A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the...

GABRIEL. Arabic Jibrāʾīl (جبرايل). In the Qurʾān Jibrīl (جبريل). The angelic being who is supposed to have been the medium of the revelation of the Qurʾān to Muḥammad. He is mentioned only twice in the Qurʾān by name. Sūratu ʾl-Baqarah ii. 91: “Whoso is the enemy of Gabriel—for he hath by God’s leave caused to descend on thy heart the confirmation of previous revelations,” &c. And again in Sūratu ʾt-Taḥrīm, lxvi. 4: “God is his Protector, and Gabriel.” He is, however, supposed to be spoken of in Sūrahs ii. 81, 254; v. 109; xvi. 104, as “the Holy Spirit,” Rūḥu ʾl-Qudus; in Sūrah xxvi. 193, as “the Faithful Spirit,” ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Amīn; and in liii. 5, as “one terrible in power,” Shadīdu ʾl-Quwā.

The account of Gabriel’s first appearance to Muḥammad is related as follows by Abū ʾl-Fidāʾ: “Muḥammad was wont to retire to Mount Ḥirā for a month every year. When the year of his mission came, he went to Mount Ḥirā in the month of Ramaẓān for the purpose of sojourning there, having his family with him; and there he abode until the night arrived in which God was pleased to bless him. Gabriel came to him, and said to him, ‘Recite!’ And he replied, ‘What shall I recite?’ And he said, ‘Recite thou, in the name of thy Lord who created. Created man from clots of blood. Recite thou! For the Lord is most Beneficent. Who hath taught the use of the pen. Hath taught man that which he knoweth not.’ After this the Prophet went to the middle of the mountain, and heard a voice from heaven which said, ‘Thou art the Messenger of God and I am Gabriel.’ He continued standing in his place to contemplate Gabriel until he withdrew.” [QURAN.]

Sir William Muir says: “It is clear that at a later period at least, if not from the first, Mahomet confounded Gabriel with the Holy Ghost. The idea may have arisen from some such misapprehension as the following. Mary conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Ghost, which overshadowed her. But it was Gabriel who visited Mary to announce the conception of the Saviour. The Holy Ghost was therefore another name for Gabriel. We need hardly wonder at this ignorance when Mahomet seems to have believed that Christians held Mary to be the third person in the Trinity!”

With reference to the verse quoted above, from the Sūratu ʾl-Baqarah, Sale says the Commentators say that the Jews asked what angel it was that brought the Qurʾān to Muḥammad, and on being told that it was Gabriel, they replied that he was their enemy, and the messenger of wrath and judgment; but that if it had been Michael they would have believed in him, because that angel was their friend, and the messenger of peace and plenty.

Gabriel is called in Muslim books ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Aʿz̤am, “The Supreme Spirit”; ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Mukarram, “The Honoured Spirit”; Rūḥu ʾl-Īlqāʾ, “The Spirit of casting into”; Rūḥu ʾl-Qudus, “The Holy Spirit”; and ar-Rūḥu ʾl-Amīn, “The Faithful Spirit.”

GARDEN. Arabic jannah (جنة); Heb. גַּן, pl. גַּנִּים. In the Qurʾān the residence of our first parents is called Al-jannah, “the garden,” and not Jannatu ʿAdn, or the “Garden of Eden,” Jannatu ʿAdn being the fourth stage of celestial bliss. Al-jannāt, “the gardens,” is a term frequently used in the Qurʾān for the state of heavenly joy; and the stages of paradise, which are eight, are known as—(1) The garden of eternity, (2) The dwelling of peace, (3) The dwelling which abideth, (4) The garden of Eden, (5) The garden of refuge, (6) The garden of delight, (7) The garden of ʿIllīyūn, (8) The garden of Paradise. [PARADISE.]

The following exhaustive account of the Muḥammadan belief on the subject is taken from the writings of the late Mr. Lane (the learned author of the Modern Egyptians and of Notes on the Arabian Nights), but slightly altered to meet the requirements of the present work.

According to a tradition from the Prophet, this species consists of five orders, namely, Jānn (who are the least powerful of all), Jinn, Shait̤āns (or devils), ʿIfrīts, and Marīds. The last, it is added, are the most powerful; and the Jānn are transformed Jinn, like as certain apes and swine were transformed men. It must, however, be remarked that the terms Jinn and Jānn are generally used indiscriminately as names of the whole species, whether good or bad, and that the former term is the more common. Also, that Shait̤ān is commonly used to signify any evil genius. An ʿIfrīt is a powerful evil genius; a Marīd, an evil genius of the most powerful class. The Jinn (but, generally speaking, evil ones) are called by the Persians Deves, the most powerful evil Jinn, Narahs (which signifies “males,” though they are said to be males and females); the good Jinn, Pīrīs, though this term is commonly applied to females. In a tradition from the Prophet, it is said, “The Jānn were created of a smokeless fire.” The word which signifies “a smokeless fire” has been misunderstood by some as meaning “the flame of fire.” Al-Jauharī (in the Ṣiḥāḥ) renders it rightly; and says that of this fire was the Shait̤ān or Iblīs created. Al-Jānn is sometimes used as a name for Iblīs, as in the following verse of the Qurʾān (Sūrah xv. 27): “And the Jānn [the father of the Jinn, i.e. Iblīs] we had created before [i.e. before the creation of Adam] of the fire of the Samūm [i.e. of the fire without smoke].”

Jānn also signifies “a serpent,” as in other passages of the Qurʾān, and is used in the same book as synonymous with Jinn. In the last sense it is generally believed to be used in the tradition quoted in the commencement of this paragraph. There are several apparently contradictory traditions from the Prophet, which are reconciled by what has been above stated; in one it is said that Iblīs was the father of all the Jānn and Shait̤ān; Jānn being here synonymous with Jinn; in another, that Jānn was the father of all the Jinn, here Jānn being used as a name for Iblīs.

“It is held,” says al-Qazwīnī, “that the Jinn are aerial animals, with transparent bodies, which can assume various forms. People differ in opinion respecting these beings; some consider the Jinn and Shait̤āns as unruly men, but these persons are of the Muʿtazilahs [a sect of Muslim freethinkers], and some hold that God, whose name be exalted, created the angels of the light of fire, and the Jinn of its flame [but this is at variance with the general opinion], and the Shait̤āns of its smoke [which is also at variance with the common opinion]; and that [all] these kinds of beings are [usually] invisible to men, but that they assume what forms they please, and when their form becomes condensed they are visible.” This last remark illustrates several descriptions of genii in the Arabian Nights, where the form of the monster is at first undefined, or like an enormous pillar, and then gradually assumes a human shape and less gigantic size.

It is said that God created the Jānn [or Jinn] two thousand years before Adam [or, according to some writers, much earlier], and that there are believers and infidels and every sect among them, as among men. Some say that a prophet named Yūsuf was sent to the Jinn; others, that they had only preachers or admonishers; others, again, that seventy apostles were sent, before Muḥammad, to Jinn and men conjointly. It is commonly believed that the preadamite Jinn were governed by forty (or, according to some, seventy-two) kings, to each of whom the Arab writers give the name of Sulaiman (or Solomon); and that they derive their appellation from the last of these, who was called Jānn ibn Jānn, and who, some say, built the Pyramids of Egypt.

“It is related in histories that a race of Jinn in ancient times, before the creation of Adam, inhabited the earth, and covered it, the land and the sea, and the plains and the mountains; and the favours of God were multiplied upon them, and they had government, and prophecy, and religion and law; but they transgressed and offended, and opposed their prophets, and made wickedness to abound in the earth: whereupon God, whose name be exalted, sent against them an army of angels, who took possession of the earth, and drove away the Jinn to the regions of the islands, and made many of them prisoners; and of those who were made prisoners was ʿAzazīl (afterwards called Iblīs, from his despair), and a slaughter was made among them. At that time, ʿAzazīl was young; he grew up among the angels [and probably for that reason was called one of them], and became learned in their knowledge, and assumed the government of them; and his days were prolonged until he became their chief; and thus it continued for a long time, until the affair between him and Adam happened, as God, whose name be exalted, hath said, ‘When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and [all] worshipped except Iblīs, [who] was [one] of the Jinn.’ (Sūrah l. 49).”

Iblīs, we are told by another authority, was sent as a governor upon the earth, and judged among the Jinn a thousand years, after which he ascended into heaven, and remained employed in worship until the creation of Adam. The name of Iblīs was originally, according to some, ʿAzazīl (as before mentioned), and according to others, al-Ḥāris̤; his patronymic is Abū Munnah or Abū ʾl-G͟himr. It is disputed whether he was of the angels or of the Jinn. There are three opinions on this point:

(3) That he was neither of the angels nor of the Jinn, but created alone of fire. Ibn ʿAbbās founds his opinion on the same text from which al-Ḥasanu ʾl-Baṣrī derives his: “When we said unto the angels, worship ye Adam, and [all] worshipped except Iblīs, [who] was [one] of the Jinn” (before quoted); which he explains by saying that the most noble and honourable among the angels are called “the Jinn,” because they are veiled from the eyes of the other angels on account of their superiority; and that Iblīs was one of these Jinn. He adds, that he had the government of the lowest heaven and of the earth, and was called the T̤āʾus (lit. “Peacock”) of the angels; and that there was not a spot in the lowest heaven but he had prostrated himself upon it; but when the Jinn rebelled upon the earth, God sent a troop of angels, who drove them to the islands and mountains; and Iblīs being elated with pride, and refusing to prostrate himself before Adam, God transformed him into a Shait̤ān. But this reasoning is opposed by other verses, in which Iblīs is represented as saying, “Thou hast created me of fire, and hast created him [Adam] of earth.” It is therefore argued, “If he were created originally of fire, how was he created of light? for the angels were [all] created of light.” The former verse may be explained by the tradition that Iblīs, having been taken captive, was exalted among the angels; or, perhaps, there is an ellipsis after the word “Angels”; for it might be inferred that the command given to the Angels was also (and a fortiori) to be obeyed by the Jinn.

According to a tradition, Iblīs and all the Shait̤āns are distinguished from the other Jinn by a longer existence. “The Shait̤āns,” it is added, “are the children of Iblīs, and die not but with him; whereas the [other] Jinn die before him, though they may live many centuries. But this is not altogether accordant with the popular belief: Iblīs and many other evil Jinn are to survive mankind, but they are to die before the general resurrection, as also even the angels, the last of whom will be the Angel of Death, ʿIzrāʾīl. Yet not all the evil Jinn are to live thus long. Many of them are killed by shooting stars, hurled at them from heaven; wherefore, the Arabs, when they see a shooting star (shihāb), often exclaim, ‘May God transfix the enemy of the faith!’ Many also are killed by other Jinn, and some even by men. The fire of which the Jinn is created circulates in his veins, in place of blood; therefore, when he receives a mortal wound, this fire, issuing from his veins, generally consumes him to ashes.”

The Jinn, it has been already shown, are peaceable. They also eat and drink, and propagate their species, sometimes in conjunction with human beings; in which latter case, the offspring partakes of the nature of both parents. In all these respects they differ from the angels. Among the evil Jinn are distinguished the five sons of their chief, Iblīs; namely, T̤īr, who brings about calamities, losses, and injuries; al-Aʿwar, who encourages debauchery; Sūt, who suggests lies; Dāsim, who causes hatred between man and wife; and Zalambūr, who presides over places of traffic.

The Jinn are of various shapes, having the forms of serpents, scorpions, lions, wolves, jackals, &c. The Jinn are of three kinds—one on the land, one on the sea, and one in the air. The Jinn consist of forty troops, each troop consisting of six hundred thousand. The Jinn are of three kinds—one have wings and fly; another are snakes and dogs; and the third move about from place to place like men. Domestic snakes are asserted to be Jinn on the same authority.

The Prophet ordered his followers to kill serpents and scorpions if they intruded at prayers; but on other occasions, he seems to have required first to admonish them to depart, and then, if they remained, to kill them. The Doctors, however, differ in opinion whether all kinds of snakes or serpents should be admonished first; or whether any should; for the Prophet, say they, took a covenant of the Jinn [probably after the above-mentioned command], that they should not enter the houses of the faithful; therefore, it is argued, if they enter, they break their covenant, and it becomes lawful to kill them without previous admonishment. Yet it is related that ʿĀyishah, one of the Prophet’s wives, having killed a serpent in her chamber, was alarmed by a dream, and fearing that it might have been a Muslim Jinnī, as it did not enter her chamber, when she was undressed, gave in alms, as an expiation, twelve thousand dirhams (about £300), the price of the blood of a Muslim.

The Jinn are said to appear to mankind most commonly in the shapes of serpents, dogs, cats, or human beings. In the last case they are sometimes of the stature of men, and sometimes of a size enormously gigantic. If good, they are generally resplendently handsome; if evil, horribly hideous. They become invisible at pleasure (by a rapid extension or rarefaction of the particles which compose them), or suddenly disappear in the earth or air, or through a solid wall. Many Muslims in the present day profess to have seen and held intercourse with them.

The Zaubaʿah, which is a whirlwind that raises the sand or dust in the form of a pillar of prodigious height, often seen sweeping across the deserts and fields, is believed to be caused by the flight of an evil genii. To defend themselves from a Jinn thus “riding in the whirlwind,” the Arabs often exclaim, “Iron! Iron!” (Ḥadīd! Ḥadīd!) or, “Iron! thou unlucky!” (Ḥadīd! yā Mashūm!), as the Jinn are supposed to have a great dread of that metal; or they exclaim, “God is most great!” (Allāhu akbar!) A similar superstition prevails with respect to the waterspout at sea.