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Thomas Keightley – World Guide to fairies etc

According to Arabian writers there is a species of beings called Jinn [or Djin] which were created and occupied the earth several 1000 years before Adam.  A tradition from the prophet says that they were formed of 'smokeless fire' … They were governed by a succession of 40 -  or others say 72  - monarchs named Suleyman, the last of whom who was called Jan-ibn-Jan  built the pyramids.  Prophets were sent from time to time to instruct and admonish them, but on their continued disobedience, an army of angels appeared, who drove them from the earth to the regions of the islands, making them prisoners and slaughtering many more.

The Jinn are not immortal, they are to survive mankind but to die before the general resurrection.  Even at present many of them are slain by other Jinn or by men but chiefly by shooting stars hurled at them from heaven..

The fire of which they were created, circulates instead of blood and when they receive a mortal wound it bursts forth and consumes them to ashes.  They ‘eat and drink’ and propagate their species.

Some of the Jinn are obedient to the will of God, others are like the Deevs, disobedient and malignant.  Both kinds are divided into community and ruled over by princes.  They have the power to make themselves visible or invisible.... They can assume the form of various animals, especially those of serpents, cats and dogs.  When they appear in human form, the good Jinn is usually of great beauty, that of the evil one of hideous deformity and sometimes of gigantic size.