Pagina 902 van 1116

[FN#12] The Arab. singular (whence the French "genie"), fem.

Jinniyah; the Div and Rakshah of old Guebre-land and the

"Rakshasa," or "Yaksha," of Hinduism. It would be interesting to

trace the evident connection, by no means "accidental," of "Jinn"

with the "Genius" who came to the Romans through the Asiatic

Etruscans, and whose name I cannot derive from "gignomai" or

"genitus." He was unknown to the Greeks, who had the Daimon

{Greek Letters}, a family which separated, like the Jinn and the

Genius, into two categories, the good (Agatho-daemons) and the

bad (Kako-daemons). We know nothing concerning the status of the

Jinn amongst the pre-Moslemitic or pagan Arabs: the Moslems made

him a supernatural anthropoid being, created of subtile fire

(Koran chapts. xv. 27; lv. 14), not of earth like man,

propagating his kind, ruled by mighty kings, the last being Jan

bin Jan, missionarised by Prophets and subject to death and

Judgment.