and his Son Badr al-Din Hasan” Badr al-Din Hasan falls asleep on his father’s tomb and is taken from there by a jinniyah on a bet with one of her fellow jinn that there is a woman in Cairo who is equal to the youth in beauty. The text is clear that the jinn who frequent this cemetery are of the “True Believers” (Burton 119). The possibility that jinn have free will and use it to submit to God indicates that the jinn are not fundamentally wicked, as some may suggest. The belief that the jinn are wholly wicked is largely based on the belief that Iblis, the Islamic Satan is a rebel jinni (18:48). Iblis had been among the jinn who were “True Believers”, but when God created Adam, Iblis refused to submit. He gathered the wicked jinn who would not acknowledge the supremacy of man and rebelled from God. This shares a number of details with the Christian belief about the Fall of Satan, but because Islamic angels do not possess free will, it would be impossible for an angel to rebel and subsequently fall from the grace of God. Only beings capable of free agency have the capacity to disobey and thereby rebel against the will of God.

The relationship between the three intelligences extends beyond their agency of free will. There are parallels to be drawn between the relationships between humans, jinn, and angels and the three alchemical principles: Salt, Mercury, and Sulfur. Humans, made of earth, can be understood as Salt, the material body. Angels can be associated with Sulfur, the soul, the higher principle. Jinn serve as intermediaries between the two, neither wholly of the material world nor of the spiritual world. They are like Mercury, the animating force, the spirit. Jinn, made of fire, are denser than light and less than earth. They share properties of the other two beings, while retaining individual traits of their own. These parallels reflect the interactions between alchemy and theology in the classical Islamic world. Alchemy experienced a Golden Age in medieval Islam and the spiritual aspects of alchemy were in part informed by Islam. It is likely that aspects of Alchemical philosophy also helped to shape some of the ideas that Muslims had about cosmology. As we discussed in class, Muslim philosophy is largely Neoplatonic and alchemy and the other two hermetic arts: magic and astrology are built on similar philosophical principles.

An understanding of Solomon as Magician cannot be undertaken unless it is paired with an examination of the spirits he worked most closely with in the Qur’an and Islamic folklore: jinn. An analysis of the role of the jinn in Islamic cosmology and the relationships that they have with humans and with God helps us understand how they worked with Solomon and why the work he did with them, most prominently the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, was believed to be possible.

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