By sam(SJC)Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered: by Sam

By sam(SJC)Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms

 Considered:

.

Introduction

The objective of this article is to summarise my reasoning for 

rendering a number of words in the translation which features 

in my work The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation the way I do. 

The subject matter lacks concreteness by definition since we 

are dealing, at least in part, with unseen forces. My results are, I 

think, both consistent within the terms I have set myself (of pan-

textual integrity), and with the broader text.

I do not present involved detail on each of the topics I address 

here. A description of the logistics and specifics of the type of 

Satanism practiced by the ruling elites, or academic justifications 

for other aspects of my presentation would require tomes, and 

would not add much to achieving my stated purpose; this is not 

the place to convince people of such things. 

Rather, I attempt here to place my findings before the reader in 

as short a space as possible. My results — in my view — are 

consistent, and that is more than one can say of the fist the 

Traditionalist has made by conflating some of the terms I treat 

of here. My results also fit in terms of my understanding of the 

Satanic features of society in general and of the ruling elites 

in particular; but, again, it is not my intention to convince the 

reader here of these features of Realpolitik. 

Readers of this article will fall into three general camps: those 

already educated in the subjects I indicate here with a broad 

brush and who are, therefore, in no need of exposition; those 

who are not thus educated, but who will conduct their own 

research afterwards; and those who are neither educated in 

these topics and do not care sufficiently to verify one way or the 

other. The first two categories will take care of themselves, and 

any attempt to make the third type of person into something he 

is not would be futile.

In summary, then, I gloss over a number of areas of importance 

in order to concentrate on my stated objective of presenting my 

reasoning for rendering a number of words in my translation the 

way I do.

Purpose of this article

The Qur’an tells us that ‘the satan’ (Arabic: al shayṭan) is an open 

enemy to mankind and that we are to take him as an enemy 

(35:6). 

I once heard the Vietnamese generals whose strategies defeated 

the United States interviewed. They were asked, in short, why 

they were so unreasonable as to think they could beat the 

largest and most powerful military in the world. They said that 

their view was that if they did not think they could win, they 

would simply surrender. There is no glory in fighting a war you 

cannot win. However, they had thought through all parts of their 

strategy and come to the conclusion that they could win. 

That stayed with me.

As those who know my work will appreciate, my broader 

strategy and objective is found in The God Protocol. The 

present article is among those written to accompany The 

Qur’an: A Complete Revelation which work is the heavy-artillery 

component providing logistical support for The God Protocol

spearhead. But since this article covers subjects understanding 

of which relate to The God Protocol, it is included as part of the 

appendix to that work also.

To fight an enemy effectively, one must understand who that 

enemy is, what his nature is, and how he operates. One needs also 

to understand where his weaknesses lie. And most importantly, 

one needs to know both how to use terrain to advantage against 

him, and how to gain leverage over him. One can try to stop an 

oncoming train by standing in front of it — or one can simply 

unbolt a few rails and let momentum do the rest.

In order to understand al shayṭan we need also to include 

related terms and, in places, unpick the mess we have inherited. 

The Vietnamese defeated the Americans because they were 

realistic about who they were dealing with both in terms of the 

front end (soldiers and bombs) and the back end (propaganda 

interests and cultural dysfunction on the enemy’s home front). 

Had they got any part of their analysis fundamentally confused, 

their chances of success would have fallen off dramatically.

However, having got their analysis correct, they were able to 

execute a plan which was successful.

Overview

The Traditionalist’s understanding of the terms we cover in this 

article is influenced as usual (one wants to say contaminated) to 

varying degrees by the extraneous literature to which he turns 

for the “extra” information he claims to need in addition to the 

Qur’an. 

But some of the mess is not his fault. These questions are 

complex and aspects of them frustrate exhaustive analysis 

by dint of the subject matter: non-corporeal, invisible beings. 

However, by looking to the Qur’anic text and applying our 

standard process of pan-textual analysis, we can approximate 

understandings for each term which are consistent with the text. 

Some of our conclusions correspond in places with parts of what 

the Traditionalist asserts. But we are able to make important 

distinctions; for example, we prove beyond any question that the 

typical value of an incorporeal being for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is incorrect 

— at least if one is to treat the term consistently as it appears 

in the Qur’an.

We are dealing with a taxonomy which treats in part of 

invisible beings, and in which we find both main headings and 

subdivisions thereof. Demons — according to our analysis — 

certainly exist and, perhaps understandably, have no interest in 

being exposed. 

Again, these are also complex issues. What has happened 

historically is that a number of related words have been treated 

as synonyms. And this is understandable; the meanings of words 

are frequently plastic; they change nuance over time. Culturally, 

the core terms of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , jānn / ّ

جان ,al jānn / ّ

َان

 and الج

the word we render satans which has an associated meaning of 

adversaries have been conflated.

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96 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 97

The Qur’an, however, when treated as a complete text, serves 

to lock the meaning of key words into place, which allows the 

definitions of words to be recovered — or at least approximated 

— in the event that their meanings are fudged or lost.

Having unpicked the detail, we are presented with a 

comprehensive and comprehensible worldview in which the key 

distinctions between human political types are delineated, and 

in which the place of man within a context of angels, satans, and 

other unseen forces governing the physical and metaphysical 

realities which comprise our experience can be summarised. 

Moreover, that worldview includes within it much which 

traditions called scientific or occult attempt to explain.

My process in what follows is straightforward. There are three 

Sections, each part of which treats of one or more terms. Each of 

these topics opens with outline of the prevalent understanding; 

this is followed by a discussion which includes a description of 

my findings and examples from the text, and the topic ends with 

a summary and references for the term or terms covered. 

SECTION ONE

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنسِ 

The term al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is typically translated jinn (by which is 

meant ethereal, non-visible creatures) or demons. By jinn what 

is usually meant is invisible creatures with human-like aspects, 

some of which are good and some not. Meanwhile, al ins / اإلنسِ 

is typically translated men or mankind and treated as a synonym 

of al nās / اسَّ

.الن

We begin with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ .

I found that where al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ occurs with what the 

Traditionalist considers a human complement, it is paired 

always with al ins / اإلنس . ِ Never does either part of the pair 

come with one of the other words which are routinely translated 

jinn or mankind.

By looking at the verses in which they occur and observing how 

they operate together in those contexts, I came to the following 

conclusions:

1. There exists an apposition in the text between al ins / اإلنسِ 

and al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (by this I mean that they are to some degree 

contrasted or juxtaposed).

2. al ins / اإلنس ِ are human beings (i.e. they are members of 

the human race) but of a particular kind: the generality of 

men, the average men of the servile classes; i.e. those who 

are ruled by or submit to others: the masses, the followers, 

those who do not lead. (See particularly 6:128, 72:6.) This 

category will constitute the vast majority, and for want of a 

better word are those formerly called in England commoners. 

Thus, this category comprises the servile many, people with 

minimal or no power de facto.

3. al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (where it occurs in contrast to al ins / اإلنس ( ِ 

signifies also members of the human race, but of another 

kind: leaders, alphas, and chiefs. These are those people 

who rule and operate according to their own will; the people 

whose decisions matter; the people who decide in what 

world the commoners will live. This category would in the 

England of not so long ago have been called the nobility or the 

aristocracy. These are the dominant few.

4. At 18:50 we read that Iblī�s was of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . However, the 

context immediately following emphasises what is meant 

by this: that he operated according to his own will, he was 

not in subjection; his purpose and modus operandi is to lead 

mankind.

In short, al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are those few who command the masses 

(al ins / اإلنس .( ِ 

Thus, Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Caesar, and the ruling banking 

families of history and today are all al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . And the men 

who follow them, whether it be in the armies of traditional 

battles, or those whose lives are shaped and reshaped in the 

economic movements planned for them such as the cultural 

revolutions in the West since the WWI and especially since 1960, 

are al ins / اإلنس . ِ 

Given that the time of writing is characterised by feminised 

hysteria and wholesale delusion, it is worth adding that these 

distinctions are not value judgments necessarily. They are facts. 

A spaniel is not a Rottweiler, and vice versa. Things are what 

they are no matter how one might feel about them. Society has 

room for a lot of Indians but very few chiefs. 

God made people in this way. This was recognised over millennia 

as objective reality, and that reality was reflected in the explicit 

class and caste systems of those times. Today, of course, we are 

under the tyranny of selective delusion (a policy which suits the 

elites at this time), and so people are unable to grasp these facts; 

or their feelings don’t like facts, and so they deny them on that 

basis.

But if everyone were a Napoleon, who would drive the taxis 

and take care of the fields? Not everybody is a genius; not 

everybody is amazing. Most people are unremarkable. They live 

unremarkable lives; then they die. Again, this is a fact.

So today, the ruling elites which create the strategies via their 

think tanks which become the policy which is then presented 

in the media as current events are al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . And those 

whose lives are shaped by those decisions who typically have no 

conception that such decisions are being made — i.e. everyone 

else — are al ins / اإلنس , ِ that is, the peasantry, or those who serve 

the commanders.

The principle seems to be that people are born into one caste 

or the other. Before enforced delusion became the norm, this 

is what one referred to as breeding. Of course, training and 

environment are influences, but there are men who are born 

and bred to lead, and there are those who are born and bred to 

follow — a few outliers and misfits either way notwithstanding. 

I am of the opinion that the ruling elites comprise particular 

racial and familial lines, and that while they promote genetic 

degeneration and dystrophy among those they rule, they 

themselves follow strict breeding regimens. Meanwhile, 

they allow for the outliers and misfits mentioned above by 

accommodating the former and weeding out the latter over time. 

I have used Latin terms for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ in 

my translation: domini and servi in the plural and dominus and 

servus in the singular. The reason I have opted for these terms is 

that they carry etymologically the central characteristic of their 

nature.

It is important to grasp here that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنسِ 

comprise the two political subdivisions of al nās / الناس) i.e. men, 

humankind, people).

The term al nās / الناس is found in apposition with al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ , 

and this pairing is discussed later in the analysis.

Examples

Below is my rendering of verse 6:100.

100 And they make for God partners of the domini, 

when He created them; and they ascribe to Him sons 

and daughters without knowledge. Glory be to Him! And 

exalted is He above what they describe!

(6:100)

Is it not true that the commoners among men make godlike 

partners of their great men such as Alexander or Napoleon 

or the Caesars, and worship through their actions those who 

rule over them? Have not religions done much to confirm the 

rule of men as the will of God? Is not the cult of State-worship 

a debased and collectivised form of the same, and a natural 

corollary to the materialist narratives ascribed to Creation and 

human existence?

Certainly, historically, men have ascribed to the Caesars and 

other rulers connections with Deity. One thinks also in the West 

of Romans 13:1-7 which has been used to keep the believers in 

their place, for example, or of the divine right of kings. And all 

cultures have had their equivalent dogmas.

People worship power, and today is no different. Of course, the 

power of today’s elites is embedded within the legal fiction 

called government which the masses are trained to think they 

have chosen. And the masses, true to type, look to their masters 

in the guise of “their” government to protect them. That this is 

a form of psychosis and Stockholm syndrome not only does not 

detract from its efficacy and ubiquity as a form of control and 

worship, it contributes to it. The masses think that by following 

the dominant power they can obtain safety. And today, worship 

of the cult of government, which is a composite of chemical, 

psychological, behavioural and other forms of conditioning, is 

almost universal.

Most people today profess forms of atheism. While it is not 

possible to speak for all atheists, my impression is that most are 

materialists and ascribe to what they think of as pre-existing 

and uncreated evolutionary forces something approximating 

purpose (though denied as Purpose, of course). And this purpose 

— although divested of the language of gratitude to God — 

tends eventually to meld into the notion of government as the 

inescapable outcome of an expression of that purpose.

Here is a further verse:

112 And thus have We appointed for every prophet an 

enemy — satans of servi and domini — instructing one 

another in the decoration of speech as delusion, (and had 

thy Lord willed, they would not have done it; so leave 

thou them and what they fabricate)

(6:112)

(We note that the word translated above satans is shayāṭīn in the 

Arabic and is nuanced even beyond its plain secondary meaning 

of adversaries — a sense confirmed here by enemy. We address 

this topic in full later in our analysis.)

How could one leave the domini (Arabic: al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ ) if the 

word does not denote human entities?

And again:

128 And the day He gathers them all together: “O 

congregation of domini: you have desired many among 

the servi.” And their allies among the servi will say: “Our 

Lord: we benefited one another; but we have reached our 

term which Thou appointedst for us.” He will say: “The 

Fire is your dwelling, you abiding eternally therein!” save 

that God should will; thy Lord is wise and knowing.

129 And thus do We make the wrongdoers allies of one 

another by what they earned.

(6:128-130)

Here the conclusion is that ‘wrongdoers’ are ‘allies of one 

another.’ Again, this is impossible to square with the idea of al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as a non-corporeal entity, at least in any meaningful 

sense.

130 “O congregation of domini and servi: came there 

not to you messengers from among you, relating to 

you My proofs and warning you of the meeting of this 

day of yours?” They will say: “We bear witness against 

ourselves.” And the life of this world deluded them; and 

they will bear witness against themselves that they were 

false claimers of guidance.

131 That is because thy Lord would not destroy the cities 

in injustice, while their people were unaware.

(6:130-131)

At verse 6:130 al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ are addressed as a 

single group to whom messengers came but who were deceived 

by the life of this world. Meanwhile, 6:131 treats of concrete, 

physical cities with physical people. Again, this simply does not 

square with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as non-corporeal entities.

37 And who is more unjust than he who invents a lie about 

God, or denies His proofs? Those: there reaches them 

their portion of the Writ; when Our messengers come to 

them, to take them, they say: “Where is that to which you 

called, besides God?” They will say: “They have strayed 

from us.” And they will bear witness against themselves 

that they were false claimers of guidance.

38 He will say: “Enter among the communities that have 

passed away before you of domini and servi into the Fire!” 

Whenever a community enters, it curses its sister; when 

they have followed one another therein all together, the

.

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98 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 99

last of them will say to the first of them: “Our Lord: these 

led us astray; so give Thou them double punishment of the 

Fire!” He will say: “For each is double, but you know not.”

(7:37-38)

The scenario above clearly treats of individual communities 

being warned by messengers of God, of them rejecting that 

message and together entering the Fire, followed by mutual 

reproach. Reproach only makes sense among like kind, which 

fact is impossible to square with the idea of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as a 

non-corporeal entity.

Consider now:

88 Say thou: “If the servi and the domini gathered to 

produce the like of this Qur’an, they would not produce 

the like thereof, though they were helpers one of another.”

89 And We have expounded for men in this Qur’an every 

similitude, but most men refuse save denial.

(17:88-89)

How could two entirely different entities, one of which is unable 

to see the other, gather together to achieve any end whatever?

As stated, al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are the people who command things to 

be done — and in terms of today, are those who run the business 

plan that everyone else (i.e. al ins / اإلنس ( ِ is living through and 

think of as current events.

Here is a further example:

17 And there were gathered to Solomon his forces of 

domini and servi and birds; and they were marshalled.

(17:70)

We will leave to one side the subject of ‘birds’, and focus on al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس . ِ The fact that they were ‘marshalled’ 

suggests a single group of military forces. Does it not sound more 

likely that this treats of commanders and common soldiers than 

it does of spirit beings and humans?

What follows treats of the Queen of Saba’ (whose story forms 

part of that of Solomon). While the language in the segment 

below does not use either al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ or al ins / اإلنس , ِ the 

reader will be aware that the Queen of Saba’ is addressing her 

ruling class, and that both she and they are aware of Solomon’s 

policy of subjecting rulers:

29 She said: “O eminent ones: there has been cast unto 

me a noble writ;

30 “It is from Solomon, and it is: ‘In the name of God, the 

Almighty, the Merciful:

31 “‘Exalt not yourselves against me, but come to me 

submitting!’”

32 She said: “O eminent ones: counsel me in my affair; I 

decide no affair until you bear me witness.”

33 They said: “We possess power and possess strong 

might, but the command is for thee; see thou what thou 

wilt command.”

34 She said: “Kings, when they enter a city, spoil it and 

make its most honoured people abject; and thus will they 

do.

35 “And I will send a gift to them, and see with what the 

emissaries return.”

(27:29-35)

I suggest that Solomon’s practice of placing conquered rulers in 

subjection is what the Queen is alluding to; and that rulers are 

collectively known as al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ .

Later in the same chapter, Solomon is speaking:

38 He said: “O eminent ones: which of you will bring me 

her throne before they come to me submitting?”

39 A mischievous one among the domini said: “I will bring 

it to thee before thou canst rise from thy place; and I am 

for this strong and trustworthy.”

40 Said one with knowledge of the writ: “I will bring it to 

thee before thy glance return to thee.”

(27:38-40)

My reading of this is that two former rulers are competing by 

means of superlatives for their master’s good graces, and that 

this is an example of precisely the type of humiliation the Queen 

of Saba’ wishes to avoid.

12 And to Solomon the wind: its morning course a month, 

and its evening course a month. And We made flow for 

him a spring of molten brass. And among the domini 

worked some before him, by the leave of his Lord; and 

who deviated among them from Our command — We will 

let him taste of the punishment of the Inferno.

13 They made for him what he willed of sanctuaries, and 

statues, and basins like pools, and vessels firmly fixed. 

“Work, house of David, in gratitude!” And few are the 

grateful among My servants.

14 And when We decreed death for him, there indicated 

his death to them only a creature of the earth eating at his 

staff. But when he fell down, it became clear to the domini 

that had they but known the Unseen, they would not have 

tarried in the humiliating punishment.

(34:12-14)

The description at 34:14 when Solomon’s life — and hence rule 

— ended, fits best people of the calibre of the Queen of Saba’ and 

her ruling elite: dominant human beings; moreover, dominant 

human beings in humiliating circumstances.

Identifying and unpicking the components across this narrative 

is made complicated by dint of the fact that satans (shayāṭīn /

ٰـ ِطني

َ

َي

ش (also worked for Solomon. We will discuss these entities 

separately later in the analysis. For now, we will consider the 

following:

40 And the day He gathers them all together, then will He 

say to the angels: “Did these serve you?”

41 They will say: “Glory be to Thee! Thou art our ally, not 

them!” The truth is, they served the domini; most of them 

were believers in them.

42 And that day will you possess for one another neither 

benefit nor harm, and We will say to those who did wrong: 

“Taste the punishment of the Fire, which you denied!”

(34:40-42)

Of course, there are those who believe in hidden spirits, but I 

would assert that on the level of the day-to-day business of life, 

most men subject their time and efforts to the requirements of 

other men.

This question becomes thornier later into our analysis where we 

consider the fact that dominant minorities tend to possess — 

or be able to access — correspondingly greater occult powers 

than the average. At some levels we are dealing with people so 

demonised that their original soul is contractually supplanted 

by demonic forces. We unpick these subtleties later.

Meanwhile, those in positions of dependent power belonging to 

al ins / اإلنس ِ tend, when demonically influenced, to be so less 

than the rulers themselves. On the level of the day-to-day and 

the apparent, people serve those immediately above them in the 

hope of receiving benefits and security. However, this will end 

in recriminations.

27 But We will let those who ignore warning taste a severe 

punishment; and We will reward them for the worst of 

what they did.

28 That is the reward of the enemies of God: the Fire; they 

have therein the Abode of Eternity as reward because they 

rejected Our proofs.

29 And those who ignore warning will say: “Our Lord: 

show Thou us those who led us astray of the domini and 

the servi; we will place them under our feet, that they 

might be among the lowest!”

(41:27-29)

Consider also the following:

17 And he who says to his parents: “Fie upon you! Do you 

promise me that I will be brought forth, when generations 

have already passed away before me?” while they seek aid 

of God: — “Woe to thee! Believe thou; the promise of God 

is true,” but he says: “This is only legends of the former 

peoples,” —

18 Those are they upon whom the word concerning the 

communities of the domini and the servi which passed 

away before them became binding; they were losers.

(46:17-18)

Again, we are talking about human beings: a man and his 

parents; a man who refuses to follow the good counsel of 

parents. It is not clear from the context whether he pertains to 

the al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ or to the al ins / اإلنس ِ segment of humanity, and 

for our purposes it does not matter.

Traditional values for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ fall

awkwardly here also:

55 But remind thou, for the reminder benefits the 

believers.

56 And I created the domini and the servi only that they 

should serve Me.

57 I desire no provision from them, nor do I desire that 

they should feed Me.

58 God, He is the Provider, the Possessor of Power, the 

Strong.

59 And for those who do wrong is a portion like the 

portion of their companions; so let them not seek to 

hasten Me!

60 And woe to those who ignore warning from their day 

which they are promised!

(51:55-60)

The narrative concerns food, something which one touches 

and sees, and needs in order to sustain the physical body. This 

comports poorly with the notion of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as ethereal 

creatures.

The verse at 51:59 conveys a rhetorical imperative. This

only makes sense if both al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ are 

human beings with which one could — at least potentially — 

communicate directly. The Qur’an does not require those it 

addresses to fulfil impossible tasks.

Proof that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are human beings

The two portions of text which give us the most information 

about al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are at 46:29-31 and 72:1-14. In both cases, 

these segments follow narratives which treat of messengers 

who delivered God’s warning to their people, and whose people 

were summarily destroyed thereafter in an act of God. These 

messengers are Hūd and Noah respectively (found at 46:21-26 

and 71:1-28). The verses at 46:27-28 treat of characteristics 

common to both of the scenarios mentioned.

Thus, the stories of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as warners to their respective 

communities both follow directly from segments which treat of 

total destruction, and both address issues raised in the preceding 

segments in a number of ways. As examples, we find in their 

speech the need to ‘respond to the caller to God’ (as opposed to 

the denial which precedes and results in destruction), and their 

call to believe in God provides a counterpoint to the rallying 

around false gods which precedes. We find also appeals to God’s 

‘majesty’ both at 71:13 and 72:3. The interested reader will 

find more points of correlation and comparison between the 

segments cited.

Given a value for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ of a ruling minority, the 

implication is that such men responded to a case of actual 

destruction by drawing the correct conclusions and exhorting 

their own people to avoid a similar fate. It is my view that the 

recipients of Muḥammad’s initial preaching not only rejected 

(which is the Traditionalist view also), but that they must have 

been destroyed as a result. This question is expanded upon in 

my book The God Protocol.

However, even without acceptance of this point, we can prove 

definitively on a pan-textual basis that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are human 

beings:

10 Their messengers said: “Can there be about God any 

doubt: the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth? He calls 

you, that He will forgive you of your transgressions, 

and delay you to a stated term.” They said: “You are only 

mortals like us, who would turn us away from what our

.

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100 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 101

fathers served. So bring us a clear authority.”

11 Their messengers said to them: “We are only mortals, 

like you; but God gives grace to whom He wills of His 

servants. And it is not for us to bring you an authority save 

by the leave of God; and in God let the believers place their 

trust.

12 “And how could we not place our trust in God, when He 

has guided us in our ways? And we will be patient in that 

wherein you hinder us; and in God let those who would 

place their trust aright place their trust.”

(14:10-12)

We are interested here primarily in two phrases, translated 

above He will forgive you of your transgressions (Arabic: َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي

ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِ م م

ل ,(and delay you to a stated term (Arabic: 

ًىَ

ّ

َ م

ُّس

َ ٍل م

َج

ٓ أ

َِلٰ

ْ إ

ُكم

ْ

ّخر

ِ َ

ؤ

ُ

ي .(These words are found in the mouths 

of messengers, and the retort — confirmed by the messengers 

themselves — is that the speakers are merely human beings.

Both phrases are found together at just one other place: in the 

mouth of Noah (71:4) — i.e. within one of the segments we 

list above which precedes (and mirrors) one of the principal 

sections treating of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . 

Noah was, of course, the man whose mission heralded the 

most widespread destruction to come upon the earth to date in 

scripture.

But — and this is important — the first phrase (Arabic: َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي

ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِم م

ل (is found also at one other place: in the mouth 

of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , or domini:

29 And when We turned towards thee a band of the 

domini, listening in to the Qur’an, and when they were in 

its presence they said: “Listen attentively”; then, when it 

was concluded, they turned back to their people, warning.

30 They said: “O our people: we have heard a Writ sent 

down after Moses, confirming what was before it, guiding 

to the truth and to a straight road.

31 “O our people: respond to the caller to God, and believe 

in Him; He will forgive you of your transgressions and 

protect you from a painful punishment.”

(46:29-31)

The expression He will forgive you of your transgressions 

(Arabic: ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِم م

 ل

َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي (occurs only at the three places 

listed above. At 14:10 we are told that messengers said things 

which included the expression He will forgive you of your 

transgressions (Arabic: ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِ م م

 ل

َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي ,(and we are 

told that the same messengers claimed specifically to be mortals 

and were confirmed as such by their audience. This specific 

phrase links 14:10-12, 71:4 and 46:29-31 and identifies the 

speakers in all three cases both as messengers and, specifically, 

as mortals. 

To assert al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as anything other than mortals requires 

one to disregard the Qur’an’s own evidence.

Muhammad Asad’s understanding of 72:1

I will now touch on Muhammad Asad’s understanding of al jinn

/ ّ

الجن

ِ at sūrah 72.

Asad was born Leopold Weiss, and was a Jewish convert to the 

Islamic religion. He was involved to some degree in the early 

days of the newly created state of Pakistan, but removed to 

Spain to see out his days after, I suspect, understanding the 

pointlessness of any mission in Pakistan. 

His translation of the Qur’an is thoughtful, though extrapolative. 

His commentary is frequently insightful, and I quote him more 

copiously in my notes to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation than 

any other commentator, mainstream or otherwise.

I should state frankly that Asad did not apply the type of 

methodology I do (that of pan-textual analysis, and application 

of Qur’anic definitions). He also did not aim to enforce 

consistency in the way that I do. Rather, he takes a broadly Sunni 

line, though one infused by an atypical intelligence and capacity 

for reflection.

Thus, in considering Asad’s comment to 72:1 below, the reader 

should understand that Asad neither applies to all cases of al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ what he states here (he takes the Traditionalist line 

that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ means different things in different places), nor 

is he cognisant of distinction I identify between al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and

al ins / اإلنس ِ on the one hand, and al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل and al nās /

َّاس

ٱلن on the other.

Nevertheless, his comment is not only insightful, it is useful; and 

it is particularly so when viewed in the light of the distinctions 

we are establishing here, namely, that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al jinna /

َّة

ِجن

ْ

ٱل refer to entirely different entities, and that their meanings 

are consistent across the text.

His translation of 72:1 reads:

SAY: “It has been revealed to me that some of the unseen 

beings gave ear [to this divine writ],* and thereupon 

said [unto their fellow-beings]: “’Verily, we have heard a 

wondrous discourse,

His comment below is attached at the point of the asterisk I 

have supplied in his translation above. Asad places his comment 

in light apposition to that of a Sunni authority, the Persian Al-

Tabari, and so presents it somewhat tentatively. The meat of his 

comment is as follows:

[...]the jinn are referred to in the Qur’an in many 

connotations. In a few cases - e.g., in the present instance 

and in 46:29-32 - this expression may possibly signify 

“hitherto unseen beings”, namely, strangers who had 

never before been seen by the people among and to whom 

the Qur’an was then being revealed. From 46:30 (which 

evidently relates to the same occurrence as the present one) 

it transpires that the jinn in question were followers of the 

Mosaic faith, inasmuch as they refer to the Qur’an as “a 

revelation bestowed from on high after [that of] Moses”, thus 

pointedly omitting any mention of the intervening prophet, 

Jesus, and equally pointedly (in verse 3 of the present surah) 

stressing their rejection of the Christian concept of the 

Trinity. All this leads one to the assumption that they may 

have been Jews from distant parts of what is now the Arab 

world, perhaps from Syria or even Mesopotamia. 

What is of significance for our purposes is that Asad — himself a 

Jew, as we have said — associates al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ with Jews. 

Interestingly, the wording both here and at 46:29 is specific, 

stating in both cases that these people comprised some part of

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ — and, by implication, not the totality thereof.

It is my assertion that Asad is materially correct in his analysis 

above. What he has missed is the distinction between al jinn 

/ ّ

الجن

ِ and al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل ,and that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ indicates the 

dominant minority and is set in apposition with al ins / اإلنس ِ as 

the servile majority.

Understood thus, we not only have Qur’anic support for the 

reality under which we live in the world today, namely, of vastly 

disproportionate Jewish representation among elites which 

dominate all societies and under whose thrall we live, but the 

fact that Jews represent only a segment and not the totality of 

this dominant power is alluded to also.

I am not suggesting that all Jews are al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . It is clear from 

the broader Qur’anic text that among the Jews are what are 

called in my translation ‘doctors of the Law’ (i.e. a rabbinic caste 

of ideological enforcers), and that mistreatment of their lesser 

brethren for strategic reasons is a characteristic tactic (see 2:85 

for example).

It is clear also from the text (see 72:11) that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are not 

uniformly evil: some are righteous and some are not.

Colin Wilson’s The Occult

After my own thinking on the subjects covered in this article 

was largely formed, and long after I had decided upon the terms 

domini and servi for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ respectively,

I happened to read The Occult by writer and philosopher Colin 

Wilson. The opening section of Chapter Two of that book, 

entitled The Dark Side of the Moon, is found below. I have added 

explanations of key terms inside square brackets.

In the autumn of 1969 I discussed questions of the occult 

with the poet Robert Graves at his home in Majorca. 

Graves immediately made a remark that startled me. 

‘Occult powers are not so rare. One person in every twenty 

possesses them in some form.’

What interested me so much was the exact figure: 5 per 

cent. This is also the figure for the ‘dominant minority’ 

among human beings. In the early years of this century, 

Bernard Shaw asked the explorer Henry Stanley how many 

of his men could take over leadership of the party if he, 

Stanley, were ill. ‘One in twenty,’ said Stanley. ‘Is that figure 

exact or approximate?’ ‘Exact.’

The matter of the dominant 5 per cent was rediscovered 

during the Korean War by the Chinese. Wishing to 

economise on man-power, they decided to divide their 

American prisoners into two groups: the enterprising 

ones and the passive ones. They soon discovered that the 

enterprising soldiers were exactly one in twenty: 5 per cent. 

When this dominant 5 per cent was removed from the rest 

of the group, the others could be left with almost no guard 

at all.

Evidence from zoology indicates that the ‘dominant 5 per 

cent’ may apply to all animals.

The interesting question arises: How far is the biologically 

dominant 5 percent the same thing as Graves’s ‘occult 5 

percent’? There are certainly many reasons for assuming 

that the two groups are identical. In primitive societies 

the leaders are also priests and magicians. The men who 

led hunting parties would again be those who possessed 

a high degree of ‘jungle sensitivity’ [i.e. the ability to 

intuit advantageous decisions]. What is the power that 

distinguishes the leader? It is the power to focus, to 

concentrate the will in emergencies. That is to say, it is a 

form of Faculty X [i.e. the ability to access pre-existing 

streams of power lost to ‘civilised’ man in a more intense 

awareness of life].

In short, it seems probable that all human beings possess 

the vestiges of ‘occult powers’, the powers that spring from 

their deeper levels of vitality, what the playwright Granville-

Barker called ‘the secret life’. The dominant 5 percent are 

more adept at canalising these powers than most people. 

The magicians, witch doctors, witches and mediums have 

been those members of the dominant 5 per cent who have 

developed their natural powers.

While I broadly agree with Wilson’s themes, I believe that the 

‘dominant minority’ he identifies among the American soldiers 

are — to use my own terminology — simply servi possessed 

of access to the hidden realm superior to that of their more 

deadened or less well-equipped compatriots.

Moreover, in my view, the Chinese were dealing with men who, 

by definition, were lower-caste servi. These men were blindly 

following orders given by commanders who were hundreds or 

thousands of miles away sipping tea, deliberating over maps 

and, perhaps, anticipating liaisons with expensive call girls in the 

evening in congenial surroundings. Yet this layer of dominance 

has been entirely omitted from Wilson’s equation. Including this 

layer of dominance then, the calculation is more correctly 5 per 

cent of 5 per cent.

But military commanders answer to a visible tier above them 

of population managers in the form of politicians and other 

mind managers (media owners, so-called philanthropists, 

large foundations, etc.), which fact adds yet another process of 

division by twenty.

And this level itself answers to the hidden executive, or what we 

might call real power.

So if one is interested in a number for the actual ruling elite 

on the basis of Wilson’s findings, we should apply his division 

by twenty to the total general population four times to reach a 

result which reflects the actual power pyramid.

Given a claimed world population in 2021 of 7.8 billion, this 

results in a top layer of under 50,000 genuinely dominant men. 

And among this number, the guiding executive is, again, likely to 

form 5 per cent.

.

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102 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 103

This results in under 2,450 men — a number I think is likely 

broadly correct.

A corollary to this conclusion will be corresponding tiers of 

psychic or occult access. There is a difference between someone 

who is able correctly to intuit that it will begin raining at 

precisely three o’clock tomorrow afternoon and someone who 

routinely channels — and has the power to initiate — the broad 

outline of Satan’s plan for enslaving humanity for the next fifty 

or hundred years. Both have a measure of what Wilson calls 

‘jungle sensitivity’. But to ignore the fundamental differences of 

scale is a major blunder.

If Wilson’s findings are correct, then they are correct in a context 

which assumes a flat structure with no natural staggered 

hierarchy, no levels of nobility, no ziggurat amid a sea of hovels. 

I do not make that assumption, and I do not believe the Qur’an 

reflects it, either. 

When I am discussing al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , I mean the capstone of 

the pyramid both in terms of real power and in terms of occult 

power, which phenomena I believe are intrinsically connected, 

and which we outline later; I mean the roughly 2,500 men 

who sign off on the wars, economic cycles, political and sexual 

revolutions, mass movements of peoples, and technological and 

other waves of change which comprise the dominant themes 

of the closed-circuit dramas which form the lives of billions of 

politically and esoterically ignorant peons. I do not mean the 

five in a hundred infantry soldiers more capable of effecting an 

escape from their captors than the remaining ninety-five.

Sūrah 72: Al Jinn

We will look now at sūrah 72 in some detail. 

This sūrah opens with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ but treats also indirectly of 

satans (Arabic: al shayāṭīn / طني ِـٰ

َ

ٱلشي .( َّ By presenting the relevant 

parts of this sūrah with key notes as they appear in The Qur’an: 

A Complete Revelation (indicated here by means of an asterisk) 

we will be better prepared also to understand the Section below 

which has as its subjects satans and Iblīs / يسِ

ل

ْ

ِب

.إ

We are interested here in 72:1-15 and 72:19. I will lay out the 

verses and supply the related notes below each.

1 Say thou: “It is revealed to me,* that a band* of the 

domini listened in, and they said: ‘We have heard an 

amazing recitation

* Many chapters have defining characteristics. Here that 

characteristic is annahu or that (it), and closely-related 

constructions. The verse at 72:1 identifies what was revealed to 

the Messenger, and other translators tend to render along the 

lines I have here in terms of the construction mentioned above. 

Thereafter, translators tend to elide this construction where it 

reappears. I can understand that because where this feature 

appears elsewhere in the broader text of the Qur’an it tends to 

be redundant in English. So on first blush it makes sense to elide 

it in the remainder of the sūrah also. But it occurs in the present 

sūrah with such frequency that I was compelled to consider 

this feature as significant in some way. My conclusion is that it 

appears so repeatedly in the chapter for two reasons. Firstly, the 

subject matter itself treats of al jinn, whom we understand to 

be representative of the dominant men who sit atop any society 

— including ours — and rule. In our broader discussion of that 

topic, we identify a correlation between the powers wielded by 

ruling elites and the effective use of esoteric or occult powers 

by those elites. Thus, this repeated feature emphasises the fact 

of this sūrah’s revelation to the Messenger, effectively linking 

all sentences which contain the feature with the opening 

statement: Say thou: it is revealed to me, that[...]. Moreover, the 

recurrent accent upon the word that, while easily (and, again, 

correctly) elided in other circumstances, serves here not only to 

put the reader in mind of this sūrah as something revealed to 

Muḥammad, but juxtaposes that fact with the words of al jinn 

who describe historical attempts to force access to the heavenly 

realms to obtain information, and that such attempts are now all 

but futile. Thus, this format itself makes plain that the revelation 

given to Muḥammad is superior to whatever the schemes of al 

jinn might be. Secondly, this same mechanism sets in place an 

emphasis on the revealed nature of verse 72:19 — which falls 

outside that segment which comprises the words of al jinn — 

effectively pulling it back into a focus with the same emphasis 

on revelation as the statements of al jinn. Finally, the same 

mechanism serves a different but related function at 72:27. 

Without the, perhaps, pedantic emphasis which results from my 

rendering of this sūrah, these important points would be lost.

* Arabic: nafar: men (as a collective); band, party, troop. This 

word is used in the opening verse of both segments which deal 

most extensively with al jinn in the Qur’an: 46:29-31 and 72:1-

14 . The construction has a partitive emphasis: it is ‘a band of 

the domini’ (i.e. some portion of the total number of domini), 

not all members of that group. This nuance will be of increasing 

interest as we progress through the present sūrah.

2 “‘Guiding to sound judgment, and we have believed in 

it, and will not ascribe a partnership with our Lord to 

anyone.’

3 “And that: ‘Exalted be the majesty of our Lord! He has 

taken neither consort nor son.’*

* Muhammad Asad understands this statement to support his 

view that the speakers are Jews, since the position here refutes 

the calumnies heaped upon God by Christians. I agree with 

this view within the context of my identification of al jinn as 

dominant rulers. See also note to 72:4 below.

4 “And that: ‘The fool among us* ascribed a wanton 

falsehood to God.’

* Generally thought by those who hold to the Traditionalist 

view of this chapter to refer to Iblī�s. Like me, Muhammad Asad 

does not accept uncritically the view that al jinn are non-human 

entities — at least, he does not do so at this point. Asad, himself 

a Jew (born Leopold Weiss), supplies a comment which I include 

for interest: If we accept the supposition that the beings spoken 

of here were Jewish strangers, the “outrageous things” (shatat) 

which they mention would appear to be an allusion to the deep-

set belief of the Jews that they were “God’s chosen people” - a 

belief which the Qur’an consistently rejects, and of which the new 

converts now divested themselves. The reference could also be 

to the foolish in general — for example, by analogy with the 

construction most moderate of them (i.e. among them) at 68:28 

— or to the creators of lies about God, such as the inventors of 

the Talmud, or Saul of Tarsus. However, my view is that since it 

is al jinn who are speaking — whom I identify as representative 

of the dominant men or ruling elites of the time — I think it 

most likely that they are referring to one of their own on that 

basis. Accordingly, I think the reference most likely to indicate 

Emperor Constantine who, it will be remembered, convened and 

presided over the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. The result of this 

Council, at least according to Wikipedia as of January 2021, was 

that: The Council declared that the Son was true God, coeternal 

with the Father and begotten from His same substance, arguing 

that such a doctrine best codified the Scriptural presentation of 

the Son as well as traditional Christian belief about him handed 

down from the Apostles. This belief was expressed by the bishops 

in the Creed of Nicaea, which would form the basis of what has 

since been known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Emperor Constantine undoubtedly meets our criteria for al jinn, 

and so while the speakers in the sūrah seem most likely to have 

been Jews, as per Muhammad Asad’s comment, their defining 

characteristic within the Qur’anic framework is not here 

Jewishness, but membership of a ruling caste. And on that basis, 

the speakers would regard Emperor Constantine as one of their 

own. This understanding comports both with my view of al jinn

as representatives of a dominant minority (the Jewish aspect of 

which is identified by Asad), and with the refutation of common 

Christian errors at 72:3.

5 “And that: ‘We had thought that the servi and the domini 

would not ascribe a lie to God.’*

* The implication is clearly that the speakers were wrong in 

their assumption. If we grant that the reference at 72:4 is to 

Emperor Constantine as I assert, the present verse makes sense. 

Constantine (as a member of the ruling elite, or domini) presided 

over a gathering at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE of around 

300 bishops, men whose political position at that time in Church 

history was unambiguously that of servi. See note at 72:4.

6 “And that: ‘Men among the servi sought protection 

with men against* the domini, so they increased them in 

baseness.’*

* The issue of how to understand the word min (Arabic: من (ِin 

this context is a thorny one. The fact is that min forms a standard 

part of the construction in which the verb which precedes it 

here occurs, and does so in combination with its complement 

particle (Arabic: bi / ب .( ِThus, a construction familiar to most 

Muslims is: I seek protection with (Arabic: bi / ب ( ِGod from

(Arabic: min / من — (ِi.e. against — the accursed Satan. We find 

this construction unambiguously used at 19:18, 23:97, 40:27, 

113:1-2, 114:1-4. The remaining instances of the form I of this 

verb (2:67, 11:47, 23:98, 44:20) use lest or that (Arabic: an / ان ,(

and we can disregard those here. The question is whether one is 

to regard 72:6 as divergent from those structures with identical 

components at 19:18, 23:97, 40:27, 113:1-2, 114:1-4, and if so, 

on what basis. I will present in my own wording the two possible 

alignments, then give other translators’ renderings with my 

comments, before presenting my conclusions. If we are to read 

the first clause of the present verse in alignment with its fellows 

in min, then we must understand it as: Men among the servi 

sought protection with men against the domini. Here the import 

is that men among the servi sought protection with others like 

themselves against the domini. This reading, using my own 

terminology, is consistent with all other instances which employ 

the same grammatical components. However, the divergent 

reading (i.e. one which, though possible to Arabic is anomalous 

to 19:18, 23:97, 40:27, 113:1-2, 114:1-4) is: Men among the servi 

sought protection with men among the domini. Here the import 

is that men of one kind sought refuge with men of another kind 

and the complement is left unfulfilled. We will now consider 

some translators. Here we are interested in the constructions 

used, not translators’ understanding of key terminology. A. J. 

Arberry has: But there were certain men of mankind who would 

take refuge with certain men of the jinn; Hilali & Khan, keen to 

avoid textual evidence pointing to humans in the second case, 

have: ‘And verily, there were men among mankind who took 

shelter with the masculine among the jinns; Asad has: Yet [it 

has always happened] that certain kinds of humans would seek 

refuge with certain kinds of [such] invisible forces; lastly, Saheeh 

International has: And there were men from mankind who sought 

refuge in men from the jinn. We see that the first three translators 

favour what I am calling the divergent reading, while Saheeh 

International fudges the issue by using the ambiguous from, 

which can mean both from among and against. The problem, 

in my view, is less one of grammar than one of exegesis. The 

Traditionalist does not possess an understanding of each of the 

types of human and non-human entities discussed in Article 

XXV which is consistent in all places in the Qur’an (he derives 

it from extraneous sources), so it is natural that he struggles 

in his exegesis here. We have been able to present a textually 

consistent identification of the key types, and that has assisted 

us in presenting an exegesis of the verses of this sūrah to this 

point, one which comports both with that identification and with 

the text on the page. The question is whether we can continue 

in that vein here while applying Occam’s razor, i.e. the principle 

that the option requiring the smallest number of assumptions 

is probably the correct one. In our case, provided our exegesis 

is not unduly disrupted, it requires less assumptions — given 

that 72:6 contains the same grammatical components as 19:18, 

23:97, 40:27, 113:1-2, 114:1-4 — to accept that 72:6 comports 

with its fellows and that the meaning of the troublesome min 

in this verse is what it is in all other comparable cases: from in 

the sense of against. This results in a full verse in: Men among 

the servi sought protection with men against the domini, so they 

increased them in baseness. Understood thus, we find a ready 

fit in the Servile Wars, three periods of slave uprisings in Rome 

(135−132 BC, 104−100 BC, 73−71 BC) which were brutally put 

down by the Romans, resulting in the wholesale crucifixion, 

torture, and death by other horrific means of the rebellious 

slave armies. While I cannot prove definitively that this is the 

reference, it fits both with the identifications I have provided 

and with historical reality, and aligns easily with a reading of the 

grammatical components found in the verse which is consistent 

across all comparable instances. In order to avoid an ambiguity 

of the type found in the Saheeh International translation I have 

rendered min in this case against.

* I.e. the domini increased those among the servi in baseness. See 

note to 72:6 above. Arabic: rahaq. The Arabic senses include: 

lowness, vileness, meanness; weakness (Lane, p. 1777).

.

104/105

104 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 105

7 “And that: ‘They* thought, as you* thought, that God 

would never raise up* anyone.’

* I take the speakers here to have in view the domini in the 

preceding verse. Seen in this light, the implication is that the 

rulers of the time in question dismissed the idea of God raising 

up any messenger or prophet (see also other notes to this verse). 

Interestingly, the leader of the first slave uprising mentioned in 

the note above, Eunus, rose to prominence among the slaves 

through his claim to be both prophet and a wonder-worker. 

Clearly, the Roman elites did not subscribe to Eunus’ assertions. 

See notes to 72:6 and 72:7.

* I.e. the broader group of al jinn which the speakers are 

addressing. I take this broader group to comprise non-Jewish 

elites. See note to 72:7 below.

* We need to address the question of what the verb baʿatha means 

here. It is used in two main senses in the Qur’an: to raise up (i.e. a 

messenger or prophet) and to raise up (i.e. after death). Among 

the translators I frequently review, the Traditionalists Hilali & 

Khan, Saheeh International, and Muhammad Asad all render 

after the first view, whereas the non-Traditionalist N. J. Dawood 

renders after the second with: that God could never resurrect 

the dead; non-Traditionalist A. J. Arberry is ambiguous: that God 

would never raise up anyone. I can only assume that the first three 

translators were primed to incline to their view by the usual 

sources, whereas the non-Traditionalists remained relatively 

ignorant of those sources and simply followed the Arabic on 

the page to the best of their abilities. The Qur’an contains 52 

instances of the form I of this verb (2:56, 2:129, 2:213, 2:246, 

2:247, 2:259, 3:164, 4:35, 5:12, 5:31, 6:36, 6:60, 6:65, 7:14, 

7:103, 7:167, 10:74, 10:75, 15:36, 16:21, 16:36, 16:38, 16:84, 

16:89, 17:5, 17:15, 17:79, 17:94, 18:12, 18:19, 18:19, 19:15, 

19:33, 22:7, 23:16, 23:100, 25:41, 25:51, 26:36, 26:87, 27:65, 

28:59, 36:52, 37:144, 38:79, 40:34, 58:6, 58:18, 62:2, 64:7, 64:7, 

72:7), and both usages are frequent among them. We need a 

concrete criterion by which to align the present case with one of 

these two meanings. We find that the construction here at 72:7 

of an active verb in the negative (Arabic: lan / نَ

ل (is found at one 

other place only (40:34). There the text expressly mentions ‘a 

messenger’. On that basis, we can concur with the Traditionalist 

reading: the import here is of raising up a messenger. This leaves 

us with the question of the broader meaning. Muhammad Asad 

notes here: Thus Tabari (on the authority of Al-Kalbi) and Ibn 

Kathir [states that] the overwhelming majority of the Jews were 

convinced that no prophet would be raised after those who were 

explicitly mentioned in the Old Testament: hence their rejection of 

Jesus and, of course, Muhammad, and their “reaching out towards 

heaven” (see next verse) in order to obtain a direct insight into 

God’s plan of creation. While I agree in general terms with 

Asad here, there exists a broader aspect to the present case. I 

would agree more readily and fully with him if the text read ‘we 

thought’ rather than ‘you thought’ in this verse. There are, of 

course, cases in the Qur’an where you is used where we is clearly 

the import (dialogue among the companions of the cave at 18:19 

comes readily to mind), but in addition to the fact that we and 

us are routinely and consistently used by the speakers in this 

segment of this sūrah outside the present instance (see 72:1, 

72:2, 72:3, 72:4, 72:5, 72:8, 72:9, 72:10, 72:11, 72:12, 72:13, 

72:14) we must not disregard the fact that the speakers here are 

identified in both segments which treat most expansively of al 

jinn in the Qur’an (72:1-14 and 46:29-31) as some portion of 

a greater number (see 72:1, 46:29). Thus, I am of the view that 

the change in personal pronoun here at 72:7 to you indicates a 

shift in addressee beyond that of the core group of speakers — 

or one which at the least embraces a group broader than the 

core group indicated by the peppering of first-person plural 

pronouns. On that basis, I believe that the speakers here are 

addressing, or at least indicating, the full complement of al 

jinn, perhaps including the speaking Jewish element also, but 

extending beyond it to include the non-Jewish elements. When 

we consider the remaining segment in which we can derive 

details for al jinn (46:29-31) we find that ‘they turned back to 

their people, warning’ (46:29), and that a speaker among them 

twice uses the warning phrase which is so central to our work in 

The God Protocol, namely, O our people. Thus, given the available 

Qur’anic evidence, the case seems strongest that the shift to you

at 72:7 implies a cut to the scene where the speakers appeal to 

their own people at 46:30-31 and, in my view, verses 72:8-15 

continue in the same vein. Supposing this is correct, who are 

their people? Other Jews? I think not. At the level of the apex 

of temporal power, certainly in our own day, racial and other 

affiliations mean little. And in any case, a call to one’s own 

people presupposes a connection of the basis of the stated 

defining characteristic, and the stated defining characteristic 

in either of the contexts listed is not Jewishness, but temporal 

dominance. Thus, given a group of Jewish dominant rulers as 

the subject of this part of the sūrah, an appeal to their people 

— especially given my reading of 72:4-6 — presupposes other 

dominant rulers, not other Jews. Supposing we are right, what 

does this mean? It means that here al jinn — either including 

the Jewish element or without it — was of the view that God 

would never raise up a messenger. And if our understanding of 

the Roman component in verses 72:4-6 is correct, this produces 

a tension with the (false) prophet and would-be freer of slaves 

from tyranny Eunus (see notes to said verses above). The 

implication here, of course, is that those addressed are wrong in 

their assumption: God was to raise up someone. 

8 “And that: ‘We* touched* the heaven, but found it filled 

with strong guards and flames.’*

* In my analysis, 72:8-15 treat of the appeal of al jinn to their 

own people (see note to 72:7 above). Muḥammad Asad (whose 

own process of investigation was not much dissimilar to mine on 

this point) feels that in the first instance this refers to the Jewish 

people, but also humanity at large and: [...]may be understood as 

alluding not only, metaphorically, to the arrogant Jewish belief in 

their being “God’s chosen people”, but also, more factually, to their 

old inclination to, and practice of, astrology as a means to foretell 

the future. Apart from this - and in a more general sense - their 

“reaching out towards heaven” may be a metaphorical description 

of a state of mind which causes man to regard himself as “self-

sufficient” and to delude himself into thinking that he is bound 

to achieve mastery over his own fate. My own view is that the 

reference is to the broader ruling elite — both Jewish and non-

Jewish — and references their application of dark arts by which 

occult means they fortify their power and advance their agenda.

* Arabic: lamasa. This form I verb occurs four times in the 

Qur’an. In the remaining cases (4:43, 5:6, 6:7) it treats of physical 

touching of various kinds in a direct sense, despite efforts by 

some translators to obfuscate that plain nuance here. Given 

that al jinn are dominant human beings we can understand the 

phrasing of the present verse to indicate the offices of satans in 

their service (see note below).

* The association in this portion is clearly with the satans 

(Arabic: al shayāṭīn); see also in this connection 15:16-18, 37:6-

10, 67:5 as well as 26:210-212, 81:25. It is my view that both 

houses of the ruling elite — Jewish and non-Jewish — utilise 

demonic forces.

9 “And that: ‘We sat there on seats to hear; but whoso 

listens in now finds for him a flame waiting.’*

* This indicates a strict limitation placed by God upon the powers 

of the ruling elite and their access to the heavenly realms.1

 This 

limitation contrasts with the feature of the present sūrah which 

emphasises this narrative as something revealed (i.e. sent down 

by God) to the Prophet. See note to 72:1.

10 “And that: ‘We know not whether evil is intended for 

him who is in the earth, or whether their Lord intends for 

them rectitude.’*

* This statement provides a further indication of the limits 

which apply to the ruling elite to that supplied at 72:8-9.

11 “And that: ‘Among us* are those righteous, and among 

us are other than that; we are of diverse paths.’

* I.e. among the ruling elites. In my analysis, 72:8-15 treat of the 

appeal of al jinn to their own people (see note to 72:7 above). 

12 “And that: ‘We know that we will never escape God in 

the earth, nor will we escape Him by flight.’*

* It is my view that the dominant minority maintains power in 

large part by means of demonic forces. These forces mean that 

elites have known for hundreds of years that escape either into 

the earth or into the heavens is impossible. This sets in some 

relief the claims made by modern scientists and government 

agencies which specialise in the popular forms of cosmology and 

cosmogony which NASA typifies. Cf. 55:33.

13 “And that: ‘When we heard the guidance, we believed 

in it;* and whoso believes in his Lord, he will fear neither 

loss nor baseness.’*

* I take this to mean that when the ruling elite of the time 

in question heard the guidance given to Muḥammad, they 

believed in it. This fits with my broader thesis which is that 

a) the inhabitants of Muḥammad’s place of origin rejected his 

message and — in keeping with the Qur’anic narrative — were 

destroyed, and that b) since Muḥammad was the messenger for 

all mankind, the acceptance of his message by the ruling elites of 

1 One is put in mind, naturally, of that ancient phenomenon 

which is today called astral projection or remote viewing in which 

the practitioner is merged (whether knowingly or not) with a 

demonic agent, with the result that the two become virtually 

indistinguishable.

that time explains both the rapid spread of the Islamic empire 

and the fact that God did not destroy the entire world at that 

time.

* This choice of words invites contrast with 72:6; see notes to 

72:6 and 72:7.

14 “And that: ‘Among us are those submitting,* and among 

us are the unjust.* And whoso has submitted, those have 

sought rectitude.’

* Clearly, the ruling elites of that time submitted, as evinced by 

the rapid capitulation of the surrounding empires to Muslim 

rule (see note to 7:13).

* The point is made that the same dominant group contains evil 

men also. It remains to be seen which category best typifies the 

elites of today in the face of a call to guidance which follows the 

Qur’anic protocols, although I suspect it is the latter. See my 

work The God Protocol.

15 “‘And as for the unjust, they are firewood for Gehenna.’”

19 “And that,* when the servant of God stood up calling to 

Him, they were almost a compact mass about him.”*

* The reappearance here of the grammatical feature we identified 

in the note to 72:1 indicates to me that the subject of this clause 

is again al jinn. Some Traditionalists understand the verse along 

the same lines, although without sharing my identification 

of al jinn. Given my analysis of the pivot in personal pronoun 

from we to you at (see note to 72:7 above), 72:8-15 treat of the 

appeal of al jinn to their own people, and I see the return to the 

subject of al jinn here as a continuation of that analysis: a Jewish 

portion of the ruling elites of that time addressing their peers, 

which is primarily treated at 46:29-31. At 46:29 we read that 

‘they turned back to their people, warning.’ This is followed by 

two O my / our people statements (46:30-31), which format is 

crucial to the Qur’anic protocol of warning (see my work The 

God Protocol). The second of these reads: ‘O our people: respond 

to the caller to God[...].’ I believe it is the speaker in this instance 

which is referenced to at 72:19 as ‘the servant of God’, and that 

‘they’ are al jinn of non-Jewish types (as discussed in notes 

above to this sūrah). Others are of the view (I assume derived 

from extraneous sources) that the reference is to pagan Arabs. 

Muhammad Asad covers that base while entertaining other 

possibilities. While I disagree with this analysis, I include it for 

interest: Lit, “would almost be upon him in crowds (libad, sing. 

libdah )” - i.e., with a view to “extinguishing God’s [guiding] light” 

(Tabari, evidently alluding to 9:32). Most of the commentators 

assume that the above verse refers to the Prophet Muhammad 

and the hostility shown to him by his pagan contemporaries. 

While this may have been so in the first instance, it is obvious that 

the passage has a general import as well, alluding to the hostility 

shown by the majority of people, at all times and in all societies, to 

a minority or an individual who stands up for a self-evident - but 

unpopular - moral truth.

* I.e. the dominant men to whom this group of al jinn were 

calling as discussed in the notes to this sūrah above flocked to 

the side of their messenger (see note to this verse above) in such 

numbers that he was hemmed in. As a result of their acceptance,

.

106/107

106 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 107

the world at this time was not destroyed (see particularly note to 

72:14), and there ensued a rapid capitulation of huge territories 

to Muslim rule.

Summary and references

In short, I identify al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as those with an independent 

will to power; those able to initiate and impose their own plan, 

and al ins / اإلنس ِ as those who follow; those who implement the 

plan of others.

While I accept fully that there exists a non-corporeal, demonic 

aspect to the world system and which underpins the power 

structures thereof, I am unable to find support in the Qur’anic 

usage of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ for anything other than 

two types of human in free and open communication with each 

other representing the dominant and servile castes of society.

I agree with Muhammad Asad’s assessment that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ

as found in sūrah 72 likely references a Jewish element, but 

am of the opinion based on the broader text that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ

comprise a ruling caste which is not exclusively Jewish but, 

rather, which comprises a very thin cross section which includes 

within it ruling elites of all significant ethnicities.

I have taken a point from Colin Wilson’s book The Occult treating 

of the proportion of men which is equipped with the requisite 

initiative to lead, and extrapolated from his findings on the 

basis of the hierarchies suggested by our investigations into 

Realpolitik upward from the level of the common soldier to that 

of the hidden hand of genuine power in our day and suggested 

a steering group behind the Satanic powers of this day of under 

2,500 men.

I have also ascribed corresponding occult abilities based 

on Colin Wilson’s investigations to those who comprise the 

dominant minority at the highest level of world power.

I discuss al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل separately later in this article, and 

agree that it has a principal sense which relates to demons. This 

latter term has become conflated with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , which is 

understandable due to the similarity of the words and changing 

background cultural influences. Further confusion arises 

between the two terms given the inherent faculty for channelling 

demonic powers which dominant rulers naturally possess.

We discuss the Qur’an’s single description of Iblī�s as ‘of the 

domini’ at 18:50 later in this presentation.

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ

6:100, 6:112, 6:128, 6:130, 7:38, 7:179, 17:88, 18:50, 27:17, 

27:39, 34:12, 34:14, 34:41, 41:25, 41:29, 46:18, 46:29, 51:56, 

55:33, 72:1, 72:5, 72:6.

al ins / اإلنسِ 

6:112, 6:128, 6:128, 6:130, 7:38, 7:179, 17:88, 27:17, 41:25, 

41:29, 46:18, 51:56, 55:33, 72:5, 72:6.

ِنس/ ins

إ and jānn / ّ

جان

As discordant though it is with the norms of Arabic grammar, 

my view, based on the Qur’an’s usage of the terms, is that ins

ِنس/

إ and jānn / ّ

جان are the singular of al ins / اإلنس ِ and al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ respectively. (We discuss the meaning of al jānn / 

ّ

َان

الج separately below.) And within their understanding of the 

terms as a human being and an ethereal non-human creature, 

Traditionalist translators tend also to treat ins /نسِ

إ and jānn / 

ّ

جان in English as singular nouns.

I base this view on the fact that it fits both the following segment 

(where the terms listed occur in close proximity), as well as the 

other instances where these components occur.

31 We will attend to you, O you two encumbered ones!

32 Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny?

33 O congregation of domini and servi: if you are able to 

penetrate the regions of the heavens and the earth, then 

penetrate! You will not penetrate save by authority:

34 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

35 Sent against you will be a flame of fire and smoke; and 

you will not be helped.

36 Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny?

37 And when the sky is rent asunder, and turns rose-red 

like oil,

38 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

39 Then that day, neither servus nor dominus will be 

questioned about his transgression.

40 Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny?

(55:31-40)

The word ins /نسِ

إ occurs twice more in the Qur’an and in 

contexts which are similar to each other but which may be 

correlated with the segment above:

56 In them: maidens of modest gaze, whom there 

deflowered before them neither servus nor dominus:

57 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

(55:56-57)

74 Whom there deflowered before them neither servus

nor dominus:

75 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

(55:74-75)

The context in the two segments above treats of an undeniably 

physical realm — sexual intercourse with females — a value 

which requires mental gymnastics to correlate with the 

traditional conception of jānn / ّ

جان as an ethereal, non-human 

being.

There exist two further instances of jānn / ّ

جان in the Qur’an 

(27:10, 28:31). While they have historically caused some 

confusion, given our definition of the term as dominus (or one 

with a will to power, or one able to impose his own will), both 

cases are resolved.

The scenario in both cases is identical: God instructing Moses 

to cast his rod. In both cases, we read that, having been cast, the 

rod became ‘as if it were’ a jānn / ّ

جان .We know that the defining 

characteristic of al jinn is that of active will. Thus the rod came 

alive and acted as though upon its own will.

Here are both scenarios with the reading implemented:

10 “And cast thou thy staff.” And when he saw it stirring as 

if it were a dominus, he turned away, and did not return. 

“O Moses: fear thou not, the emissaries fear not in My 

presence,

11 “Save whoso did wrong; then he changed to good after 

evil, so am I forgiving and merciful.

(27:10-11)

I suspect that many translators seize upon serpent while 

translating jānn / ّ

جان by analogy with the segment below.

19 He said: “Cast thou it down, O Moses.”

20 And he cast it down, and then was it a serpent moving.

21 He said: “Take thou it, and fear thou not; We will return 

it to its former state.

(20:19-21)

The word rendered at 20:20 serpent is ḥayya — which 

objectively means snake or serpent. We have the same point 

confirmed below:

107 So he cast his staff — and then was it a clear serpent!

(7:107)

The word in this case is thuʿbān which also means snake or

serpent.

The segment at 20:19-21 is a retelling of what we find at 27:10-

11 from a different perspective (a frequent phenomenon in the 

Qur’an). And, rather than delve into the knotty problem of a 

Qur’anically consistent value for jānn / ّ

جان ,translators tend to 

drop the problem down the back of a filing cabinet and move on.

Again, serpent is the meaning at 20:20. We are told the rod of 

Moses was — or became — a serpent as a fact. But 27:10 does 

not establish a fact, it offers a comparison.

We find the same usage below also:

31 “And cast thou thy staff.” And when he saw it stirring as 

if it were a dominus, he turned away, and did not return. 

“O Moses: draw thou nigh, and fear thou not. Thou art of 

the secure.

(28:31)

Again, this is a counter-factual scenario; a simile based on a non-

real situation. (Cf. The man pushed through the crowd as if he 

were a train. Was he in fact a train? No, he was not.)

The slack treatment of the term jānn / ّ

جان we have identified 

results in a discrepancy since the same translators require it to 

mean something else entirely (usually: a single non-material 

entity) in the remaining places where it occurs.

In our work, there is no such discrepancy. Our understanding 

of jānn / ّ

جان in all cases is dominus, and by this we mean 

something with its own will to power. And in the two instances 

above, where the rod which Moses cast is likened to a jānn / ّ

جان

the comparison fits exactly: Moses’ rod acquired its own will; it 

did what it wanted, which behaviour is that which characterises 

our understanding of jānn / ّ

.جان

Summary and references

We established above that al ins / اإلنس ِ and al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ treat of 

human beings of different status.

Despite a clear divergence from the normal rules of Arabic, 

usage in the three existing contexts supports our view that ins /

ِنس

إ and jānn / ّ

جان are the singular of al ins / اإلنس ِ and al jinn / 

ّ

الجن

ِ respectively.

The comparison of Moses’ rod as something which came alive 

and had a will of its own fits our definition of jānn / ّ

جان as one 

with an individual will to power and ability to do what he wants.

ِنس/ ins

إ

55:39, 55:56, 55:74.

jānn / ّ

جان

27:10, 28:31, 55:39, 55:56, 55:74.

al jānn / ّ

الجان

Traditionally, al jānn / ّ

الجان is treated as indicating Iblī�ṣ as the 

key or chief jinn, (and by al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is meant ethereal beings 

which form human-like communities).

While accepting that non-human demons (satans) are fully part 

of the Qur’anic worldview, I do not find support in the Qur’an for 

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ in the sense summarised above.

We have covered the two instances of jānn / ّ

جان ,which term we 

understand as dominus in its broader sense of one with a will 

to (his own) power. We note that in neither case does the word 

denote a dominus in the narrower political sense, but is like one 

(i.e. possesses the characteristics thereof without in fact being 

such a thing).

The convention al jānn / ّ

الجان occurs twice and in neither case 

is found in connection or contradistinction with either al ins / 

ِنس/ ins or ِ اإلنس

إ .Both instances are found in the same context 

— a context which allows us positively to identify al jānn / ّ

الجان

with Iblī�s on a pan-textual basis. On this point we agree entirely 

with the dominant historical understanding of this term.

We will see later that Iblī�s became al shayṭān — that is, 

the (leading) adversary against God; the word shayṭān is 

synonymous with adversary (cf. Hebrew: satan).

Clearly, there is an overlap between satan (adversary) and 

dominus in the sense of will to (one’s own) power. And there is 

a connection also between the domini (i.e. the ruling elite) and 

Iblī�s as chief of the demons, since we have established above 

that the dominant minority at each level of the political pyramid 

tends also to be those with the greatest occult powers.

However, it would be a mistake to conflate the domini (i.e. the

.

108/109

108 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 109

ruling elite) and Iblī�s as the leading demon so far as to view 

them as entirely of the same type. The term domini, as we 

have summarised, has both a general and a subsequent more 

specialised, political sense, and we need to be clear which is 

meant in this case. 

We know that some among the domini (in that specialised, 

political sense) are righteous, which fact means that such 

individuals neither advance nor follow a Satanic creed (i.e. 

a creed which is antithetical — or adversarial — towards the 

commandments of God). While it may be countered that the 

agenda followed by the ruling elites of the last century is so 

uniformly evil that there can be no distinction between those 

elites and the creed of the satan, if we are to take the Qur’an’s 

presentation as representative also of the present reality, then 

one must allow that a righteous contingent among the ruling 

elites exists today.

Given that some among the domini are righteous, this fact 

precludes the application of the specific, political sense of the 

term dominus to Iblī�s, since his creed is uniformly that of an 

adversary to God.

This leaves us with the general sense of one possessed of a will 

to (one’s own) power. This clearly applies to Iblī�s fully since he 

refuses to follow the command of God and follows his own will, 

and this is how we understand al jānn / ّ

الجان in the text.

To maintain a distinction between dominus as an individual 

among the dominant human minority, and the same word with 

the definite article applied to Iblī�s, I render the latter the demon 

dominus and supply a note in each case.

26 And We created man from sounding clay, from dark 

slime transmuted.

27 And the demon dominus created We before of the fire 

of scorching wind.

(15:26-27)

14 He created man of sounding clay like pottery,

15 And He created the demon dominus from a mixture of 

fire.

(55:14-15)

The words of Iblī�s himself below confirm this identification. 

12 He said: “What prevented thee from submitting when 

I commanded thee?” Said he: “I am better than he; Thou 

createdst me of fire, and Thou createdst him of clay.”

(7:12)

76 Said he: “I am better than he; Thou createdst me of fire, 

and Thou createdst him of clay.”

(38:76)

Summary and references

The contrast in neither instance of al jānn / ّ

الجان is between al 

jānn / ّ

الجان and al ins / اإلنس . ِ 

The term al jānn / ّ

الجان — as per the traditional reading — 

references Iblī�s; we render this designation the demon dominus.

al jānn / ّ

الجان

15:27, 55:15.

Summary of terms in this segment

1. al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ in Qur’anic parlance means those with a will to 

power: the dominant ones, the rulers, those who implement 

their plans. I translate this throughout domini. This group 

comprises a tiny minority of mankind.

2. al ins / اإلنس ِ in Qur’anic parlance means the servile or 

submissive ones, those who are ruled by the domini. This 

forms the vast majority of mankind, and this majority — 

wittingly or unwittingly — serves the ruling elite. I translate 

this throughout servi.

3. The singular of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is jānn / ّ

جان ,and this is 

translated throughout dominus.

4. The singular of al ins / اإلنس ِ is ins /نسِ

إ ,and this is translated 

throughout servus.

5. The term al jānn / ّ

الجان — as per the traditional reading — 

references Iblī�s; we render this designation here the demon 

dominus, and understand it to refer to his independent will 

to power.

SECTION TWO

ِيس / Iblīs

ل

ْ

ِب

َطٰـن / shayṭān al; إ

ْ

َطٰـن / shayṭān َّ ; ٱلشي

ْ

َي

ش ;al shayāṭīn 

ٰـ ِطني /

َ

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn and َّ ٱلشي

َ

َي

.ش

ِيس / Iblīs

ل

ْ

ِب

إ

Before we look at the remaining words in the j-n-n root, we 

should consider the subject of the shayṭān, and to approach this 

subject correctly, we need to look first at the person of Iblī�s.

Iblī�s is mentioned by name eleven times in the Qur’an. This 

personality is considered one of the angels by many classical 

scholars, but tends to be thought of as one of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ by 

contemporary writers. We have unpicked some important 

features of the term al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ above, and do not find in the 

Qur’anic text support for associating this term with a community 

of non-human beings.

A detailed overview of the debates and nuances in regard to 

the nature of Iblī�s among various sects on this topic is beyond 

the remit of this article. While Iblī�s is mentioned by name 

predominantly in the context of angels, the Qur’an does not say 

that he was an angel or that he ‘fell’, and it is possible that the 

identification of Iblī�s as a fallen angel among some Muslims is a 

reflection of views of Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

The entities we will look at in this Section fall into the general 

heading of al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل ,which topic we discuss more fully 

later. But we can enter this subject with the benefit of having 

untangled the (historically often inconsistent) lumping together 

of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (domini) with al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل ,which clears some 

of the dead wood.

We present all instances where Iblī�s is mentioned by name in 

the Qur’an below with comments. As we proceed, the reader will 

doubtless note: 

1. Where Iblīs is identified, there frequently occurs a seamless 

merging with al shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

ٱلشي َّ which term seems to imply 

his function.

2. The close association in a number of the segments between 

Iblī�s and the angels.

As we will come to see, shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

َي

ش and its plural shayāṭīn /

ٰـ ِطني

َ

َي

ش — which we render satan and satans respectively — are 

closely allied with the concept of adversary, both etymologically 

by dint of usage. This direct correlation is made clear in the 

notes to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation in every instance, and 

that direct correlation explains certain verses which otherwise 

remain cryptic, for example, 37:65.

62 Is that better as a welcome, or the Tree of Zaqqūm?

63 We have made it a means of denial for the wrongdoers.

64 It is a tree that comes forth in the root of Hell,

65 Its spathes are as the heads of satans,

My note to 37:65 reads: 

The allusion here — given our underlying definition for

shayāṭīn of adversaries — suggests the age-old practice 

of displaying the heads of defeated enemies on spikes on 

castle battlements and similar places. 

We will now list the contexts in which Iblī�s is mentioned by 

name and provide comments.

34 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he refused, and had 

waxed proud, and was of the false claimers of guidance.

35 And We said: “O Adam: dwell thou and thy wife in the 

garden, and eat thereof freely wheresoever you will; but 

approach not this tree lest you be of the wrongdoers.”

36 But the satan caused them to fall therefrom, and 

turned them out of what they were in; and We said: “Get 

you all down, an enemy to one another; and for you in the 

earth are a dwelling-place and provision for a time.”

37 Then received Adam words from his Lord, and He 

turned towards him; He is the Accepting of Repentance, 

the Merciful.

38 We said: “Get you down from it all together. And if 

there comes to you guidance from Me, whoso follows My 

guidance: no fear will be upon them, nor will they grieve.

39 “But those who ignore warning and deny Our proofs: 

those are the companions of the Fire; therein they abide 

eternally.”

(2:34-39)

Iblī�s himself is not stated as an angel, but is listed among those 

who refuse to submit to Adam in the context of angels who do 

submit. We note also the seamless transition to al shayṭān / 

َطٰـن

ْ

ٱلشي َّ at 2:36.

At this point it would seem that Iblī�s is either a rebellious angel 

(in which case all angels may be assumed to be created of the 

same substance as he), or he is an entity distinct from the angels 

and who, along with the angels, was in existence prior to Adam. 

We look to the remaining segments for possible clarification.

11 And We created you; then We formed you; then said We 

to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” and they submitted. Not 

so Iblīs; he was not of those who submit.

12 He said: “What prevented thee from submitting when 

I commanded thee?” Said he: “I am better than he; Thou 

createdst me of fire, and Thou createdst him of clay.”

13 He said: “Get thee down therefrom; it is not for thee 

to wax proud therein, so go thou forth; thou art of those 

brought low.”

14 Said he: “Grant Thou me respite until the day they are 

raised up.”

15 He said: “Thou art of those granted respite.”

16 Said he: “Because Thou hast caused me to err, I will lie 

in wait for them on Thy straight path,

17 “Then will I come to them from before them, and from 

behind them, and from their right, and from their left; and 

Thou wilt not find most of them grateful.”

18 He said: “Go thou forth therefrom, condemned and 

banished. Whoso follows thee from among them — I will 

fill Gehenna with you all together.”

(7:11-18)

The motif of filling Gehenna will be significant later in our 

presentation. 

We note that, as a rebellious agent, Iblī�s operates within the 

bounds set him by God, and is active in his enmity towards the 

descendants of Adam.

Additionally, we have previously identified al jānn / ّ

 as — الجان

per the traditional reading — with Iblī�s (Iblī�s’ protest that he 

was created of fire bears this out), and render this designation 

in our work the demon dominus.

While we have included the local verses above, here is a broader 

context:

26 And We created man from sounding clay, from dark 

slime transmuted.

27 And the demon dominus created We before of the fire 

of scorching wind.

28 And when thy Lord said to the angels: “I am creating a 

mortal from sounding clay, from dark slime transmuted,

29 “And when I have formed him and breathed into him of 

My Spirit, then fall down, to him in submission,”

30 Then the angels submitted, all of them together.

31 Not so Iblīs; he refused to be with those who submit.

32 He said: “O Iblīs: what ails thee that thou art not with 

those who submit?”

33 Said he: “I am not one to submit to a mortal whom 

Thou hast created from sounding clay, from dark slime 

transmuted.”

34 He said: “Then go thou forth from it, for thou art 

accursed.

35 “And the curse is upon thee until the Day of Judgment.”

36 Said he: “My Lord: grant Thou me respite until the day

.

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110 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 111

they are raised.”

37 He said: “Thou art of those granted respite

38 “Until the day of the known time.”

39 Said he: “My Lord: because Thou hast caused me to err, 

I will make it fair to them in the earth; and I will cause 

them to err all together,

40 “Save Thy sincere servants among them.”

41 He said: “This is a straight path to Me:

42 “My servants — thou hast no authority over them save 

those who follow thee among those who err,

43 “And Gehenna is their promised place all together.

44 “It has seven gates; and for each gate is a portion 

assigned.”

(15:26-44)

At 15:27-28 the creation of the demon dominus is indicated 

as a single event and contrasted in terms of materials with the 

creation of a man. If the demon dominus were created of the 

same stuff as the angels, one might expect that connection to be 

supplied here — however, no such indication is given. And again:

61 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he said: “Shall I submit 

to one Thou hast created of clay?”

62 He said: “Hast Thou seen this whom Thou hast 

honoured above me? If Thou grant me respite until the 

Day of Resurrection, I will master his progeny save a few.”

63 Said He: “Depart thou! And whoso follows thee of 

them: Gehenna will be your reward; an ample reward.

64 “And incite thou whom thou canst of them with thy 

voice, and rally thou horse and foot against them, and 

partner thou them in their wealth and children, and 

promise thou them,” — but the satan promises them only 

delusion —

65 “My servants: over them thou hast no authority.” And 

thy Lord suffices as disposer of affairs:

(17:61-65)

Again, while Iblī�s is commissioned to attack Adam and his 

progeny from all sides, he has no authority over those who 

sincerely turn to God. We note also the seamless transition to al 

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

ٱلشي َّ at 17:64.

50 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he was of the domini 

and was perfidious towards the command of his Lord; 

take you him and his progeny as allies instead of Me? 

And they are an enemy to you; evil an exchange for the 

wrongdoers!

51 I made them not witness to the creation of the heavens 

and the earth, nor to the creation of themselves; and I take 

not those who lead astray as support.

(18:50-51)

We have discussed the general application of domini above. Its 

sole signification in the case of Iblī�s here simply identifies him as 

one who asserts his own will to power, a fact which is confirmed 

by the remainder of the sentence in which Iblī�s is described 

as disregarding the command of God and of following his own 

command. Thus, domini is used here in its primary signification 

of one who asserts and imposes his will. Additionally, there is no 

contrast in this case with al ins / اإلنس. ِ 

The text states that Iblī�s has progeny. While some will claim that 

this is a figure of speech, that view would require that a pattern 

of figurative usage be identified for the term across the Qur’an, 

which is impossible (for all instances of this word in the text see 

2:124, 2:128, 2:266, 3:34, 3:36, 3:38, 4:9, 6:84, 6:133, 7:172, 

7:173, 10:83, 13:38, 14:37, 14:40, 17:3, 17:62, 18:50, 19:58, 

19:58, 29:27, 36:41, 37:77, 37:113, 46:15, 52:21, 52:21, 57:26). 

So we must proceed on the basis that Iblī�s has offspring in the 

sense of genetically related descendants capable of producing 

more of the same.

Granted a positive identification of Iblī�s with the satan (al 

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

ٱلشي ,( َّ we can regard his progeny as satans (or 

demons); that signification will broaden to include a human 

aspect in our analysis of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the next segment.

We learn also that Iblī�s and his progeny were not witness to the 

creation of the heavens, the earth, or themselves. Thus, they are 

creations of finite span and limited knowledge.

We now consider a further segment:

116 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he refused.

117 Then We said: “O Adam: this is an enemy to thee and 

to thy wife. Then let him not turn you out of the garden, 

that thou be wretched.

118 “It is for thee to be neither hungry nor naked therein,

119 “And that thou suffer neither thirst therein, nor the 

heat of the sun.”

120 Then the satan whispered to him, saying: “O Adam: 

shall I direct thee to the Tree of Eternity and a dominion 

that decays not?”

121 And they ate thereof, and their shame became clear 

to them; and they began to draw over them of the leaves 

of the garden; and Adam opposed his Lord, so he erred.

(20:116-121)

We note firstly another seamless transition to al shayṭān /

َطٰـن

ْ

ٱلشي َّ at 20:120. Meanwhile, at verses 20:117 and at 20:120 

the connection between enemy and adversary is made clearly; 

and by following the satan, Adam opposed God (20:121).

In the segment below, the viewpoint shifts to the Judgment.

90 And the Garden will be brought nigh to those of 

prudent fear

91 And Hell will be made manifest to those who err,

92 And it will be said to them: “Where is what you served,

93 “Besides God? Do they help you, or help themselves?”

94 And they will be hurled therein, they and those who 

err,

95 And the forces of Iblīs all together.

96 They will say while they dispute therein:

97 “By God, we were in manifest error

98 “When we made you equal with the Lord of All 

Creation!

99 “And none but the lawbreakers led us astray,

100 “So now we have no intercessors,

101 “Nor sincere loyal friend.

102 “Would that we might return and be among the 

believers!”

(26:90-102)

We will look at what is meant by the forces of Iblīs later in this 

article. However, we can assume human agents given that the 

term translated here the lawbreakers (Arabic: al mujrimūn) at 

26:99 can nowhere outside this context be linked with non-

human agents (6:55, 6:123, 6:147, 7:40, 7:84, 7:133, 8:8, 9:66, 

10:13, 10:17, 10:50, 10:75, 10:82, 11:52, 11:116, 12:110, 14:49, 

15:12, 15:58, 18:49, 18:53, 19:86, 20:74, 20:102, 25:22, 25:31, 

26:99, 26:200, 27:69, 28:17, 28:78, 30:12, 30:55, 32:12, 32:22, 

34:32, 36:59, 37:34, 43:74, 44:22, 44:37, 45:31, 46:25, 51:32, 

54:47, 55:41, 55:43, 68:35, 70:11, 74:41, 77:18, 77:46).

20 And Iblīs had proved right in his assumption about 

them, and they followed him save a faction among the 

believers.

21 And he had no authority over them save that We might 

know him who believes in the Hereafter from him who is 

thereof in doubt; and thy Lord is custodian over all things.

(34:20-21)

We note that most men will follow Iblī�s, and that only a faction 

among the believers will not. Thus, being a believer does 

not exclude one from following Iblī�s. We note also that Iblī�s 

performs a particular function: to distinguish those who believe 

in the Hereafter from those who do not and that, ultimately, he 

is subject to God.

We turn now to the final segment which mentions Iblī�s by name. 

71 When thy Lord said to the angels: “I am creating a 

mortal from clay,

72 “And when I have formed him, and breathed into him of 

My Spirit, then fall down, to him in submission.”

73 Then the angels submitted, all of them together.

74 Not so Iblīs; he had waxed proud, and was of the false 

claimers of guidance.

75 He said: “O Iblīs: what hindered thee from submitting 

to that which I have created with My hands? Hast thou 

waxed proud? Or art thou of the exalted?”

76 Said he: “I am better than he; Thou createdst me of fire, 

and Thou createdst him of clay.”

77 He said: “Go thou forth from it; for thou art accursed;

78 “And upon thee is My curse until the Day of Judgment.”

79 Said he: “My Lord: grant Thou me respite until the day 

they are raised.”

80 He said: “Thou art of those granted respite

81 “Until the day of the known time.”

82 Said he: “Then by Thy power and glory will I cause 

them to err all together,

83 “Save Thy servants among them that are sincere.”

84 He said: “Then the truth: — and the truth do I say —

85 “I will fill Gehenna with thee, and whoso follows thee 

of them all together!”

(38:71-85)

The segment above reiterates and confirms motifs we have 

already seen to this point.

Summary and references

We are not able to provide definitive proof on the nature of Iblī�s 

vis-à-vis the angels. My view is that Iblī�s is active on the unseen 

strata of the operating system of the Matrix as it were, as are 

angels. We discuss this Matrix more fully in the next Section.

Iblī�s was created of fire, but was not privy to the creation of the 

heavens and earth, or to that of himself. While he is mentioned in 

one breath with the angels multiple times, it does not follow that 

he was an angel; the point is left moot. We allow for this lack of 

clarity in our translation by rendering the Arabic illā (normally 

rendered save, in the sense of except or excepting) by means of a 

new sentence in Not so (e.g. Not so Iblīs).

We have noted several seamless transitions from Iblī�s to al 

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

ٱلشي , َّ and conclude that the latter term identifies 

the function of the personage called Iblī�s. We develop this 

question below as well as the underlying meaning of satan 

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn(

َ

َي

ش (as adversary.

We have established here that Iblī�s has progeny in the plain 

sense of that word; and given an identification of Iblī�s with the 

satan, at least where the context demands it we can assume his 

progeny to be satans (shayāṭīn / طني ِـٰ

َ

َي

.(ش

We consider the satan (al shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

.below َّ ) ٱلشي

ِيس / Iblīs

ل

ْ

ِب

إ is found at 2:34, 7:11, 15:31, 15:32, 17:61, 18:50, 

20:116, 26:95, 34:20, 38:74, 38:75.

َطٰـن / shayṭān al

ْ

َطٰـن / shayṭān َّ ; ٱلشي

ْ

َي

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn al; ش

َ

َّ ٱلشي

Typically, the words listed above are translated satan(s) or 

devil(s) or similar. More Western-influenced translations will 

talk about evil impulses and the like. 

As touched on above, a further reason for the confusion about 

some of the terms which form the focus of this article is the fact 

that the words which refer to satan / satans in the Qur’an have 

an underlying or related meaning of adversary or adversaries. 

We have pointed out cases above where that correlation is clear, 

and we shall see more in what follows.

While all satans are adversaries, only some humans are, and it is 

not always clear which is in view. We have also anticipated the 

opaque or ‘merging’ quality of satans into humans which we will 

touch on more fully further into the article.

On a pan-textual basis, it is clear that shayṭān means adversary; 

adversary is also the primary meaning of ןָ ֛טָ ּׂש) satan) in Hebrew 

(see Strong’s Concordance 7854).

We can form a pan-textual view of the Qur’an’s use of al shayṭān

by reviewing all instances. Since there are so many, we will 

summarise the contexts.

َطٰـن / shayṭān al

ْ

َّ ٱلشي

2:36 — caused Adam and his wife to fall.

2:168 — mankind is not to follow him; he is an open enemy who 

enjoins evil and sexual immorality, and that we ascribe to God

.

112/113

112 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 113

what we don’t know.

2:208 — those who heed warning are not to follow him; he is an 

open enemy to those who heed warning.

2:268 — promises those who heed warning poverty, and enjoins 

sexual immorality.

2:275 — can possess to the point of making men lose control 

of themselves.

3:155 — causes men to slip on the basis of what they themselves 

have earned.

3:175 — has allies whom he can fill with dread.

4:38 — is a companion to those who spend without fear of God 

and who do not believe in God and the Last Day.

4:60 — desires to cause men to stray.

4:76 — those who heed warning are to fight his allies; his plan 

is weak.

4:83 — can be followed by believers save by the bounty of God 

and His mercy.

4:119 — can be taken as an ally instead of God.

4:120-121 — he promises those who follow him only delusion 

and leads them to Gehenna.

5:90-91 — alcohol, gambling, idolatry, and divination are his 

handiwork; those who heed warning should avoid them. He 

wishes to turn them away from the remembrance of God and 

from duty.

6:43 — he can delude men by hardening their hearts and 

making them see their actions as fair.

6:68 — he can cause a man to forget God’s directives.

6:142-144 — he is an open enemy to man (by creating and 

ascribing lies to God which then take on the form of a religion).

7:20-22 — he whispers subtle lies in order to divert from the 

command of God; he claims to be on one’s side and to have one’s 

interests at heart. He is an open enemy.

7:27-28 — children of Adam exhorted not to let him subject us 

to means of denial (of God); it is clear that he has others like him 

who are allies of those who do not believe. Those who follow 

them justify their sexual immorality.

7:175-179 — he follows the man who detaches himself from the 

proofs of God and causes him to err; such men are indifferent to 

exhortation or rebuke.

7:200-202 — he provokes believers but can be resisted by 

seeking refuge in God.

8:11 — can scourge believers, but that can be removed by God.

8:48 — can make men’s deeds seem fair to them, but will turn 

tail and disown those who follow him. He fears God, though he 

tempts men to turn against God.

12:5 — can cause discord among brethren and provoke them to 

plan against their own.

12:42 — can cause a man to forget something.

12:100 — can provoke to evil among brethren.

14:22 — lies to his followers and will disown them on the Day of 

Judgment; his only power is to call (i.e. suggest / offer). Man is at 

fault for following him.

16:63 — he makes the deeds of men who end in the Fire fair 

to them.

17:27 — he is ungrateful to God.

17:53 — he provokes to evil among men; he is an open enemy 

to man.

17:64-65 — he promises only delusion; he has no authority over 

God’s servants.

18:63 — can cause a man to forget (in this case, the directive of 

a prophet of God).

19:44 — is defiant to the Almighty.

19:45 — being his ally results in punishment from the Almighty.

20:120 — whispered lies (in this case, to Adam).

22:52-54 — spoils the work of messengers and prophets by 

polluting their message; but God abolishes that pollution and 

makes it a means of denial for the diseased and hard in heart, 

and makes plain the truth to those given knowledge.

24:21 — those who heed warning are not to follow him; those 

who follow him enjoin sexual immorality and perversity.

25:29 — he is a traitor to man.

27:24 — makes men’s deeds fair to them so they turn away from 

the path of God.

28:15 — can cause a man to kill his brother; he is a manifest and 

misleading enemy.

29:38 — makes men’s deeds fair and turns away from the path 

of God.

31:21 — he invites to the punishment of the Inferno.

35:6 — is an enemy to mankind, and should be taken as one; 

calls his party to be companions of the Inferno.

36:60-65 — children of Adam instructed by God not to serve 

him; he is an open enemy. He will lead a great multitude astray 

into Gehenna.

38:41 — can touch one with distress and punishment.

41:36 — can provoke; one should seek refuge in God.

43:62 — we are not to let him divert us; he is to us an open 

enemy.

47:25 — can entice, and grant temporary respite.

58:10 — private (i.e. conspiratorial) conversation is of him, to 

grieve those who heed warning; he cannot harm them but by 

God’s permission.

58:19 — can overcome one and make one forget the 

remembrance of God; those who do are his party. They are the 

losers.

59:16 — calls man to deny God but disowns him once he has 

denied Him.

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

َي

ش

4:117-121 — a rebellious satan called to instead of God; one 

cursed; will lead men astray; promises only delusion and guides 

to Gehenna.

15:17 — every accursed satan finds the sky guarded against him.

22:3-4 — every rebellious satan is followed by those who dispute 

concerning God without knowledge; he leads those who follow 

him into the punishment of the Inferno.

37:6-10 — every refractory satan finds the lower heaven of stars 

a protection; they are unable to listen in to the exalted assembly 

(of God); they are pelted and repelled. Those who snatch a 

fragment are followed by a flame.

43:36 — a satan is assigned as a companion to those who are 

blind to the remembrance of the Almighty.

81:25 — it (i.e. the Qur’an, or at least sūrah 81) is not the word 

of an accursed satan.

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn al

َ

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn and َّ ٱلشي

َ

َي

ش

2:14 — addressed directly by men who claim falsely to believe.

2:102 — (the Jews) followed what they recited (of sorcery); the 

satans themselves denied God; what they teach men deprives 

those who adopt it of any share in the Hereafter.

6:71 — can seduce a man away from guidance.

6:112-113 — God has appointed for every prophet an enemy: 

satans of servi and domini who create flowery speech and lies.

6:121 — instruct their allies to dispute (with men); if one 

follows them, he is an idolater.

7:27 — are the allies of those who do not believe.

8:30 — those upon whom misguidance was due take them as 

allies instead of God, and think they are guided.

17:27 — the squanderers are brothers of them.

19:68 — are to be brought into Gehenna with men on bended 

knee.

19:83 — the satans are sent upon the false claimers of guidance, 

inciting them onwards.

21:82 — among them were those diving and doing other work 

for Solomon.

23:97-98 — the Prophet told to say: “My Lord: I seek refuge in 

Thee from the goading of the satans, / And I seek refuge in Thee 

lest they be present with me.”

26:210-212 — did not bring it (i.e. the Qur’an) down; they are 

not able to, and they are excluded from hearing.

26:221-222 — descend upon every sinful deceiver.

37:65 — the Tree of Zaqqūm has spathes like the heads of satans 

(note: heads of adversaries have traditionally been placed on 

spikes on battlements).

38:37 — built and dived for Solomon.

67:5-11 — the lower heavens are thrown at them; they will 

enter the punishment of the Inferno; the same is for those who 

deny their Lord and the warnings they received.

Summary and conclusions

A constant characteristic within contexts which treat of satan

/ satans is that of adversary, which point comports with the 

Hebrew sense of the word ןָ ֛טָ ּׂש) satan).

Clearly, demons (i.e. non-human, ethereal beings) exist. Within 

our taxonomy, these are satans; all satans are adversaries (i.e. to 

the command of God). 

The question is: are all adversaries demons? Is the term not 

being used to refer, at least some of the time, to human beings 

also? My view is that to answer these questions we need to 

be specific about what we mean. In the interests of time, I will 

resort to popular culture to assist in making the necessary 

distinctions, at least in part.

In the film The Matrix, the agents (chief among whom is Agent 

Smith) are analogous to what one might properly call satans

in the sense of demons. Agent Smith and his colleagues serve 

— and are biologically related to — some dominant character 

(whom we do not see represented in the film). This dominant 

character may be taken as analogous to what we are calling in 

our work the demon dominus, and who here is named Iblī�s. Iblī�s 

is, as it were, the head of the Agency, the one for whom all agents 

work. 

This Agency Head is, in certain contexts, the satan. However, 

the satan is used as a generic term in the Qur’an also. We can 

compare this usage with the generic term agent in the context 

of the Matrix: ultimately all agents represent the Agency Head.

In addition to the lack of consistent specificity (due to the 

cohesion of purpose and loyalty among satans) between any 

individual satan in general (Arabic: shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

َي

ش (and the 

satan (Arabic: al shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

ٱلشي ( َّ since the latter term may or 

may not refer specifically to Iblī�s, there exists a further level of 

complexity as far as humans (Arabic: al nās) are concerned. As 

we have already seen, humans collectively comprise two general 

categories: al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس , ِ or domini and servi 

respectively.

For a moment we will consider our own physical and 

metaphysical reality as a matrix similar to that in the movie. We 

can regard this matrix as something akin to a computer system. 

That computer system has a front end (i.e. that small part of the 

system’s processes the user sees on the screen, and which is the 

extent to which most people’s perception of reality reaches), 

and a back end (i.e. the majority of the system’s processes, all of 

which inform, regulate, and drive the entire system — including 

what the users see and interact with). 

Satans are capable of traversing the Matrix unseen as well as 

operating within the seen part of it. That is, they can move freely 

through the underbelly of the operating system undetected and 

enter the visible part of the Matrix at any point which receives 

them. As such, they are able to ‘absorb’ both the unsuspecting 

and the willing participants in the visible world and use them 

for their own purposes.

Unsuspecting participants may be used for temporary purposes 

and discarded either at no cost to the satan, or at the expense of 

the target, who will never be the wiser. Willing participants are 

a separate category, and that includes those who form binding 

contracts with the demonic forces.

(I have come to understand that satanic forces buy people 

at their own estimate of their worth. The ruling elites sell 

themselves for specific ends; the ignorant masses often pay to 

serve the satans.)

The metaphor we have established above serves as the best 

launchpad I can think of from which to elaborate upon the points 

I wish to make.

Having considered all instances of satan / satans, I am of the view 

that the meaning of the term in the Qur’an is fluid as regards 

human beings. Certainly, there exist demons, and these demons 

are satans which operate according to their agenda in the world, 

as we have stated. However, lesser human beings (servi) who 

— though perhaps not ‘agents’ in the permanent and positive 

sense — may operate to some degree unconsciously as agents 

at any time. 

People who allow themselves to be so used are, I would assert, 

what the Qur’an calls the party of the satan, and are those 

whom the satan has induced to forget God. These people are 

used by satans at no cost to themselves and, absent any active 

repentance and return to God on the part of the human vehicle, 

that person’s destination is the Fire.

18 The day God raises them all together, they will swear to 

Him, as they swear to you and think that they stand upon 

something. In truth, it is they who are the liars.

.

114/115

114 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 115

19 The satan overcame them, and made them forget the 

remembrance of God. Those are the party of the satan. In 

truth, the party of the satan, they are the losers.

(58:18-19)

5 O mankind: the promise of God is true; so let not the life 

of this world delude you; and let not the Deluder delude 

you about God.

6 The satan is an enemy to you; so take him as an enemy; 

he but calls his party that they might be among the 

companions of the Inferno.

(35:5-6)

There exists another category of man also, perhaps closer to the 

character called Cypher in the movie The Matrix. These are those 

who are not ‘deluded’, but who willingly and wittingly contract 

with Agents to achieve social and material advantage within the 

framework of the Matrix. 

If we cast our minds back to our broadening of the themes 

provided by Colin Wilson which produced a coterie of top-

level rulers under 2,500 men, we will recall that the force of 

initiative and will to command among men is attended with a 

corresponding increase in occult power. Thus, there will be 

people of the type analogous to Cypher — those who trade their 

souls for little or nothing among the lower or mid levels. But at 

the level of genuine domini, not only is the will to power at its 

zenith, so also are the occult faculties.

In addition to this, elite families breed to optimise their 

genetic lines and receptivity to the satanic forces which keep 

them in charge. Such are those among the domini who have 

compromised their souls (see 2:102 for confirmation that such 

denial entails loss of hope for good in the Hereafter).

This category comprises those who are active in their allegiance 

with the satan. They actively oppose those who stand up for 

what is true and right and are, in my view, what the Qur’an calls 

the allies of the satan.

76 Those who heed warning fight in the cause of God; and 

those who ignore warning fight in the cause of idols. Then 

fight the allies of the satan; the plan of the satan is weak.

(4:76)

I have inferred that Qur’anic usage indicates that the term satan

extends to a wide number of demonic entities, and within that 

framework I take Iblī�s as the highest-level satan. On that basis, I 

take ‘the forces of Iblī�s’ to comprise both ‘the party of the satan’ 

and ‘the allies of the satan’.

94 And they will be hurled therein, they and those who 

err,

95 And the forces of Iblīs all together.

(26:94-95)

Summary and references

According to our analysis, the dividing line between the 

following senses of satan is both opaque and porous:

• Satan in the sense of temporary human adversary (i.e. one 

who is passively and unwittingly used in opposition to the 

command of God);

• Satan in the sense of permanent human adversary (i.e. one 

who actively serves as an adversary to the command of God 

for reasons of ambition or greed);

• Satan in the sense of demon (i.e. a demonic entity descended 

from Iblī�s);

• Satan in the sense of Iblī�s.

Leaving aside the historical conflation of terms we have already 

summarised, the understanding of satan / satans in the Qur’anic 

text has been plagued by the complexity caused by the multiple 

facets listed above whose gradations, levels of transparency, 

and distinctions have been compounded by pre-existing and 

subsequent cultural notions about non-material entities.

In conclusion, we take the existence of satans in the sense of 

demons as a given, and accept the degree to which humans serve 

demons on a sliding scale. At the zero end of this scale we would 

find those who sincerely serve God, and at the maximum end of 

it we would find those who deny God among members of the 

domini.

This understanding resolves and explains such verses as those 

where the domini say:

8 “And that: ‘We touched the heaven, but found it filled 

with strong guards and flames.’

9 “And that: ‘We sat there on seats to hear; but whoso 

listens in now finds for him a flame waiting.’

(72:8-9)

The contents of the verses above readily connects with verses 

which speak of satans (15:16-17, 26:210-212, 37:6-10, 67:5). At 

72:8-9 above, it is the domini speaking — that is, men whose 

levels of temporal power must be assumed to be matched 

by equally high levels of occult power. Those who at each 

level in the power hierarchy (from the levels of servi through 

the ‘nobility’ to the actual rulers) exercise a commensurate 

potential control over satans to its fullest extent integrate with 

their demons to such a degree as to render themselves fully 

possessed, at which point the distinction between satan and 

human becomes meaningless. In the case of servi, this will result 

in general possession, and of minor powers. In the case of the 

domini, it was capable, at least up to a point in history, of gaining 

them near access to the heavenly court.

This point is important: at whatever level in the temporal 

hierarchy a man fully submerges his will in that of a satan, the 

man and the satan become effectively one unit, which question 

brings us to the category we review in the next Section: al jinna

َّة /

الجن

ِ .

All instances of satan / satans are found at 2:14, 2:36, 2:102, 

2:102, 2:168, 2:208, 2:268, 2:275, 3:36, 3:155, 3:175, 4:38, 4:60, 

4:76, 4:76, 4:83, 4:117, 4:119, 4:120, 5:90, 5:91, 6:43, 6:68, 6:71, 

6:112, 6:121, 6:142, 7:20, 7:22, 7:27, 7:27, 7:30, 7:175, 7:200, 

7:201, 8:11, 8:48, 12:5, 12:42, 12:100, 14:22, 15:17, 16:63, 

16:98, 17:27, 17:27, 17:53, 17:53, 17:64, 18:63, 19:44, 19:44, 

19:45, 19:68, 19:83, 20:120, 21:82, 22:3, 22:52, 22:52, 22:53, 

23:97, 24:21, 24:21, 25:29, 26:210, 26:221, 27:24, 28:15, 29:38, 

31:21, 35:6, 36:60, 37:7, 37:65, 38:37, 38:41, 41:36, 43:36, 

43:62, 47:25, 58:10, 58:19, 58:19, 58:19, 59:16, 67:5, 81:25.

SECTION THREE

al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

َّاس / nās al; ٱل

ٱلن

We will look at these two terms as far as possible together.

The term al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ occurs five times: 11:119, 32:13, 37:158, 

37:158, 114:6 and is typically conflated by the Traditionalist 

with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (which we translate as the domini).

Before looking at the main topics in this Section, we will briefly 

address a related though secondary topic: that of the word 

َّة / jinna

جن . ِThis word means — and I translate it throughout 

— possessed (7:184, 23:25, 23:70, 34:8, 34:46). It is related to 

majnūn, which I translate also possessed. All translators treat 

these two words in similar fashion. 

The underlying sense of the j-n-n root is of something hidden. 

And given this fact, we may appreciate the potential for 

confusion among the terms in this root that we look at in this 

article.

But the term al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is a separate textual entity from jinna

َّة /

جن , ِas the Traditionalist agrees. The question concerns only 

what it means.

The Traditionalist view is that al nās / الناس was created from 

a single soul (4:1, 39:6), and means men, people, mankind or 

humanity, i.e. the totality of human being across all races, and 

operates as the plural of al insān / ـنٰ

َ

ِ نس

ْ

 .ٱل

I broadly agree with this, although with some caveats and 

distinctions which fall beyond the remit of this article. However, 

such things notwithstanding, within our taxonomy, al nās / الناس

is the umbrella term for both al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس — ِ or 

the domini and the servi respectively. 

This category covers all beings of a material corporeality 

possessed of freedom of choice.

Of the five times al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ occurs, three come together 

with — and in contradistinction to — al nās / الناس .And of these 

three, two treat of the same outcome. I list these two instances 

below with their contexts, and comment upon them together.

116 Oh, that among the generations before you there had 

but been a remnant forbidding corruption in the land 

save a few whom We saved among them! But those who 

did wrong followed what they had been given therein of 

opulence, and were lawbreakers.

117 And never would thy Lord destroy the cities in 

injustice, when their people were those who do right.

118 And had thy Lord willed, He would have made 

mankind one community; but they will cease not to differ,

119 Save he upon whom thy Lord has mercy. And for 

that He created them; and the word of thy Lord will be 

fulfilled: “I will fill Gehenna with the jinna and mankind 

all together.”

(11:116-119)

12 And if thou couldst see when the lawbreakers hang 

their heads before their Lord: “Our Lord: we have seen and 

heard, so send Thou us back. We will work righteousness! 

We are those who are certain!”

13 And had We willed, We could have given every soul 

its guidance. But the word from Me is binding: “I will fill 

Gehenna with the jinna and mankind all together!”

14 “So taste! Because you forgot the meeting of this your 

day, We have forgotten you. And taste the punishment of 

eternity because of what you did!”

(32:12-14)

Both scenarios include mention of lawbreakers, which word 

consistently pertains to human actors throughout the text. 

The verse at 11:117 treats of cities, which implies — I would 

say conclusively — that the objects at 11:119 and 32:13 must 

both be human. Thus, were we neither primed that al nās / 

الناس comprises all types of humanity, nor that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ

comprise non-human entities, one would incline to the view 

that both terms signify categories of human being given the 

surrounding context. 

But we have established that al nās / الناس comprises all 

humanity, and that it consists of two categories: domini and 

servi.

We are confronted with the question, then: if al nās / الناس

comprises all humanity, since the context treats of human 

objects, is not mention al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ here superfluous if they 

are human also?

We will return to this important question in due course, and turn 

now to sūrah 114, the last sūrah in the Qur’an, and the third and 

final case where we find al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ together with — and in 

some contrast to — al nās / الناس.

1 Say thou: “I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,

2 “The King of mankind,

3 “The God of mankind,

4 “From the evil of the retreating whisperer

5 “Who whispers in the breasts of mankind;

6 “From the jinna and mankind.”

(114:1-6)

A counterpoint between al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ and al nās / الناس is here 

emphasised, with al nās / الناس occurring in this short sūrah the 

same number of times as al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is found in the entire 

Qur’an.

Interestingly, the wording of the final verse reproduces 

identically the core portion of the two other verses where al 

َّة / jinna

الجن

ِ and al nās / الناس occur together (11:119, 32:14). 

And despite the fact that min / من ِcan have meanings in the 

context at 114:6 other than that in the previous instances, 

it is the case that the Arabic reads in all three places: min al 

jinnati wa al nās / اسَّ

َ ٱلن

َِّة و

ِجن

ْ

َ ٱل

من .ِThis signifies to me that the 

segments are logistically as well as thematically connected. On 

that basis, I look to 114:1-6 to provide a broader context on 

the basis of which to understand al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ , then with that

.

116/117

116 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 117

understanding we can review the other cases and see if those 

findings fit.

The summary below presents my understanding of the Matrix 

with the basic layers of the operating system identified:

At the top, surrounding and underlying all things is God, the 

Creator. He occupies the Unseen together with the next level: 

the angels.

Below the angels, the Unseen splits into Unseen and Seen. In the 

Unseen on this level are the hidden forces which drive the Matrix 

(all unseen aspects of the physical and metaphysical world), as 

well as Iblī�s and all the satans in the direct sense of demons.

In the seen part of this level, we find the so-called natural world 

which comprises human beings on the one side, and everything 

else on the other. Humans are distinct by virtue of the fact that 

they have free will and can choose to serve God or not.

The human group itself divides into two: domini and servi.

As we have also touched upon, human society is not flat; there 

exist natural hierarchies — levels within the societal pyramid — 

which strata intersect at various points from the lowest of the 

servi through to the true domini who form the capstone.

My assertion is that the key elements in this system are the 

following:

• Corporeality (i.e. pertaining to the Seen or the Unseen);

• Purpose (for what purpose any part of God’s creation is 

intended: angels to obey God; satans to defy Him; humans to 

serve Him, etc.); 

• Will (the presence or otherwise of freedom of choice);

• Destination (whether a place in the Fire or the Garden).

All aspects of God’s creation may be assessed on each of these. 

However, there is an aspect of duality in each.

To take man: in terms of corporeality he pertains to the Seen. 

Yet if one includes sleep, imagination, prayer, will, intuition and 

any number of other factors, he is understood also to pertain to 

an unseen realm.

Regarding purpose, will, and destination: while it is the case that 

God created men to serve Him, it is a fact that most do not. Is 

God’s purpose thwarted? I would say not. It is, rather, that we do 

not understand how our will stands in relation to God’s purpose. 

That lack of understanding accepted, then, the fact remains that 

despite the fact that we perceive that we possess freedom of will, 

God’s will is over all, and our destination is ultimately a function 

of that reality.

Even within our limited grasp on things, whether man pertains 

to the servi or the domini, his power to choose a path regarding 

God is fundamentally equal; both have their burdens and their 

power to choose. (This point may seem moot to some; however, 

the Roman philosopher and former slave Epictetus remarked 

that while Caesar could chain his leg to a post, he could not make 

him dislike it. By the same token, Marcus Aurelius — though 

Emperor — evinced a love of truth in no way inferior to that of 

Epictetus.)

My broader point is that, as we have already touched upon, 

the distinction between satans on the one hand and passive or 

active human agents for those satans within the Matrix on the 

other can be a subtle one.

I believe that, like al nās / الناس ,al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is an umbrella 

term and comprises all generally non-corporeal beings below 

the angels, i.e. the hidden forces which drive the operating 

system which we perceive as the Seen (and which forces have 

no free will), but includes also Iblī�s himself as and his armies 

of demons.

While the Qur’an does not explicitly say what these hidden 

forces are, we can make inferences on the basis of what we 

know. We know that once the Hour strikes, all matter is going 

to lose its potency: the mountains will become dust, the sky 

will be removed, and all that will remain is the face of God. 

After this, human beings will be resurrected in forms which — 

while recognisable — will be new. The Garden itself also will be 

recognisable — or comparable to what we know — but it will 

also be entirely new.

However, there is a further element to this, which is why al jinna

َّة /

الجن

ِ is mentioned in connection with the umbrella term for 

all humans. There are those among men who follow the satans 

blindly and whose destination is Gehenna. But there are others 

who willingly and actively sell their souls to Iblī�s for worldly 

gain. These people often acquire — at least in the short term as 

we shall see in the quote below — status and power. But those 

who do this are not simply occasional or temporary vehicles for 

satanic agents; they become agents. That is, their fundamental 

spiritual make-up changes. 

Once a man has made such a pact, he essentially acquires a 

separate form of citizenship with that realm we are calling al 

َّة / jinna

الجن

ِ . This is why the Qur’an specifically names these 

people as entering Gehenna since, while physically they pertain 

to the human race, their spirit — through an act of conscious 

will — has changed its fundamental allegiance.

We find this view supported obliquely here:

102 And they followed what the satans recited during 

the reign of Solomon; and Solomon denied not; but the 

satans denied, teaching men sorcery, and what was sent 

down upon the two angels at Babylon, Hārūt and Mārūt. 

And they taught no one until they had said: “We are but 

a means of denial, so deny thou not.” Then from them 

they learn that by which they cause division between a 

man and his wife; but they harm no one thereby save by 

the leave of God. And they learn what harms them, and 

profits them not, knowing well that whoso buys it has in 

the Hereafter no share; and evil is that for which they sold 

their souls, had they but known.

103 And had they believed and been in prudent fear, 

recompense from God would have been better, had they 

but known.

(2:102-103)

The fact of conscious, willing contract is emphasised; the satans 

require that a man who contracts with them is personally 

responsible for what he ‘buys’ from them. 

I am saying that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ comprises the Unseen reality 

which drives the material world and in which layer the satans 

operate and that anyone who makes such a contract becomes 

al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the same way that anyone who takes the 

citizenship of France becomes French. It is a matter of conscious, 

contractual fealty.

This explains the facility for ‘luck’ experienced by those who 

compromise their souls for this world, and are thus aligned with 

the shayṭān. In my observations of those who serve the shayṭān, 

they tend to end badly and their master always short-changes 

them. The shayṭān will buy a man at that man’s own estimation 

of his worth. But he always turns around and betrays him.

At the level of minor players, this characteristic is true of men 

such as Goethe’s Dr Faust, or of men such as Casanova or 

Crowley. However, it will ultimately prove true of the top levels 

of the ruling elite. Today, the elites clearly feel themselves so 

close to their goal of all ages. But the satan’s characteristic of 

betraying his followers after their complete commitment to him 

indicates to me that the elites’ monolith is a house of cards; given 

the right gust of air, it will collapse around their ears.

So, in summary, al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ comprises the totality of that 

realm of the Unseen which is inferior to that of the angels (i.e. 

that which consists of the drivers behind the operating system 

of the Matrix, and the demons themselves). But — and this is 

the crucial point — al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ includes those among domini 

or servi who have contracted with satans actively and willingly 

for gain (the Cyphers, as it were). Such people are no longer 

covered in terms of lordship, kingship, and godhood as per the 

formulations in the verses below.

1 Say thou: “I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,

2 “The King of mankind,

3 “The God of mankind,

4 “From the evil of the retreating whisperer

5 “Who whispers in the breasts of mankind;

6 “From the jinna and mankind.”

(114:1-6)

The ‘retreating whisperer’ is that satan which crosses from the 

Unseen into the breasts of men (temporarily absorbing as it were 

a human who has taken no permanent fealty with the satans), 

but al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ have to be mentioned separately properly 

speaking since in their human form they are permanent agents 

of Iblī�s, all visible correspondence with other human beings 

notwithstanding.

In its human application, I would translate al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ by 

means of demoniacs or demon-possessed to indicate those 

who have fully become agents of the Matrix as it were, and 

functionally indistinguishable from satans. In my view, these 

human forms house spirits which comprise the progeny 

mentioned in the following verse.

50 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblī�s; he was of the domini 

and was perfidious towards the command of his Lord; 

take you him and his progeny as allies instead of Me?

And they are an enemy to you; evil an exchange for the 

wrongdoers!

(18:50)

In its broader application of that part of the Unseen in which the 

drivers of the Matrix and the satans reside, I would translate al 

َّة / jinna

الجن

ِ by means of hidden forces.

I believe that the second category which falls under the meta-

category of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ comprises the unseen drivers which 

impel those physical and metaphysical forces which we are 

trained to think of as the Laws of Nature. These are those forces 

which we all encounter and which comprise the underlying 

operating system of what we are calling the Matrix. Scientists 

encounter these forces through the barrier of the apparent, and 

measure, manipulate and describe their characteristics, but they 

cannot reach those forces themselves. These are those forces 

which, in effect, Materialists worship and around which they 

base their religions.

By the so-called hard sciences and by esoteric and metaphysical 

practices man may progress some way into the forest, but he can 

never emerge the other side of that forest. Man is locked into a 

range, and that range is encompassed on all sides by God.

To use another computing analogy, we may progress some way 

beyond the obvious constructions of the front end (mouse, 

windows, filing systems, etc.) and observe to some extent 

that various drivers and system files interact with each other 

according to particular patterns. But the forces behind those 

drivers are hidden from us the user.

Materialists disregard the createdness of the entire system, and 

assume the forces as givens and insist that everyone do the same. 

To a large extent, they have been successful in transforming the 

mass of men — usually without the cognisance of their target — 

into secular humanists (i.e. Materialists). Those who retain an 

apprehension of their own createdness and of the Hereafter as 

its obvious function regard that system itself as both temporary 

and as a witness to the power of the Creator.

The Qur’an is clear that at the Hour all things will change, and 

that the constitution of those who arise in the Hereafter will 

be, though comparable, factually different to what we know 

now. The Qur’anic references to the casting of the hidden forces

(Arabic: al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل (into Gehenna comports with this view: 

the entire range of hidden forces from demons through all those 

forces which underpin and act as drivers upon the physical and 

metaphysical world of this temporary creation will be discarded 

at the point of the Hour. 

Materialism is essentially idolatry — not because there is an 

inherent tension between systematic, analytical, provable 

knowledge and faith in God, but because while claiming not to 

be a religion itself, Materialism takes God’s laws as permanent 

givens but disregards the Lawgiver.

I surmise that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ — or what we will call the hidden

.

118/119

118 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 119

forces — comprises in total invisible forces of two types: those 

with individual, malevolent will (satans), and those with no 

individual will (the underlying forces driving the operating 

system of the Matrix).

Thus, when the Qur’an states that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ are destined 

for Hell, this references both the damned condition of the satans 

and the temporary nature of the underlying operating system 

upon which this dunyā (or temporary life) rests and depends.

This brings us to the last verse which contains al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ .

158 And they have made between Him and the jinna a 

kinship — when the jinna know they will be summoned.

(37:158)

The term in question could be understood here in both its 

general applications.

On the one hand, if we take al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the sense of hidden 

forces or drivers behind the creation, we can say that Materialists 

fabricate a correlation between God and His creation. In this 

regard, I reproduce Muhammad Asad’s comment at this verse, 

and follow it with my own thoughts: Whereas most of the 

classical commentators are of the opinion that the term al-jinnah 

denotes here the angels, since they - like all beings of this category 

- are imperceptible to man’s senses, I believe that the above verse 

refers to those intangible forces of nature which elude all direct 

observation and manifest themselves only in their effects: hence 

their designation, in this context, by the plural noun al-jinnah, 

which primarily denotes “that which is concealed from [man’s] 

senses”. Inasmuch as people who refuse to believe in God often tend 

to regard those elemental forces as mysteriously endowed with a 

purposeful creative power (cf. Bergson’s concept of the elan vital), 

the Qur’an states that their votaries invent a “kinship” between 

them and God, i.e., attribute to them qualities and powers similar 

to His. The idea is that the creation is in some manner God, the 

“laws” of which exist beyond any conception of God; what they 

are not — and must not be recognised as within the doctrine of 

Materialism — is a function of God’s command. 

We have already noted that when the Hour strikes, all the “laws” 

which govern the visible realm will fail. So what happens to 

them? Since they have their origins in that unseen realm in which 

demons also operate — and demons themselves are destined for 

the Fire — I infer that the “laws” which the Materialist worships 

are destined for the same place.

On the other hand, if we take al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the sense of 

demoniacs or demon-possessed, into this category fall those 

who have sold their souls to demonic forces in order to achieve 

worldly fame and success. In our time, this would comprise most 

of those who form the pantheon of modern gods called “stars”, 

as well as those at the forefront of business and in other fields. It 

certainly includes the majority of those families which comprise 

the domini of our day and which plan and execute the agendas 

which shape the world.

One quite often sees that such people have compelling and 

attractive personalities. For myself, I have noted that public 

figures at the sub-domini levels who have made these types of 

deals completely change. They typically attain an amount of 

fame and prestige, but are unable to get beyond a certain level. 

Then something happens to them, and they “come back” and 

are suddenly somehow different. They have been sprinkled 

with fairy dust. Thereafter the media gives them a constant 

and favourable wind, and the person himself now espouses 

a narrative which just happens to fit in every respect with the 

broader Satanic agenda. 

The reason for this is that they have made a deal; they have 

joined the ranks of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ .

The human members of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ appear to manifest unusual 

abilities and are possessed of what seems to be incredible luck, 

or creative or financial genius. What is happening is that they 

are accessing the demonic realm, while those around them 

are entirely ignorant of the spiritual dimension. The contrast 

between such people and the mass of men is all the more stark 

when we consider that since the nineteenth century Western 

man has been fully trained in Materialist dogma, and is thus 

incapable of grasping either an understanding of the physical 

world in its proper context because it denies the non-physical 

world.

In terms of sports, one might compare those who understand 

the Matrix from those who do not to two teams: one team is 

training using steroids, a highly effective diet, and is plugged into 

AI, while the other team is living on junk food and doesn’t have 

a basic understanding of the rules of the game. There can be no 

serious competition between the two.

This is not to say that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ are the only people who are 

going to Hell. There are many within the base category of al nās

/ الناس who are going to Hell also. The core point is the shift in 

status. And one’s status is defined by one’s response to the Lord 

of All Creation.

There exist many means of obtaining satans. There are 

corporate means such as fraternal orders, mystery schools, 

oaths and the like. But there are also lower orders of what you 

might call freestyle demoniacs. These would include many who 

ingest certain types of music. I would list sexual deviations 

and many so-called “psychological” and “psychiatric” maladies 

under the same heading. The ingestion of satanic films and 

other supposed entertainment will turn the unschooled into 

open-access wetware when combined with a number of other 

delivery systems (state-mandated education, inferior food, 

pharmaceutical poisons, etc.).

My estimation is that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ predominate among certain 

bloodlines, and that knowledge of how to access the powers 

associated with this connection are passed down within those 

bloodlines. As touched on, there exist also lesser strata which 

serve satans, and this includes the majority of those who 

comprise the “stars” of the present pantheon created by the 

media, as well as sports heroes, business people and politicians. 

They use secret societies as the means of conveying their 

knowledge, and together implement a plan the details of which 

most of those seen in the public space are generally ignorant of.

I do not believe that anyone is born possessed; the opening of 

the soul to such infestation seems to require a decision on the 

part of the recipient. However, it appears that those who are 

either born into a particular line or who are abused or misused 

as children are particularly susceptible to such forces. 

Clearly, it is also true that these people are expendable, and they 

are regularly “thrown under the bus” as the expression goes. But 

at the lower levels, there is a never-ending stream of wannabes 

who can’t wait to have their few years in the sun.

At the higher levels, many of these people live in fear. Certainly, 

this world is kind to them; but there is no VIP lounge the other 

side of death, and death is an insoluble problem for them. 

Added to this is the problem that they are serving an entity 

which will disown them:

48 And when the satan made their deeds fair to them, and 

said: “None among men can defeat you this day, when I am 

at your side,” then when the two companies came within 

sight of one another, he turned on his heels and said: “I am 

quit of you; I see what you see not. I fear God”; and God is 

severe in retribution.

(8:48)

Summary and references

Within the framework of the pan-textual approach taken here, 

the view of the classical commentators that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ at 

37:118 includes the angels is sustainable only if one agrees that 

the angels are also to be cast into the Fire as per al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ at 

11:119 and 32:13. This view can not be sustained on a broader 

basis. 

While our understanding of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is necessarily 

multifaceted, it is consistent across all cases, and comports both 

with the other terms we have looked at in this article and with 

the broader text.

We find it impossible to translate by means of a single word a 

term which covers both those fully possessed agents of the 

hidden realm in human form (and in whom the distinction 

between possessed human and full demon has ceased to apply) 

as well as the hidden forces. Therefore, we render this term as 

the jinna and supply a note to our translation in each instance.

The term al nās / الناس is found together with al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ at 

11:119, 32:13, and 114:6. 

The term al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ occurs also twice at 37:158.

Final word

My case against the ruling elite of today is one based in the 

reality that powerful men will dominate. I’m not against there 

being a ruling elite; there is no point being against reality. It is 

natural that there be a ruling elite, just as every mountain must 

have a summit.

My argument against the ruling elite is that they are failing 

in their obligation to guide the herd in the direction of 

righteousness. The masses will do what they always do, which 

is to follow.

One can train the herd to believe and to do anything, given 

enough time and inducements or blandishments. The elite know 

this — and they are correct; they have been manipulating the 

herd into the shape of a dystopian, amoral nightmare for over 

a hundred years, creating what they see as a perfected form of 

slavery.

But with power comes responsibility. The elites of the world are 

bound by the rules of noblesse oblige. Elites will rule; but they 

need to apply that responsibility correctly, which means to do 

so with the requisite fear of God, and for the ultimate benefit of 

both themselves and the herd which they manage.

Since the elites have gone off the reservation of their natural 

obligations, they need to be held to account.

Such is the principal topic of my work The God Protocol, and is 

discussed more fully there.

....END....SJC...satan Jinn Consider..SAM..

.

Introduction

The objective of this article is to summarise my reasoning for 

rendering a number of words in the translation which features 

in my work The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation the way I do. 

The subject matter lacks concreteness by definition since we 

are dealing, at least in part, with unseen forces. My results are, I 

think, both consistent within the terms I have set myself (of pan-

textual integrity), and with the broader text.

I do not present involved detail on each of the topics I address 

here. A description of the logistics and specifics of the type of 

Satanism practiced by the ruling elites, or academic justifications 

for other aspects of my presentation would require tomes, and 

would not add much to achieving my stated purpose; this is not 

the place to convince people of such things. 

Rather, I attempt here to place my findings before the reader in 

as short a space as possible. My results — in my view — are 

consistent, and that is more than one can say of the fist the 

Traditionalist has made by conflating some of the terms I treat 

of here. My results also fit in terms of my understanding of the 

Satanic features of society in general and of the ruling elites 

in particular; but, again, it is not my intention to convince the 

reader here of these features of Realpolitik. 

Readers of this article will fall into three general camps: those 

already educated in the subjects I indicate here with a broad 

brush and who are, therefore, in no need of exposition; those 

who are not thus educated, but who will conduct their own 

research afterwards; and those who are neither educated in 

these topics and do not care sufficiently to verify one way or the 

other. The first two categories will take care of themselves, and 

any attempt to make the third type of person into something he 

is not would be futile.

In summary, then, I gloss over a number of areas of importance 

in order to concentrate on my stated objective of presenting my 

reasoning for rendering a number of words in my translation the 

way I do.

Purpose of this article

The Qur’an tells us that ‘the satan’ (Arabic: al shayṭan) is an open 

enemy to mankind and that we are to take him as an enemy 

(35:6). 

I once heard the Vietnamese generals whose strategies defeated 

the United States interviewed. They were asked, in short, why 

they were so unreasonable as to think they could beat the 

largest and most powerful military in the world. They said that 

their view was that if they did not think they could win, they 

would simply surrender. There is no glory in fighting a war you 

cannot win. However, they had thought through all parts of their 

strategy and come to the conclusion that they could win. 

That stayed with me.

As those who know my work will appreciate, my broader 

strategy and objective is found in The God Protocol. The 

present article is among those written to accompany The 

Qur’an: A Complete Revelation which work is the heavy-artillery 

component providing logistical support for The God Protocol

spearhead. But since this article covers subjects understanding 

of which relate to The God Protocol, it is included as part of the 

appendix to that work also.

To fight an enemy effectively, one must understand who that 

enemy is, what his nature is, and how he operates. One needs also 

to understand where his weaknesses lie. And most importantly, 

one needs to know both how to use terrain to advantage against 

him, and how to gain leverage over him. One can try to stop an 

oncoming train by standing in front of it — or one can simply 

unbolt a few rails and let momentum do the rest.

In order to understand al shayṭan we need also to include 

related terms and, in places, unpick the mess we have inherited. 

The Vietnamese defeated the Americans because they were 

realistic about who they were dealing with both in terms of the 

front end (soldiers and bombs) and the back end (propaganda 

interests and cultural dysfunction on the enemy’s home front). 

Had they got any part of their analysis fundamentally confused, 

their chances of success would have fallen off dramatically.

However, having got their analysis correct, they were able to 

execute a plan which was successful.

Overview

The Traditionalist’s understanding of the terms we cover in this 

article is influenced as usual (one wants to say contaminated) to 

varying degrees by the extraneous literature to which he turns 

for the “extra” information he claims to need in addition to the 

Qur’an. 

But some of the mess is not his fault. These questions are 

complex and aspects of them frustrate exhaustive analysis 

by dint of the subject matter: non-corporeal, invisible beings. 

However, by looking to the Qur’anic text and applying our 

standard process of pan-textual analysis, we can approximate 

understandings for each term which are consistent with the text. 

Some of our conclusions correspond in places with parts of what 

the Traditionalist asserts. But we are able to make important 

distinctions; for example, we prove beyond any question that the 

typical value of an incorporeal being for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is incorrect 

— at least if one is to treat the term consistently as it appears 

in the Qur’an.

We are dealing with a taxonomy which treats in part of 

invisible beings, and in which we find both main headings and 

subdivisions thereof. Demons — according to our analysis — 

certainly exist and, perhaps understandably, have no interest in 

being exposed. 

Again, these are also complex issues. What has happened 

historically is that a number of related words have been treated 

as synonyms. And this is understandable; the meanings of words 

are frequently plastic; they change nuance over time. Culturally, 

the core terms of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , jānn / ّ

جان ,al jānn / ّ

َان

 and الج

the word we render satans which has an associated meaning of 

adversaries have been conflated.

.

P/95/96

96 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 97

The Qur’an, however, when treated as a complete text, serves 

to lock the meaning of key words into place, which allows the 

definitions of words to be recovered — or at least approximated 

— in the event that their meanings are fudged or lost.

Having unpicked the detail, we are presented with a 

comprehensive and comprehensible worldview in which the key 

distinctions between human political types are delineated, and 

in which the place of man within a context of angels, satans, and 

other unseen forces governing the physical and metaphysical 

realities which comprise our experience can be summarised. 

Moreover, that worldview includes within it much which 

traditions called scientific or occult attempt to explain.

My process in what follows is straightforward. There are three 

Sections, each part of which treats of one or more terms. Each of 

these topics opens with outline of the prevalent understanding; 

this is followed by a discussion which includes a description of 

my findings and examples from the text, and the topic ends with 

a summary and references for the term or terms covered. 

SECTION ONE

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنسِ 

The term al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is typically translated jinn (by which is 

meant ethereal, non-visible creatures) or demons. By jinn what 

is usually meant is invisible creatures with human-like aspects, 

some of which are good and some not. Meanwhile, al ins / اإلنسِ 

is typically translated men or mankind and treated as a synonym 

of al nās / اسَّ

.الن

We begin with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ .

I found that where al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ occurs with what the 

Traditionalist considers a human complement, it is paired 

always with al ins / اإلنس . ِ Never does either part of the pair 

come with one of the other words which are routinely translated 

jinn or mankind.

By looking at the verses in which they occur and observing how 

they operate together in those contexts, I came to the following 

conclusions:

1. There exists an apposition in the text between al ins / اإلنسِ 

and al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (by this I mean that they are to some degree 

contrasted or juxtaposed).

2. al ins / اإلنس ِ are human beings (i.e. they are members of 

the human race) but of a particular kind: the generality of 

men, the average men of the servile classes; i.e. those who 

are ruled by or submit to others: the masses, the followers, 

those who do not lead. (See particularly 6:128, 72:6.) This 

category will constitute the vast majority, and for want of a 

better word are those formerly called in England commoners. 

Thus, this category comprises the servile many, people with 

minimal or no power de facto.

3. al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (where it occurs in contrast to al ins / اإلنس ( ِ 

signifies also members of the human race, but of another 

kind: leaders, alphas, and chiefs. These are those people 

who rule and operate according to their own will; the people 

whose decisions matter; the people who decide in what 

world the commoners will live. This category would in the 

England of not so long ago have been called the nobility or the 

aristocracy. These are the dominant few.

4. At 18:50 we read that Iblī�s was of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . However, the 

context immediately following emphasises what is meant 

by this: that he operated according to his own will, he was 

not in subjection; his purpose and modus operandi is to lead 

mankind.

In short, al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are those few who command the masses 

(al ins / اإلنس .( ِ 

Thus, Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Caesar, and the ruling banking 

families of history and today are all al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . And the men 

who follow them, whether it be in the armies of traditional 

battles, or those whose lives are shaped and reshaped in the 

economic movements planned for them such as the cultural 

revolutions in the West since the WWI and especially since 1960, 

are al ins / اإلنس . ِ 

Given that the time of writing is characterised by feminised 

hysteria and wholesale delusion, it is worth adding that these 

distinctions are not value judgments necessarily. They are facts. 

A spaniel is not a Rottweiler, and vice versa. Things are what 

they are no matter how one might feel about them. Society has 

room for a lot of Indians but very few chiefs. 

God made people in this way. This was recognised over millennia 

as objective reality, and that reality was reflected in the explicit 

class and caste systems of those times. Today, of course, we are 

under the tyranny of selective delusion (a policy which suits the 

elites at this time), and so people are unable to grasp these facts; 

or their feelings don’t like facts, and so they deny them on that 

basis.

But if everyone were a Napoleon, who would drive the taxis 

and take care of the fields? Not everybody is a genius; not 

everybody is amazing. Most people are unremarkable. They live 

unremarkable lives; then they die. Again, this is a fact.

So today, the ruling elites which create the strategies via their 

think tanks which become the policy which is then presented 

in the media as current events are al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . And those 

whose lives are shaped by those decisions who typically have no 

conception that such decisions are being made — i.e. everyone 

else — are al ins / اإلنس , ِ that is, the peasantry, or those who serve 

the commanders.

The principle seems to be that people are born into one caste 

or the other. Before enforced delusion became the norm, this 

is what one referred to as breeding. Of course, training and 

environment are influences, but there are men who are born 

and bred to lead, and there are those who are born and bred to 

follow — a few outliers and misfits either way notwithstanding. 

I am of the opinion that the ruling elites comprise particular 

racial and familial lines, and that while they promote genetic 

degeneration and dystrophy among those they rule, they 

themselves follow strict breeding regimens. Meanwhile, 

they allow for the outliers and misfits mentioned above by 

accommodating the former and weeding out the latter over time. 

I have used Latin terms for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ in 

my translation: domini and servi in the plural and dominus and 

servus in the singular. The reason I have opted for these terms is 

that they carry etymologically the central characteristic of their 

nature.

It is important to grasp here that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنسِ 

comprise the two political subdivisions of al nās / الناس) i.e. men, 

humankind, people).

The term al nās / الناس is found in apposition with al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ , 

and this pairing is discussed later in the analysis.

Examples

Below is my rendering of verse 6:100.

100 And they make for God partners of the domini, 

when He created them; and they ascribe to Him sons 

and daughters without knowledge. Glory be to Him! And 

exalted is He above what they describe!

(6:100)

Is it not true that the commoners among men make godlike 

partners of their great men such as Alexander or Napoleon 

or the Caesars, and worship through their actions those who 

rule over them? Have not religions done much to confirm the 

rule of men as the will of God? Is not the cult of State-worship 

a debased and collectivised form of the same, and a natural 

corollary to the materialist narratives ascribed to Creation and 

human existence?

Certainly, historically, men have ascribed to the Caesars and 

other rulers connections with Deity. One thinks also in the West 

of Romans 13:1-7 which has been used to keep the believers in 

their place, for example, or of the divine right of kings. And all 

cultures have had their equivalent dogmas.

People worship power, and today is no different. Of course, the 

power of today’s elites is embedded within the legal fiction 

called government which the masses are trained to think they 

have chosen. And the masses, true to type, look to their masters 

in the guise of “their” government to protect them. That this is 

a form of psychosis and Stockholm syndrome not only does not 

detract from its efficacy and ubiquity as a form of control and 

worship, it contributes to it. The masses think that by following 

the dominant power they can obtain safety. And today, worship 

of the cult of government, which is a composite of chemical, 

psychological, behavioural and other forms of conditioning, is 

almost universal.

Most people today profess forms of atheism. While it is not 

possible to speak for all atheists, my impression is that most are 

materialists and ascribe to what they think of as pre-existing 

and uncreated evolutionary forces something approximating 

purpose (though denied as Purpose, of course). And this purpose 

— although divested of the language of gratitude to God — 

tends eventually to meld into the notion of government as the 

inescapable outcome of an expression of that purpose.

Here is a further verse:

112 And thus have We appointed for every prophet an 

enemy — satans of servi and domini — instructing one 

another in the decoration of speech as delusion, (and had 

thy Lord willed, they would not have done it; so leave 

thou them and what they fabricate)

(6:112)

(We note that the word translated above satans is shayāṭīn in the 

Arabic and is nuanced even beyond its plain secondary meaning 

of adversaries — a sense confirmed here by enemy. We address 

this topic in full later in our analysis.)

How could one leave the domini (Arabic: al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ ) if the 

word does not denote human entities?

And again:

128 And the day He gathers them all together: “O 

congregation of domini: you have desired many among 

the servi.” And their allies among the servi will say: “Our 

Lord: we benefited one another; but we have reached our 

term which Thou appointedst for us.” He will say: “The 

Fire is your dwelling, you abiding eternally therein!” save 

that God should will; thy Lord is wise and knowing.

129 And thus do We make the wrongdoers allies of one 

another by what they earned.

(6:128-130)

Here the conclusion is that ‘wrongdoers’ are ‘allies of one 

another.’ Again, this is impossible to square with the idea of al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as a non-corporeal entity, at least in any meaningful 

sense.

130 “O congregation of domini and servi: came there 

not to you messengers from among you, relating to 

you My proofs and warning you of the meeting of this 

day of yours?” They will say: “We bear witness against 

ourselves.” And the life of this world deluded them; and 

they will bear witness against themselves that they were 

false claimers of guidance.

131 That is because thy Lord would not destroy the cities 

in injustice, while their people were unaware.

(6:130-131)

At verse 6:130 al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ are addressed as a 

single group to whom messengers came but who were deceived 

by the life of this world. Meanwhile, 6:131 treats of concrete, 

physical cities with physical people. Again, this simply does not 

square with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as non-corporeal entities.

37 And who is more unjust than he who invents a lie about 

God, or denies His proofs? Those: there reaches them 

their portion of the Writ; when Our messengers come to 

them, to take them, they say: “Where is that to which you 

called, besides God?” They will say: “They have strayed 

from us.” And they will bear witness against themselves 

that they were false claimers of guidance.

38 He will say: “Enter among the communities that have 

passed away before you of domini and servi into the Fire!” 

Whenever a community enters, it curses its sister; when 

they have followed one another therein all together, the

.

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98 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 99

last of them will say to the first of them: “Our Lord: these 

led us astray; so give Thou them double punishment of the 

Fire!” He will say: “For each is double, but you know not.”

(7:37-38)

The scenario above clearly treats of individual communities 

being warned by messengers of God, of them rejecting that 

message and together entering the Fire, followed by mutual 

reproach. Reproach only makes sense among like kind, which 

fact is impossible to square with the idea of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as a 

non-corporeal entity.

Consider now:

88 Say thou: “If the servi and the domini gathered to 

produce the like of this Qur’an, they would not produce 

the like thereof, though they were helpers one of another.”

89 And We have expounded for men in this Qur’an every 

similitude, but most men refuse save denial.

(17:88-89)

How could two entirely different entities, one of which is unable 

to see the other, gather together to achieve any end whatever?

As stated, al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are the people who command things to 

be done — and in terms of today, are those who run the business 

plan that everyone else (i.e. al ins / اإلنس ( ِ is living through and 

think of as current events.

Here is a further example:

17 And there were gathered to Solomon his forces of 

domini and servi and birds; and they were marshalled.

(17:70)

We will leave to one side the subject of ‘birds’, and focus on al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس . ِ The fact that they were ‘marshalled’ 

suggests a single group of military forces. Does it not sound more 

likely that this treats of commanders and common soldiers than 

it does of spirit beings and humans?

What follows treats of the Queen of Saba’ (whose story forms 

part of that of Solomon). While the language in the segment 

below does not use either al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ or al ins / اإلنس , ِ the 

reader will be aware that the Queen of Saba’ is addressing her 

ruling class, and that both she and they are aware of Solomon’s 

policy of subjecting rulers:

29 She said: “O eminent ones: there has been cast unto 

me a noble writ;

30 “It is from Solomon, and it is: ‘In the name of God, the 

Almighty, the Merciful:

31 “‘Exalt not yourselves against me, but come to me 

submitting!’”

32 She said: “O eminent ones: counsel me in my affair; I 

decide no affair until you bear me witness.”

33 They said: “We possess power and possess strong 

might, but the command is for thee; see thou what thou 

wilt command.”

34 She said: “Kings, when they enter a city, spoil it and 

make its most honoured people abject; and thus will they 

do.

35 “And I will send a gift to them, and see with what the 

emissaries return.”

(27:29-35)

I suggest that Solomon’s practice of placing conquered rulers in 

subjection is what the Queen is alluding to; and that rulers are 

collectively known as al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ .

Later in the same chapter, Solomon is speaking:

38 He said: “O eminent ones: which of you will bring me 

her throne before they come to me submitting?”

39 A mischievous one among the domini said: “I will bring 

it to thee before thou canst rise from thy place; and I am 

for this strong and trustworthy.”

40 Said one with knowledge of the writ: “I will bring it to 

thee before thy glance return to thee.”

(27:38-40)

My reading of this is that two former rulers are competing by 

means of superlatives for their master’s good graces, and that 

this is an example of precisely the type of humiliation the Queen 

of Saba’ wishes to avoid.

12 And to Solomon the wind: its morning course a month, 

and its evening course a month. And We made flow for 

him a spring of molten brass. And among the domini 

worked some before him, by the leave of his Lord; and 

who deviated among them from Our command — We will 

let him taste of the punishment of the Inferno.

13 They made for him what he willed of sanctuaries, and 

statues, and basins like pools, and vessels firmly fixed. 

“Work, house of David, in gratitude!” And few are the 

grateful among My servants.

14 And when We decreed death for him, there indicated 

his death to them only a creature of the earth eating at his 

staff. But when he fell down, it became clear to the domini 

that had they but known the Unseen, they would not have 

tarried in the humiliating punishment.

(34:12-14)

The description at 34:14 when Solomon’s life — and hence rule 

— ended, fits best people of the calibre of the Queen of Saba’ and 

her ruling elite: dominant human beings; moreover, dominant 

human beings in humiliating circumstances.

Identifying and unpicking the components across this narrative 

is made complicated by dint of the fact that satans (shayāṭīn /

ٰـ ِطني

َ

َي

ش (also worked for Solomon. We will discuss these entities 

separately later in the analysis. For now, we will consider the 

following:

40 And the day He gathers them all together, then will He 

say to the angels: “Did these serve you?”

41 They will say: “Glory be to Thee! Thou art our ally, not 

them!” The truth is, they served the domini; most of them 

were believers in them.

42 And that day will you possess for one another neither 

benefit nor harm, and We will say to those who did wrong: 

“Taste the punishment of the Fire, which you denied!”

(34:40-42)

Of course, there are those who believe in hidden spirits, but I 

would assert that on the level of the day-to-day business of life, 

most men subject their time and efforts to the requirements of 

other men.

This question becomes thornier later into our analysis where we 

consider the fact that dominant minorities tend to possess — 

or be able to access — correspondingly greater occult powers 

than the average. At some levels we are dealing with people so 

demonised that their original soul is contractually supplanted 

by demonic forces. We unpick these subtleties later.

Meanwhile, those in positions of dependent power belonging to 

al ins / اإلنس ِ tend, when demonically influenced, to be so less 

than the rulers themselves. On the level of the day-to-day and 

the apparent, people serve those immediately above them in the 

hope of receiving benefits and security. However, this will end 

in recriminations.

27 But We will let those who ignore warning taste a severe 

punishment; and We will reward them for the worst of 

what they did.

28 That is the reward of the enemies of God: the Fire; they 

have therein the Abode of Eternity as reward because they 

rejected Our proofs.

29 And those who ignore warning will say: “Our Lord: 

show Thou us those who led us astray of the domini and 

the servi; we will place them under our feet, that they 

might be among the lowest!”

(41:27-29)

Consider also the following:

17 And he who says to his parents: “Fie upon you! Do you 

promise me that I will be brought forth, when generations 

have already passed away before me?” while they seek aid 

of God: — “Woe to thee! Believe thou; the promise of God 

is true,” but he says: “This is only legends of the former 

peoples,” —

18 Those are they upon whom the word concerning the 

communities of the domini and the servi which passed 

away before them became binding; they were losers.

(46:17-18)

Again, we are talking about human beings: a man and his 

parents; a man who refuses to follow the good counsel of 

parents. It is not clear from the context whether he pertains to 

the al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ or to the al ins / اإلنس ِ segment of humanity, and 

for our purposes it does not matter.

Traditional values for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ fall

awkwardly here also:

55 But remind thou, for the reminder benefits the 

believers.

56 And I created the domini and the servi only that they 

should serve Me.

57 I desire no provision from them, nor do I desire that 

they should feed Me.

58 God, He is the Provider, the Possessor of Power, the 

Strong.

59 And for those who do wrong is a portion like the 

portion of their companions; so let them not seek to 

hasten Me!

60 And woe to those who ignore warning from their day 

which they are promised!

(51:55-60)

The narrative concerns food, something which one touches 

and sees, and needs in order to sustain the physical body. This 

comports poorly with the notion of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as ethereal 

creatures.

The verse at 51:59 conveys a rhetorical imperative. This

only makes sense if both al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ are 

human beings with which one could — at least potentially — 

communicate directly. The Qur’an does not require those it 

addresses to fulfil impossible tasks.

Proof that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are human beings

The two portions of text which give us the most information 

about al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are at 46:29-31 and 72:1-14. In both cases, 

these segments follow narratives which treat of messengers 

who delivered God’s warning to their people, and whose people 

were summarily destroyed thereafter in an act of God. These 

messengers are Hūd and Noah respectively (found at 46:21-26 

and 71:1-28). The verses at 46:27-28 treat of characteristics 

common to both of the scenarios mentioned.

Thus, the stories of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as warners to their respective 

communities both follow directly from segments which treat of 

total destruction, and both address issues raised in the preceding 

segments in a number of ways. As examples, we find in their 

speech the need to ‘respond to the caller to God’ (as opposed to 

the denial which precedes and results in destruction), and their 

call to believe in God provides a counterpoint to the rallying 

around false gods which precedes. We find also appeals to God’s 

‘majesty’ both at 71:13 and 72:3. The interested reader will 

find more points of correlation and comparison between the 

segments cited.

Given a value for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ of a ruling minority, the 

implication is that such men responded to a case of actual 

destruction by drawing the correct conclusions and exhorting 

their own people to avoid a similar fate. It is my view that the 

recipients of Muḥammad’s initial preaching not only rejected 

(which is the Traditionalist view also), but that they must have 

been destroyed as a result. This question is expanded upon in 

my book The God Protocol.

However, even without acceptance of this point, we can prove 

definitively on a pan-textual basis that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are human 

beings:

10 Their messengers said: “Can there be about God any 

doubt: the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth? He calls 

you, that He will forgive you of your transgressions, 

and delay you to a stated term.” They said: “You are only 

mortals like us, who would turn us away from what our

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100 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 101

fathers served. So bring us a clear authority.”

11 Their messengers said to them: “We are only mortals, 

like you; but God gives grace to whom He wills of His 

servants. And it is not for us to bring you an authority save 

by the leave of God; and in God let the believers place their 

trust.

12 “And how could we not place our trust in God, when He 

has guided us in our ways? And we will be patient in that 

wherein you hinder us; and in God let those who would 

place their trust aright place their trust.”

(14:10-12)

We are interested here primarily in two phrases, translated 

above He will forgive you of your transgressions (Arabic: َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي

ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِ م م

ل ,(and delay you to a stated term (Arabic: 

ًىَ

ّ

َ م

ُّس

َ ٍل م

َج

ٓ أ

َِلٰ

ْ إ

ُكم

ْ

ّخر

ِ َ

ؤ

ُ

ي .(These words are found in the mouths 

of messengers, and the retort — confirmed by the messengers 

themselves — is that the speakers are merely human beings.

Both phrases are found together at just one other place: in the 

mouth of Noah (71:4) — i.e. within one of the segments we 

list above which precedes (and mirrors) one of the principal 

sections treating of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . 

Noah was, of course, the man whose mission heralded the 

most widespread destruction to come upon the earth to date in 

scripture.

But — and this is important — the first phrase (Arabic: َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي

ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِم م

ل (is found also at one other place: in the mouth 

of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , or domini:

29 And when We turned towards thee a band of the 

domini, listening in to the Qur’an, and when they were in 

its presence they said: “Listen attentively”; then, when it 

was concluded, they turned back to their people, warning.

30 They said: “O our people: we have heard a Writ sent 

down after Moses, confirming what was before it, guiding 

to the truth and to a straight road.

31 “O our people: respond to the caller to God, and believe 

in Him; He will forgive you of your transgressions and 

protect you from a painful punishment.”

(46:29-31)

The expression He will forgive you of your transgressions 

(Arabic: ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِم م

 ل

َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي (occurs only at the three places 

listed above. At 14:10 we are told that messengers said things 

which included the expression He will forgive you of your 

transgressions (Arabic: ْ

ِ ُكم

ُوب

ن

ُ

ّن ذ

َ ُك ِ م م

 ل

َ

ِفر

ْ

غ

َ

ي ,(and we are 

told that the same messengers claimed specifically to be mortals 

and were confirmed as such by their audience. This specific 

phrase links 14:10-12, 71:4 and 46:29-31 and identifies the 

speakers in all three cases both as messengers and, specifically, 

as mortals. 

To assert al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as anything other than mortals requires 

one to disregard the Qur’an’s own evidence.

Muhammad Asad’s understanding of 72:1

I will now touch on Muhammad Asad’s understanding of al jinn

/ ّ

الجن

ِ at sūrah 72.

Asad was born Leopold Weiss, and was a Jewish convert to the 

Islamic religion. He was involved to some degree in the early 

days of the newly created state of Pakistan, but removed to 

Spain to see out his days after, I suspect, understanding the 

pointlessness of any mission in Pakistan. 

His translation of the Qur’an is thoughtful, though extrapolative. 

His commentary is frequently insightful, and I quote him more 

copiously in my notes to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation than 

any other commentator, mainstream or otherwise.

I should state frankly that Asad did not apply the type of 

methodology I do (that of pan-textual analysis, and application 

of Qur’anic definitions). He also did not aim to enforce 

consistency in the way that I do. Rather, he takes a broadly Sunni 

line, though one infused by an atypical intelligence and capacity 

for reflection.

Thus, in considering Asad’s comment to 72:1 below, the reader 

should understand that Asad neither applies to all cases of al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ what he states here (he takes the Traditionalist line 

that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ means different things in different places), nor 

is he cognisant of distinction I identify between al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and

al ins / اإلنس ِ on the one hand, and al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل and al nās /

َّاس

ٱلن on the other.

Nevertheless, his comment is not only insightful, it is useful; and 

it is particularly so when viewed in the light of the distinctions 

we are establishing here, namely, that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al jinna /

َّة

ِجن

ْ

ٱل refer to entirely different entities, and that their meanings 

are consistent across the text.

His translation of 72:1 reads:

SAY: “It has been revealed to me that some of the unseen 

beings gave ear [to this divine writ],* and thereupon 

said [unto their fellow-beings]: “’Verily, we have heard a 

wondrous discourse,

His comment below is attached at the point of the asterisk I 

have supplied in his translation above. Asad places his comment 

in light apposition to that of a Sunni authority, the Persian Al-

Tabari, and so presents it somewhat tentatively. The meat of his 

comment is as follows:

[...]the jinn are referred to in the Qur’an in many 

connotations. In a few cases - e.g., in the present instance 

and in 46:29-32 - this expression may possibly signify 

“hitherto unseen beings”, namely, strangers who had 

never before been seen by the people among and to whom 

the Qur’an was then being revealed. From 46:30 (which 

evidently relates to the same occurrence as the present one) 

it transpires that the jinn in question were followers of the 

Mosaic faith, inasmuch as they refer to the Qur’an as “a 

revelation bestowed from on high after [that of] Moses”, thus 

pointedly omitting any mention of the intervening prophet, 

Jesus, and equally pointedly (in verse 3 of the present surah) 

stressing their rejection of the Christian concept of the 

Trinity. All this leads one to the assumption that they may 

have been Jews from distant parts of what is now the Arab 

world, perhaps from Syria or even Mesopotamia. 

What is of significance for our purposes is that Asad — himself a 

Jew, as we have said — associates al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ with Jews. 

Interestingly, the wording both here and at 46:29 is specific, 

stating in both cases that these people comprised some part of

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ — and, by implication, not the totality thereof.

It is my assertion that Asad is materially correct in his analysis 

above. What he has missed is the distinction between al jinn 

/ ّ

الجن

ِ and al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل ,and that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ indicates the 

dominant minority and is set in apposition with al ins / اإلنس ِ as 

the servile majority.

Understood thus, we not only have Qur’anic support for the 

reality under which we live in the world today, namely, of vastly 

disproportionate Jewish representation among elites which 

dominate all societies and under whose thrall we live, but the 

fact that Jews represent only a segment and not the totality of 

this dominant power is alluded to also.

I am not suggesting that all Jews are al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ . It is clear from 

the broader Qur’anic text that among the Jews are what are 

called in my translation ‘doctors of the Law’ (i.e. a rabbinic caste 

of ideological enforcers), and that mistreatment of their lesser 

brethren for strategic reasons is a characteristic tactic (see 2:85 

for example).

It is clear also from the text (see 72:11) that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ are not 

uniformly evil: some are righteous and some are not.

Colin Wilson’s The Occult

After my own thinking on the subjects covered in this article 

was largely formed, and long after I had decided upon the terms 

domini and servi for al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ respectively,

I happened to read The Occult by writer and philosopher Colin 

Wilson. The opening section of Chapter Two of that book, 

entitled The Dark Side of the Moon, is found below. I have added 

explanations of key terms inside square brackets.

In the autumn of 1969 I discussed questions of the occult 

with the poet Robert Graves at his home in Majorca. 

Graves immediately made a remark that startled me. 

‘Occult powers are not so rare. One person in every twenty 

possesses them in some form.’

What interested me so much was the exact figure: 5 per 

cent. This is also the figure for the ‘dominant minority’ 

among human beings. In the early years of this century, 

Bernard Shaw asked the explorer Henry Stanley how many 

of his men could take over leadership of the party if he, 

Stanley, were ill. ‘One in twenty,’ said Stanley. ‘Is that figure 

exact or approximate?’ ‘Exact.’

The matter of the dominant 5 per cent was rediscovered 

during the Korean War by the Chinese. Wishing to 

economise on man-power, they decided to divide their 

American prisoners into two groups: the enterprising 

ones and the passive ones. They soon discovered that the 

enterprising soldiers were exactly one in twenty: 5 per cent. 

When this dominant 5 per cent was removed from the rest 

of the group, the others could be left with almost no guard 

at all.

Evidence from zoology indicates that the ‘dominant 5 per 

cent’ may apply to all animals.

The interesting question arises: How far is the biologically 

dominant 5 percent the same thing as Graves’s ‘occult 5 

percent’? There are certainly many reasons for assuming 

that the two groups are identical. In primitive societies 

the leaders are also priests and magicians. The men who 

led hunting parties would again be those who possessed 

a high degree of ‘jungle sensitivity’ [i.e. the ability to 

intuit advantageous decisions]. What is the power that 

distinguishes the leader? It is the power to focus, to 

concentrate the will in emergencies. That is to say, it is a 

form of Faculty X [i.e. the ability to access pre-existing 

streams of power lost to ‘civilised’ man in a more intense 

awareness of life].

In short, it seems probable that all human beings possess 

the vestiges of ‘occult powers’, the powers that spring from 

their deeper levels of vitality, what the playwright Granville-

Barker called ‘the secret life’. The dominant 5 percent are 

more adept at canalising these powers than most people. 

The magicians, witch doctors, witches and mediums have 

been those members of the dominant 5 per cent who have 

developed their natural powers.

While I broadly agree with Wilson’s themes, I believe that the 

‘dominant minority’ he identifies among the American soldiers 

are — to use my own terminology — simply servi possessed 

of access to the hidden realm superior to that of their more 

deadened or less well-equipped compatriots.

Moreover, in my view, the Chinese were dealing with men who, 

by definition, were lower-caste servi. These men were blindly 

following orders given by commanders who were hundreds or 

thousands of miles away sipping tea, deliberating over maps 

and, perhaps, anticipating liaisons with expensive call girls in the 

evening in congenial surroundings. Yet this layer of dominance 

has been entirely omitted from Wilson’s equation. Including this 

layer of dominance then, the calculation is more correctly 5 per 

cent of 5 per cent.

But military commanders answer to a visible tier above them 

of population managers in the form of politicians and other 

mind managers (media owners, so-called philanthropists, 

large foundations, etc.), which fact adds yet another process of 

division by twenty.

And this level itself answers to the hidden executive, or what we 

might call real power.

So if one is interested in a number for the actual ruling elite 

on the basis of Wilson’s findings, we should apply his division 

by twenty to the total general population four times to reach a 

result which reflects the actual power pyramid.

Given a claimed world population in 2021 of 7.8 billion, this 

results in a top layer of under 50,000 genuinely dominant men. 

And among this number, the guiding executive is, again, likely to 

form 5 per cent.

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102 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 103

This results in under 2,450 men — a number I think is likely 

broadly correct.

A corollary to this conclusion will be corresponding tiers of 

psychic or occult access. There is a difference between someone 

who is able correctly to intuit that it will begin raining at 

precisely three o’clock tomorrow afternoon and someone who 

routinely channels — and has the power to initiate — the broad 

outline of Satan’s plan for enslaving humanity for the next fifty 

or hundred years. Both have a measure of what Wilson calls 

‘jungle sensitivity’. But to ignore the fundamental differences of 

scale is a major blunder.

If Wilson’s findings are correct, then they are correct in a context 

which assumes a flat structure with no natural staggered 

hierarchy, no levels of nobility, no ziggurat amid a sea of hovels. 

I do not make that assumption, and I do not believe the Qur’an 

reflects it, either. 

When I am discussing al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , I mean the capstone of 

the pyramid both in terms of real power and in terms of occult 

power, which phenomena I believe are intrinsically connected, 

and which we outline later; I mean the roughly 2,500 men 

who sign off on the wars, economic cycles, political and sexual 

revolutions, mass movements of peoples, and technological and 

other waves of change which comprise the dominant themes 

of the closed-circuit dramas which form the lives of billions of 

politically and esoterically ignorant peons. I do not mean the 

five in a hundred infantry soldiers more capable of effecting an 

escape from their captors than the remaining ninety-five.

Sūrah 72: Al Jinn

We will look now at sūrah 72 in some detail. 

This sūrah opens with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ but treats also indirectly of 

satans (Arabic: al shayāṭīn / طني ِـٰ

َ

ٱلشي .( َّ By presenting the relevant 

parts of this sūrah with key notes as they appear in The Qur’an: 

A Complete Revelation (indicated here by means of an asterisk) 

we will be better prepared also to understand the Section below 

which has as its subjects satans and Iblīs / يسِ

ل

ْ

ِب

.إ

We are interested here in 72:1-15 and 72:19. I will lay out the 

verses and supply the related notes below each.

1 Say thou: “It is revealed to me,* that a band* of the 

domini listened in, and they said: ‘We have heard an 

amazing recitation

* Many chapters have defining characteristics. Here that 

characteristic is annahu or that (it), and closely-related 

constructions. The verse at 72:1 identifies what was revealed to 

the Messenger, and other translators tend to render along the 

lines I have here in terms of the construction mentioned above. 

Thereafter, translators tend to elide this construction where it 

reappears. I can understand that because where this feature 

appears elsewhere in the broader text of the Qur’an it tends to 

be redundant in English. So on first blush it makes sense to elide 

it in the remainder of the sūrah also. But it occurs in the present 

sūrah with such frequency that I was compelled to consider 

this feature as significant in some way. My conclusion is that it 

appears so repeatedly in the chapter for two reasons. Firstly, the 

subject matter itself treats of al jinn, whom we understand to 

be representative of the dominant men who sit atop any society 

— including ours — and rule. In our broader discussion of that 

topic, we identify a correlation between the powers wielded by 

ruling elites and the effective use of esoteric or occult powers 

by those elites. Thus, this repeated feature emphasises the fact 

of this sūrah’s revelation to the Messenger, effectively linking 

all sentences which contain the feature with the opening 

statement: Say thou: it is revealed to me, that[...]. Moreover, the 

recurrent accent upon the word that, while easily (and, again, 

correctly) elided in other circumstances, serves here not only to 

put the reader in mind of this sūrah as something revealed to 

Muḥammad, but juxtaposes that fact with the words of al jinn 

who describe historical attempts to force access to the heavenly 

realms to obtain information, and that such attempts are now all 

but futile. Thus, this format itself makes plain that the revelation 

given to Muḥammad is superior to whatever the schemes of al 

jinn might be. Secondly, this same mechanism sets in place an 

emphasis on the revealed nature of verse 72:19 — which falls 

outside that segment which comprises the words of al jinn — 

effectively pulling it back into a focus with the same emphasis 

on revelation as the statements of al jinn. Finally, the same 

mechanism serves a different but related function at 72:27. 

Without the, perhaps, pedantic emphasis which results from my 

rendering of this sūrah, these important points would be lost.

* Arabic: nafar: men (as a collective); band, party, troop. This 

word is used in the opening verse of both segments which deal 

most extensively with al jinn in the Qur’an: 46:29-31 and 72:1-

14 . The construction has a partitive emphasis: it is ‘a band of 

the domini’ (i.e. some portion of the total number of domini), 

not all members of that group. This nuance will be of increasing 

interest as we progress through the present sūrah.

2 “‘Guiding to sound judgment, and we have believed in 

it, and will not ascribe a partnership with our Lord to 

anyone.’

3 “And that: ‘Exalted be the majesty of our Lord! He has 

taken neither consort nor son.’*

* Muhammad Asad understands this statement to support his 

view that the speakers are Jews, since the position here refutes 

the calumnies heaped upon God by Christians. I agree with 

this view within the context of my identification of al jinn as 

dominant rulers. See also note to 72:4 below.

4 “And that: ‘The fool among us* ascribed a wanton 

falsehood to God.’

* Generally thought by those who hold to the Traditionalist 

view of this chapter to refer to Iblī�s. Like me, Muhammad Asad 

does not accept uncritically the view that al jinn are non-human 

entities — at least, he does not do so at this point. Asad, himself 

a Jew (born Leopold Weiss), supplies a comment which I include 

for interest: If we accept the supposition that the beings spoken 

of here were Jewish strangers, the “outrageous things” (shatat) 

which they mention would appear to be an allusion to the deep-

set belief of the Jews that they were “God’s chosen people” - a 

belief which the Qur’an consistently rejects, and of which the new 

converts now divested themselves. The reference could also be 

to the foolish in general — for example, by analogy with the 

construction most moderate of them (i.e. among them) at 68:28 

— or to the creators of lies about God, such as the inventors of 

the Talmud, or Saul of Tarsus. However, my view is that since it 

is al jinn who are speaking — whom I identify as representative 

of the dominant men or ruling elites of the time — I think it 

most likely that they are referring to one of their own on that 

basis. Accordingly, I think the reference most likely to indicate 

Emperor Constantine who, it will be remembered, convened and 

presided over the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. The result of this 

Council, at least according to Wikipedia as of January 2021, was 

that: The Council declared that the Son was true God, coeternal 

with the Father and begotten from His same substance, arguing 

that such a doctrine best codified the Scriptural presentation of 

the Son as well as traditional Christian belief about him handed 

down from the Apostles. This belief was expressed by the bishops 

in the Creed of Nicaea, which would form the basis of what has 

since been known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Emperor Constantine undoubtedly meets our criteria for al jinn, 

and so while the speakers in the sūrah seem most likely to have 

been Jews, as per Muhammad Asad’s comment, their defining 

characteristic within the Qur’anic framework is not here 

Jewishness, but membership of a ruling caste. And on that basis, 

the speakers would regard Emperor Constantine as one of their 

own. This understanding comports both with my view of al jinn

as representatives of a dominant minority (the Jewish aspect of 

which is identified by Asad), and with the refutation of common 

Christian errors at 72:3.

5 “And that: ‘We had thought that the servi and the domini 

would not ascribe a lie to God.’*

* The implication is clearly that the speakers were wrong in 

their assumption. If we grant that the reference at 72:4 is to 

Emperor Constantine as I assert, the present verse makes sense. 

Constantine (as a member of the ruling elite, or domini) presided 

over a gathering at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE of around 

300 bishops, men whose political position at that time in Church 

history was unambiguously that of servi. See note at 72:4.

6 “And that: ‘Men among the servi sought protection 

with men against* the domini, so they increased them in 

baseness.’*

* The issue of how to understand the word min (Arabic: من (ِin 

this context is a thorny one. The fact is that min forms a standard 

part of the construction in which the verb which precedes it 

here occurs, and does so in combination with its complement 

particle (Arabic: bi / ب .( ِThus, a construction familiar to most 

Muslims is: I seek protection with (Arabic: bi / ب ( ِGod from

(Arabic: min / من — (ِi.e. against — the accursed Satan. We find 

this construction unambiguously used at 19:18, 23:97, 40:27, 

113:1-2, 114:1-4. The remaining instances of the form I of this 

verb (2:67, 11:47, 23:98, 44:20) use lest or that (Arabic: an / ان ,(

and we can disregard those here. The question is whether one is 

to regard 72:6 as divergent from those structures with identical 

components at 19:18, 23:97, 40:27, 113:1-2, 114:1-4, and if so, 

on what basis. I will present in my own wording the two possible 

alignments, then give other translators’ renderings with my 

comments, before presenting my conclusions. If we are to read 

the first clause of the present verse in alignment with its fellows 

in min, then we must understand it as: Men among the servi 

sought protection with men against the domini. Here the import 

is that men among the servi sought protection with others like 

themselves against the domini. This reading, using my own 

terminology, is consistent with all other instances which employ 

the same grammatical components. However, the divergent 

reading (i.e. one which, though possible to Arabic is anomalous 

to 19:18, 23:97, 40:27, 113:1-2, 114:1-4) is: Men among the servi 

sought protection with men among the domini. Here the import 

is that men of one kind sought refuge with men of another kind 

and the complement is left unfulfilled. We will now consider 

some translators. Here we are interested in the constructions 

used, not translators’ understanding of key terminology. A. J. 

Arberry has: But there were certain men of mankind who would 

take refuge with certain men of the jinn; Hilali & Khan, keen to 

avoid textual evidence pointing to humans in the second case, 

have: ‘And verily, there were men among mankind who took 

shelter with the masculine among the jinns; Asad has: Yet [it 

has always happened] that certain kinds of humans would seek 

refuge with certain kinds of [such] invisible forces; lastly, Saheeh 

International has: And there were men from mankind who sought 

refuge in men from the jinn. We see that the first three translators 

favour what I am calling the divergent reading, while Saheeh 

International fudges the issue by using the ambiguous from, 

which can mean both from among and against. The problem, 

in my view, is less one of grammar than one of exegesis. The 

Traditionalist does not possess an understanding of each of the 

types of human and non-human entities discussed in Article 

XXV which is consistent in all places in the Qur’an (he derives 

it from extraneous sources), so it is natural that he struggles 

in his exegesis here. We have been able to present a textually 

consistent identification of the key types, and that has assisted 

us in presenting an exegesis of the verses of this sūrah to this 

point, one which comports both with that identification and with 

the text on the page. The question is whether we can continue 

in that vein here while applying Occam’s razor, i.e. the principle 

that the option requiring the smallest number of assumptions 

is probably the correct one. In our case, provided our exegesis 

is not unduly disrupted, it requires less assumptions — given 

that 72:6 contains the same grammatical components as 19:18, 

23:97, 40:27, 113:1-2, 114:1-4 — to accept that 72:6 comports 

with its fellows and that the meaning of the troublesome min 

in this verse is what it is in all other comparable cases: from in 

the sense of against. This results in a full verse in: Men among 

the servi sought protection with men against the domini, so they 

increased them in baseness. Understood thus, we find a ready 

fit in the Servile Wars, three periods of slave uprisings in Rome 

(135−132 BC, 104−100 BC, 73−71 BC) which were brutally put 

down by the Romans, resulting in the wholesale crucifixion, 

torture, and death by other horrific means of the rebellious 

slave armies. While I cannot prove definitively that this is the 

reference, it fits both with the identifications I have provided 

and with historical reality, and aligns easily with a reading of the 

grammatical components found in the verse which is consistent 

across all comparable instances. In order to avoid an ambiguity 

of the type found in the Saheeh International translation I have 

rendered min in this case against.

* I.e. the domini increased those among the servi in baseness. See 

note to 72:6 above. Arabic: rahaq. The Arabic senses include: 

lowness, vileness, meanness; weakness (Lane, p. 1777).

.

104/105

104 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 105

7 “And that: ‘They* thought, as you* thought, that God 

would never raise up* anyone.’

* I take the speakers here to have in view the domini in the 

preceding verse. Seen in this light, the implication is that the 

rulers of the time in question dismissed the idea of God raising 

up any messenger or prophet (see also other notes to this verse). 

Interestingly, the leader of the first slave uprising mentioned in 

the note above, Eunus, rose to prominence among the slaves 

through his claim to be both prophet and a wonder-worker. 

Clearly, the Roman elites did not subscribe to Eunus’ assertions. 

See notes to 72:6 and 72:7.

* I.e. the broader group of al jinn which the speakers are 

addressing. I take this broader group to comprise non-Jewish 

elites. See note to 72:7 below.

* We need to address the question of what the verb baʿatha means 

here. It is used in two main senses in the Qur’an: to raise up (i.e. a 

messenger or prophet) and to raise up (i.e. after death). Among 

the translators I frequently review, the Traditionalists Hilali & 

Khan, Saheeh International, and Muhammad Asad all render 

after the first view, whereas the non-Traditionalist N. J. Dawood 

renders after the second with: that God could never resurrect 

the dead; non-Traditionalist A. J. Arberry is ambiguous: that God 

would never raise up anyone. I can only assume that the first three 

translators were primed to incline to their view by the usual 

sources, whereas the non-Traditionalists remained relatively 

ignorant of those sources and simply followed the Arabic on 

the page to the best of their abilities. The Qur’an contains 52 

instances of the form I of this verb (2:56, 2:129, 2:213, 2:246, 

2:247, 2:259, 3:164, 4:35, 5:12, 5:31, 6:36, 6:60, 6:65, 7:14, 

7:103, 7:167, 10:74, 10:75, 15:36, 16:21, 16:36, 16:38, 16:84, 

16:89, 17:5, 17:15, 17:79, 17:94, 18:12, 18:19, 18:19, 19:15, 

19:33, 22:7, 23:16, 23:100, 25:41, 25:51, 26:36, 26:87, 27:65, 

28:59, 36:52, 37:144, 38:79, 40:34, 58:6, 58:18, 62:2, 64:7, 64:7, 

72:7), and both usages are frequent among them. We need a 

concrete criterion by which to align the present case with one of 

these two meanings. We find that the construction here at 72:7 

of an active verb in the negative (Arabic: lan / نَ

ل (is found at one 

other place only (40:34). There the text expressly mentions ‘a 

messenger’. On that basis, we can concur with the Traditionalist 

reading: the import here is of raising up a messenger. This leaves 

us with the question of the broader meaning. Muhammad Asad 

notes here: Thus Tabari (on the authority of Al-Kalbi) and Ibn 

Kathir [states that] the overwhelming majority of the Jews were 

convinced that no prophet would be raised after those who were 

explicitly mentioned in the Old Testament: hence their rejection of 

Jesus and, of course, Muhammad, and their “reaching out towards 

heaven” (see next verse) in order to obtain a direct insight into 

God’s plan of creation. While I agree in general terms with 

Asad here, there exists a broader aspect to the present case. I 

would agree more readily and fully with him if the text read ‘we 

thought’ rather than ‘you thought’ in this verse. There are, of 

course, cases in the Qur’an where you is used where we is clearly 

the import (dialogue among the companions of the cave at 18:19 

comes readily to mind), but in addition to the fact that we and 

us are routinely and consistently used by the speakers in this 

segment of this sūrah outside the present instance (see 72:1, 

72:2, 72:3, 72:4, 72:5, 72:8, 72:9, 72:10, 72:11, 72:12, 72:13, 

72:14) we must not disregard the fact that the speakers here are 

identified in both segments which treat most expansively of al 

jinn in the Qur’an (72:1-14 and 46:29-31) as some portion of 

a greater number (see 72:1, 46:29). Thus, I am of the view that 

the change in personal pronoun here at 72:7 to you indicates a 

shift in addressee beyond that of the core group of speakers — 

or one which at the least embraces a group broader than the 

core group indicated by the peppering of first-person plural 

pronouns. On that basis, I believe that the speakers here are 

addressing, or at least indicating, the full complement of al 

jinn, perhaps including the speaking Jewish element also, but 

extending beyond it to include the non-Jewish elements. When 

we consider the remaining segment in which we can derive 

details for al jinn (46:29-31) we find that ‘they turned back to 

their people, warning’ (46:29), and that a speaker among them 

twice uses the warning phrase which is so central to our work in 

The God Protocol, namely, O our people. Thus, given the available 

Qur’anic evidence, the case seems strongest that the shift to you

at 72:7 implies a cut to the scene where the speakers appeal to 

their own people at 46:30-31 and, in my view, verses 72:8-15 

continue in the same vein. Supposing this is correct, who are 

their people? Other Jews? I think not. At the level of the apex 

of temporal power, certainly in our own day, racial and other 

affiliations mean little. And in any case, a call to one’s own 

people presupposes a connection of the basis of the stated 

defining characteristic, and the stated defining characteristic 

in either of the contexts listed is not Jewishness, but temporal 

dominance. Thus, given a group of Jewish dominant rulers as 

the subject of this part of the sūrah, an appeal to their people 

— especially given my reading of 72:4-6 — presupposes other 

dominant rulers, not other Jews. Supposing we are right, what 

does this mean? It means that here al jinn — either including 

the Jewish element or without it — was of the view that God 

would never raise up a messenger. And if our understanding of 

the Roman component in verses 72:4-6 is correct, this produces 

a tension with the (false) prophet and would-be freer of slaves 

from tyranny Eunus (see notes to said verses above). The 

implication here, of course, is that those addressed are wrong in 

their assumption: God was to raise up someone. 

8 “And that: ‘We* touched* the heaven, but found it filled 

with strong guards and flames.’*

* In my analysis, 72:8-15 treat of the appeal of al jinn to their 

own people (see note to 72:7 above). Muḥammad Asad (whose 

own process of investigation was not much dissimilar to mine on 

this point) feels that in the first instance this refers to the Jewish 

people, but also humanity at large and: [...]may be understood as 

alluding not only, metaphorically, to the arrogant Jewish belief in 

their being “God’s chosen people”, but also, more factually, to their 

old inclination to, and practice of, astrology as a means to foretell 

the future. Apart from this - and in a more general sense - their 

“reaching out towards heaven” may be a metaphorical description 

of a state of mind which causes man to regard himself as “self-

sufficient” and to delude himself into thinking that he is bound 

to achieve mastery over his own fate. My own view is that the 

reference is to the broader ruling elite — both Jewish and non-

Jewish — and references their application of dark arts by which 

occult means they fortify their power and advance their agenda.

* Arabic: lamasa. This form I verb occurs four times in the 

Qur’an. In the remaining cases (4:43, 5:6, 6:7) it treats of physical 

touching of various kinds in a direct sense, despite efforts by 

some translators to obfuscate that plain nuance here. Given 

that al jinn are dominant human beings we can understand the 

phrasing of the present verse to indicate the offices of satans in 

their service (see note below).

* The association in this portion is clearly with the satans 

(Arabic: al shayāṭīn); see also in this connection 15:16-18, 37:6-

10, 67:5 as well as 26:210-212, 81:25. It is my view that both 

houses of the ruling elite — Jewish and non-Jewish — utilise 

demonic forces.

9 “And that: ‘We sat there on seats to hear; but whoso 

listens in now finds for him a flame waiting.’*

* This indicates a strict limitation placed by God upon the powers 

of the ruling elite and their access to the heavenly realms.1

 This 

limitation contrasts with the feature of the present sūrah which 

emphasises this narrative as something revealed (i.e. sent down 

by God) to the Prophet. See note to 72:1.

10 “And that: ‘We know not whether evil is intended for 

him who is in the earth, or whether their Lord intends for 

them rectitude.’*

* This statement provides a further indication of the limits 

which apply to the ruling elite to that supplied at 72:8-9.

11 “And that: ‘Among us* are those righteous, and among 

us are other than that; we are of diverse paths.’

* I.e. among the ruling elites. In my analysis, 72:8-15 treat of the 

appeal of al jinn to their own people (see note to 72:7 above). 

12 “And that: ‘We know that we will never escape God in 

the earth, nor will we escape Him by flight.’*

* It is my view that the dominant minority maintains power in 

large part by means of demonic forces. These forces mean that 

elites have known for hundreds of years that escape either into 

the earth or into the heavens is impossible. This sets in some 

relief the claims made by modern scientists and government 

agencies which specialise in the popular forms of cosmology and 

cosmogony which NASA typifies. Cf. 55:33.

13 “And that: ‘When we heard the guidance, we believed 

in it;* and whoso believes in his Lord, he will fear neither 

loss nor baseness.’*

* I take this to mean that when the ruling elite of the time 

in question heard the guidance given to Muḥammad, they 

believed in it. This fits with my broader thesis which is that 

a) the inhabitants of Muḥammad’s place of origin rejected his 

message and — in keeping with the Qur’anic narrative — were 

destroyed, and that b) since Muḥammad was the messenger for 

all mankind, the acceptance of his message by the ruling elites of 

1 One is put in mind, naturally, of that ancient phenomenon 

which is today called astral projection or remote viewing in which 

the practitioner is merged (whether knowingly or not) with a 

demonic agent, with the result that the two become virtually 

indistinguishable.

that time explains both the rapid spread of the Islamic empire 

and the fact that God did not destroy the entire world at that 

time.

* This choice of words invites contrast with 72:6; see notes to 

72:6 and 72:7.

14 “And that: ‘Among us are those submitting,* and among 

us are the unjust.* And whoso has submitted, those have 

sought rectitude.’

* Clearly, the ruling elites of that time submitted, as evinced by 

the rapid capitulation of the surrounding empires to Muslim 

rule (see note to 7:13).

* The point is made that the same dominant group contains evil 

men also. It remains to be seen which category best typifies the 

elites of today in the face of a call to guidance which follows the 

Qur’anic protocols, although I suspect it is the latter. See my 

work The God Protocol.

15 “‘And as for the unjust, they are firewood for Gehenna.’”

19 “And that,* when the servant of God stood up calling to 

Him, they were almost a compact mass about him.”*

* The reappearance here of the grammatical feature we identified 

in the note to 72:1 indicates to me that the subject of this clause 

is again al jinn. Some Traditionalists understand the verse along 

the same lines, although without sharing my identification 

of al jinn. Given my analysis of the pivot in personal pronoun 

from we to you at (see note to 72:7 above), 72:8-15 treat of the 

appeal of al jinn to their own people, and I see the return to the 

subject of al jinn here as a continuation of that analysis: a Jewish 

portion of the ruling elites of that time addressing their peers, 

which is primarily treated at 46:29-31. At 46:29 we read that 

‘they turned back to their people, warning.’ This is followed by 

two O my / our people statements (46:30-31), which format is 

crucial to the Qur’anic protocol of warning (see my work The 

God Protocol). The second of these reads: ‘O our people: respond 

to the caller to God[...].’ I believe it is the speaker in this instance 

which is referenced to at 72:19 as ‘the servant of God’, and that 

‘they’ are al jinn of non-Jewish types (as discussed in notes 

above to this sūrah). Others are of the view (I assume derived 

from extraneous sources) that the reference is to pagan Arabs. 

Muhammad Asad covers that base while entertaining other 

possibilities. While I disagree with this analysis, I include it for 

interest: Lit, “would almost be upon him in crowds (libad, sing. 

libdah )” - i.e., with a view to “extinguishing God’s [guiding] light” 

(Tabari, evidently alluding to 9:32). Most of the commentators 

assume that the above verse refers to the Prophet Muhammad 

and the hostility shown to him by his pagan contemporaries. 

While this may have been so in the first instance, it is obvious that 

the passage has a general import as well, alluding to the hostility 

shown by the majority of people, at all times and in all societies, to 

a minority or an individual who stands up for a self-evident - but 

unpopular - moral truth.

* I.e. the dominant men to whom this group of al jinn were 

calling as discussed in the notes to this sūrah above flocked to 

the side of their messenger (see note to this verse above) in such 

numbers that he was hemmed in. As a result of their acceptance,

.

106/107

106 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 107

the world at this time was not destroyed (see particularly note to 

72:14), and there ensued a rapid capitulation of huge territories 

to Muslim rule.

Summary and references

In short, I identify al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ as those with an independent 

will to power; those able to initiate and impose their own plan, 

and al ins / اإلنس ِ as those who follow; those who implement the 

plan of others.

While I accept fully that there exists a non-corporeal, demonic 

aspect to the world system and which underpins the power 

structures thereof, I am unable to find support in the Qur’anic 

usage of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس ِ for anything other than 

two types of human in free and open communication with each 

other representing the dominant and servile castes of society.

I agree with Muhammad Asad’s assessment that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ

as found in sūrah 72 likely references a Jewish element, but 

am of the opinion based on the broader text that al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ

comprise a ruling caste which is not exclusively Jewish but, 

rather, which comprises a very thin cross section which includes 

within it ruling elites of all significant ethnicities.

I have taken a point from Colin Wilson’s book The Occult treating 

of the proportion of men which is equipped with the requisite 

initiative to lead, and extrapolated from his findings on the 

basis of the hierarchies suggested by our investigations into 

Realpolitik upward from the level of the common soldier to that 

of the hidden hand of genuine power in our day and suggested 

a steering group behind the Satanic powers of this day of under 

2,500 men.

I have also ascribed corresponding occult abilities based 

on Colin Wilson’s investigations to those who comprise the 

dominant minority at the highest level of world power.

I discuss al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل separately later in this article, and 

agree that it has a principal sense which relates to demons. This 

latter term has become conflated with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ , which is 

understandable due to the similarity of the words and changing 

background cultural influences. Further confusion arises 

between the two terms given the inherent faculty for channelling 

demonic powers which dominant rulers naturally possess.

We discuss the Qur’an’s single description of Iblī�s as ‘of the 

domini’ at 18:50 later in this presentation.

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ

6:100, 6:112, 6:128, 6:130, 7:38, 7:179, 17:88, 18:50, 27:17, 

27:39, 34:12, 34:14, 34:41, 41:25, 41:29, 46:18, 46:29, 51:56, 

55:33, 72:1, 72:5, 72:6.

al ins / اإلنسِ 

6:112, 6:128, 6:128, 6:130, 7:38, 7:179, 17:88, 27:17, 41:25, 

41:29, 46:18, 51:56, 55:33, 72:5, 72:6.

ِنس/ ins

إ and jānn / ّ

جان

As discordant though it is with the norms of Arabic grammar, 

my view, based on the Qur’an’s usage of the terms, is that ins

ِنس/

إ and jānn / ّ

جان are the singular of al ins / اإلنس ِ and al 

jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ respectively. (We discuss the meaning of al jānn / 

ّ

َان

الج separately below.) And within their understanding of the 

terms as a human being and an ethereal non-human creature, 

Traditionalist translators tend also to treat ins /نسِ

إ and jānn / 

ّ

جان in English as singular nouns.

I base this view on the fact that it fits both the following segment 

(where the terms listed occur in close proximity), as well as the 

other instances where these components occur.

31 We will attend to you, O you two encumbered ones!

32 Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny?

33 O congregation of domini and servi: if you are able to 

penetrate the regions of the heavens and the earth, then 

penetrate! You will not penetrate save by authority:

34 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

35 Sent against you will be a flame of fire and smoke; and 

you will not be helped.

36 Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny?

37 And when the sky is rent asunder, and turns rose-red 

like oil,

38 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

39 Then that day, neither servus nor dominus will be 

questioned about his transgression.

40 Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny?

(55:31-40)

The word ins /نسِ

إ occurs twice more in the Qur’an and in 

contexts which are similar to each other but which may be 

correlated with the segment above:

56 In them: maidens of modest gaze, whom there 

deflowered before them neither servus nor dominus:

57 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

(55:56-57)

74 Whom there deflowered before them neither servus

nor dominus:

75 — Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you 

deny? —

(55:74-75)

The context in the two segments above treats of an undeniably 

physical realm — sexual intercourse with females — a value 

which requires mental gymnastics to correlate with the 

traditional conception of jānn / ّ

جان as an ethereal, non-human 

being.

There exist two further instances of jānn / ّ

جان in the Qur’an 

(27:10, 28:31). While they have historically caused some 

confusion, given our definition of the term as dominus (or one 

with a will to power, or one able to impose his own will), both 

cases are resolved.

The scenario in both cases is identical: God instructing Moses 

to cast his rod. In both cases, we read that, having been cast, the 

rod became ‘as if it were’ a jānn / ّ

جان .We know that the defining 

characteristic of al jinn is that of active will. Thus the rod came 

alive and acted as though upon its own will.

Here are both scenarios with the reading implemented:

10 “And cast thou thy staff.” And when he saw it stirring as 

if it were a dominus, he turned away, and did not return. 

“O Moses: fear thou not, the emissaries fear not in My 

presence,

11 “Save whoso did wrong; then he changed to good after 

evil, so am I forgiving and merciful.

(27:10-11)

I suspect that many translators seize upon serpent while 

translating jānn / ّ

جان by analogy with the segment below.

19 He said: “Cast thou it down, O Moses.”

20 And he cast it down, and then was it a serpent moving.

21 He said: “Take thou it, and fear thou not; We will return 

it to its former state.

(20:19-21)

The word rendered at 20:20 serpent is ḥayya — which 

objectively means snake or serpent. We have the same point 

confirmed below:

107 So he cast his staff — and then was it a clear serpent!

(7:107)

The word in this case is thuʿbān which also means snake or

serpent.

The segment at 20:19-21 is a retelling of what we find at 27:10-

11 from a different perspective (a frequent phenomenon in the 

Qur’an). And, rather than delve into the knotty problem of a 

Qur’anically consistent value for jānn / ّ

جان ,translators tend to 

drop the problem down the back of a filing cabinet and move on.

Again, serpent is the meaning at 20:20. We are told the rod of 

Moses was — or became — a serpent as a fact. But 27:10 does 

not establish a fact, it offers a comparison.

We find the same usage below also:

31 “And cast thou thy staff.” And when he saw it stirring as 

if it were a dominus, he turned away, and did not return. 

“O Moses: draw thou nigh, and fear thou not. Thou art of 

the secure.

(28:31)

Again, this is a counter-factual scenario; a simile based on a non-

real situation. (Cf. The man pushed through the crowd as if he 

were a train. Was he in fact a train? No, he was not.)

The slack treatment of the term jānn / ّ

جان we have identified 

results in a discrepancy since the same translators require it to 

mean something else entirely (usually: a single non-material 

entity) in the remaining places where it occurs.

In our work, there is no such discrepancy. Our understanding 

of jānn / ّ

جان in all cases is dominus, and by this we mean 

something with its own will to power. And in the two instances 

above, where the rod which Moses cast is likened to a jānn / ّ

جان

the comparison fits exactly: Moses’ rod acquired its own will; it 

did what it wanted, which behaviour is that which characterises 

our understanding of jānn / ّ

.جان

Summary and references

We established above that al ins / اإلنس ِ and al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ treat of 

human beings of different status.

Despite a clear divergence from the normal rules of Arabic, 

usage in the three existing contexts supports our view that ins /

ِنس

إ and jānn / ّ

جان are the singular of al ins / اإلنس ِ and al jinn / 

ّ

الجن

ِ respectively.

The comparison of Moses’ rod as something which came alive 

and had a will of its own fits our definition of jānn / ّ

جان as one 

with an individual will to power and ability to do what he wants.

ِنس/ ins

إ

55:39, 55:56, 55:74.

jānn / ّ

جان

27:10, 28:31, 55:39, 55:56, 55:74.

al jānn / ّ

الجان

Traditionally, al jānn / ّ

الجان is treated as indicating Iblī�ṣ as the 

key or chief jinn, (and by al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is meant ethereal beings 

which form human-like communities).

While accepting that non-human demons (satans) are fully part 

of the Qur’anic worldview, I do not find support in the Qur’an for 

al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ in the sense summarised above.

We have covered the two instances of jānn / ّ

جان ,which term we 

understand as dominus in its broader sense of one with a will 

to (his own) power. We note that in neither case does the word 

denote a dominus in the narrower political sense, but is like one 

(i.e. possesses the characteristics thereof without in fact being 

such a thing).

The convention al jānn / ّ

الجان occurs twice and in neither case 

is found in connection or contradistinction with either al ins / 

ِنس/ ins or ِ اإلنس

إ .Both instances are found in the same context 

— a context which allows us positively to identify al jānn / ّ

الجان

with Iblī�s on a pan-textual basis. On this point we agree entirely 

with the dominant historical understanding of this term.

We will see later that Iblī�s became al shayṭān — that is, 

the (leading) adversary against God; the word shayṭān is 

synonymous with adversary (cf. Hebrew: satan).

Clearly, there is an overlap between satan (adversary) and 

dominus in the sense of will to (one’s own) power. And there is 

a connection also between the domini (i.e. the ruling elite) and 

Iblī�s as chief of the demons, since we have established above 

that the dominant minority at each level of the political pyramid 

tends also to be those with the greatest occult powers.

However, it would be a mistake to conflate the domini (i.e. the

.

108/109

108 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 109

ruling elite) and Iblī�s as the leading demon so far as to view 

them as entirely of the same type. The term domini, as we 

have summarised, has both a general and a subsequent more 

specialised, political sense, and we need to be clear which is 

meant in this case. 

We know that some among the domini (in that specialised, 

political sense) are righteous, which fact means that such 

individuals neither advance nor follow a Satanic creed (i.e. 

a creed which is antithetical — or adversarial — towards the 

commandments of God). While it may be countered that the 

agenda followed by the ruling elites of the last century is so 

uniformly evil that there can be no distinction between those 

elites and the creed of the satan, if we are to take the Qur’an’s 

presentation as representative also of the present reality, then 

one must allow that a righteous contingent among the ruling 

elites exists today.

Given that some among the domini are righteous, this fact 

precludes the application of the specific, political sense of the 

term dominus to Iblī�s, since his creed is uniformly that of an 

adversary to God.

This leaves us with the general sense of one possessed of a will 

to (one’s own) power. This clearly applies to Iblī�s fully since he 

refuses to follow the command of God and follows his own will, 

and this is how we understand al jānn / ّ

الجان in the text.

To maintain a distinction between dominus as an individual 

among the dominant human minority, and the same word with 

the definite article applied to Iblī�s, I render the latter the demon 

dominus and supply a note in each case.

26 And We created man from sounding clay, from dark 

slime transmuted.

27 And the demon dominus created We before of the fire 

of scorching wind.

(15:26-27)

14 He created man of sounding clay like pottery,

15 And He created the demon dominus from a mixture of 

fire.

(55:14-15)

The words of Iblī�s himself below confirm this identification. 

12 He said: “What prevented thee from submitting when 

I commanded thee?” Said he: “I am better than he; Thou 

createdst me of fire, and Thou createdst him of clay.”

(7:12)

76 Said he: “I am better than he; Thou createdst me of fire, 

and Thou createdst him of clay.”

(38:76)

Summary and references

The contrast in neither instance of al jānn / ّ

الجان is between al 

jānn / ّ

الجان and al ins / اإلنس . ِ 

The term al jānn / ّ

الجان — as per the traditional reading — 

references Iblī�s; we render this designation the demon dominus.

al jānn / ّ

الجان

15:27, 55:15.

Summary of terms in this segment

1. al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ in Qur’anic parlance means those with a will to 

power: the dominant ones, the rulers, those who implement 

their plans. I translate this throughout domini. This group 

comprises a tiny minority of mankind.

2. al ins / اإلنس ِ in Qur’anic parlance means the servile or 

submissive ones, those who are ruled by the domini. This 

forms the vast majority of mankind, and this majority — 

wittingly or unwittingly — serves the ruling elite. I translate 

this throughout servi.

3. The singular of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ is jānn / ّ

جان ,and this is 

translated throughout dominus.

4. The singular of al ins / اإلنس ِ is ins /نسِ

إ ,and this is translated 

throughout servus.

5. The term al jānn / ّ

الجان — as per the traditional reading — 

references Iblī�s; we render this designation here the demon 

dominus, and understand it to refer to his independent will 

to power.

SECTION TWO

ِيس / Iblīs

ل

ْ

ِب

َطٰـن / shayṭān al; إ

ْ

َطٰـن / shayṭān َّ ; ٱلشي

ْ

َي

ش ;al shayāṭīn 

ٰـ ِطني /

َ

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn and َّ ٱلشي

َ

َي

.ش

ِيس / Iblīs

ل

ْ

ِب

إ

Before we look at the remaining words in the j-n-n root, we 

should consider the subject of the shayṭān, and to approach this 

subject correctly, we need to look first at the person of Iblī�s.

Iblī�s is mentioned by name eleven times in the Qur’an. This 

personality is considered one of the angels by many classical 

scholars, but tends to be thought of as one of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ by 

contemporary writers. We have unpicked some important 

features of the term al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ above, and do not find in the 

Qur’anic text support for associating this term with a community 

of non-human beings.

A detailed overview of the debates and nuances in regard to 

the nature of Iblī�s among various sects on this topic is beyond 

the remit of this article. While Iblī�s is mentioned by name 

predominantly in the context of angels, the Qur’an does not say 

that he was an angel or that he ‘fell’, and it is possible that the 

identification of Iblī�s as a fallen angel among some Muslims is a 

reflection of views of Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

The entities we will look at in this Section fall into the general 

heading of al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل ,which topic we discuss more fully 

later. But we can enter this subject with the benefit of having 

untangled the (historically often inconsistent) lumping together 

of al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (domini) with al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل ,which clears some 

of the dead wood.

We present all instances where Iblī�s is mentioned by name in 

the Qur’an below with comments. As we proceed, the reader will 

doubtless note: 

1. Where Iblīs is identified, there frequently occurs a seamless 

merging with al shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

ٱلشي َّ which term seems to imply 

his function.

2. The close association in a number of the segments between 

Iblī�s and the angels.

As we will come to see, shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

َي

ش and its plural shayāṭīn /

ٰـ ِطني

َ

َي

ش — which we render satan and satans respectively — are 

closely allied with the concept of adversary, both etymologically 

by dint of usage. This direct correlation is made clear in the 

notes to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation in every instance, and 

that direct correlation explains certain verses which otherwise 

remain cryptic, for example, 37:65.

62 Is that better as a welcome, or the Tree of Zaqqūm?

63 We have made it a means of denial for the wrongdoers.

64 It is a tree that comes forth in the root of Hell,

65 Its spathes are as the heads of satans,

My note to 37:65 reads: 

The allusion here — given our underlying definition for

shayāṭīn of adversaries — suggests the age-old practice 

of displaying the heads of defeated enemies on spikes on 

castle battlements and similar places. 

We will now list the contexts in which Iblī�s is mentioned by 

name and provide comments.

34 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he refused, and had 

waxed proud, and was of the false claimers of guidance.

35 And We said: “O Adam: dwell thou and thy wife in the 

garden, and eat thereof freely wheresoever you will; but 

approach not this tree lest you be of the wrongdoers.”

36 But the satan caused them to fall therefrom, and 

turned them out of what they were in; and We said: “Get 

you all down, an enemy to one another; and for you in the 

earth are a dwelling-place and provision for a time.”

37 Then received Adam words from his Lord, and He 

turned towards him; He is the Accepting of Repentance, 

the Merciful.

38 We said: “Get you down from it all together. And if 

there comes to you guidance from Me, whoso follows My 

guidance: no fear will be upon them, nor will they grieve.

39 “But those who ignore warning and deny Our proofs: 

those are the companions of the Fire; therein they abide 

eternally.”

(2:34-39)

Iblī�s himself is not stated as an angel, but is listed among those 

who refuse to submit to Adam in the context of angels who do 

submit. We note also the seamless transition to al shayṭān / 

َطٰـن

ْ

ٱلشي َّ at 2:36.

At this point it would seem that Iblī�s is either a rebellious angel 

(in which case all angels may be assumed to be created of the 

same substance as he), or he is an entity distinct from the angels 

and who, along with the angels, was in existence prior to Adam. 

We look to the remaining segments for possible clarification.

11 And We created you; then We formed you; then said We 

to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” and they submitted. Not 

so Iblīs; he was not of those who submit.

12 He said: “What prevented thee from submitting when 

I commanded thee?” Said he: “I am better than he; Thou 

createdst me of fire, and Thou createdst him of clay.”

13 He said: “Get thee down therefrom; it is not for thee 

to wax proud therein, so go thou forth; thou art of those 

brought low.”

14 Said he: “Grant Thou me respite until the day they are 

raised up.”

15 He said: “Thou art of those granted respite.”

16 Said he: “Because Thou hast caused me to err, I will lie 

in wait for them on Thy straight path,

17 “Then will I come to them from before them, and from 

behind them, and from their right, and from their left; and 

Thou wilt not find most of them grateful.”

18 He said: “Go thou forth therefrom, condemned and 

banished. Whoso follows thee from among them — I will 

fill Gehenna with you all together.”

(7:11-18)

The motif of filling Gehenna will be significant later in our 

presentation. 

We note that, as a rebellious agent, Iblī�s operates within the 

bounds set him by God, and is active in his enmity towards the 

descendants of Adam.

Additionally, we have previously identified al jānn / ّ

 as — الجان

per the traditional reading — with Iblī�s (Iblī�s’ protest that he 

was created of fire bears this out), and render this designation 

in our work the demon dominus.

While we have included the local verses above, here is a broader 

context:

26 And We created man from sounding clay, from dark 

slime transmuted.

27 And the demon dominus created We before of the fire 

of scorching wind.

28 And when thy Lord said to the angels: “I am creating a 

mortal from sounding clay, from dark slime transmuted,

29 “And when I have formed him and breathed into him of 

My Spirit, then fall down, to him in submission,”

30 Then the angels submitted, all of them together.

31 Not so Iblīs; he refused to be with those who submit.

32 He said: “O Iblīs: what ails thee that thou art not with 

those who submit?”

33 Said he: “I am not one to submit to a mortal whom 

Thou hast created from sounding clay, from dark slime 

transmuted.”

34 He said: “Then go thou forth from it, for thou art 

accursed.

35 “And the curse is upon thee until the Day of Judgment.”

36 Said he: “My Lord: grant Thou me respite until the day

.

110/111

110 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 111

they are raised.”

37 He said: “Thou art of those granted respite

38 “Until the day of the known time.”

39 Said he: “My Lord: because Thou hast caused me to err, 

I will make it fair to them in the earth; and I will cause 

them to err all together,

40 “Save Thy sincere servants among them.”

41 He said: “This is a straight path to Me:

42 “My servants — thou hast no authority over them save 

those who follow thee among those who err,

43 “And Gehenna is their promised place all together.

44 “It has seven gates; and for each gate is a portion 

assigned.”

(15:26-44)

At 15:27-28 the creation of the demon dominus is indicated 

as a single event and contrasted in terms of materials with the 

creation of a man. If the demon dominus were created of the 

same stuff as the angels, one might expect that connection to be 

supplied here — however, no such indication is given. And again:

61 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he said: “Shall I submit 

to one Thou hast created of clay?”

62 He said: “Hast Thou seen this whom Thou hast 

honoured above me? If Thou grant me respite until the 

Day of Resurrection, I will master his progeny save a few.”

63 Said He: “Depart thou! And whoso follows thee of 

them: Gehenna will be your reward; an ample reward.

64 “And incite thou whom thou canst of them with thy 

voice, and rally thou horse and foot against them, and 

partner thou them in their wealth and children, and 

promise thou them,” — but the satan promises them only 

delusion —

65 “My servants: over them thou hast no authority.” And 

thy Lord suffices as disposer of affairs:

(17:61-65)

Again, while Iblī�s is commissioned to attack Adam and his 

progeny from all sides, he has no authority over those who 

sincerely turn to God. We note also the seamless transition to al 

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

ٱلشي َّ at 17:64.

50 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he was of the domini 

and was perfidious towards the command of his Lord; 

take you him and his progeny as allies instead of Me? 

And they are an enemy to you; evil an exchange for the 

wrongdoers!

51 I made them not witness to the creation of the heavens 

and the earth, nor to the creation of themselves; and I take 

not those who lead astray as support.

(18:50-51)

We have discussed the general application of domini above. Its 

sole signification in the case of Iblī�s here simply identifies him as 

one who asserts his own will to power, a fact which is confirmed 

by the remainder of the sentence in which Iblī�s is described 

as disregarding the command of God and of following his own 

command. Thus, domini is used here in its primary signification 

of one who asserts and imposes his will. Additionally, there is no 

contrast in this case with al ins / اإلنس. ِ 

The text states that Iblī�s has progeny. While some will claim that 

this is a figure of speech, that view would require that a pattern 

of figurative usage be identified for the term across the Qur’an, 

which is impossible (for all instances of this word in the text see 

2:124, 2:128, 2:266, 3:34, 3:36, 3:38, 4:9, 6:84, 6:133, 7:172, 

7:173, 10:83, 13:38, 14:37, 14:40, 17:3, 17:62, 18:50, 19:58, 

19:58, 29:27, 36:41, 37:77, 37:113, 46:15, 52:21, 52:21, 57:26). 

So we must proceed on the basis that Iblī�s has offspring in the 

sense of genetically related descendants capable of producing 

more of the same.

Granted a positive identification of Iblī�s with the satan (al 

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

ٱلشي ,( َّ we can regard his progeny as satans (or 

demons); that signification will broaden to include a human 

aspect in our analysis of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the next segment.

We learn also that Iblī�s and his progeny were not witness to the 

creation of the heavens, the earth, or themselves. Thus, they are 

creations of finite span and limited knowledge.

We now consider a further segment:

116 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblīs; he refused.

117 Then We said: “O Adam: this is an enemy to thee and 

to thy wife. Then let him not turn you out of the garden, 

that thou be wretched.

118 “It is for thee to be neither hungry nor naked therein,

119 “And that thou suffer neither thirst therein, nor the 

heat of the sun.”

120 Then the satan whispered to him, saying: “O Adam: 

shall I direct thee to the Tree of Eternity and a dominion 

that decays not?”

121 And they ate thereof, and their shame became clear 

to them; and they began to draw over them of the leaves 

of the garden; and Adam opposed his Lord, so he erred.

(20:116-121)

We note firstly another seamless transition to al shayṭān /

َطٰـن

ْ

ٱلشي َّ at 20:120. Meanwhile, at verses 20:117 and at 20:120 

the connection between enemy and adversary is made clearly; 

and by following the satan, Adam opposed God (20:121).

In the segment below, the viewpoint shifts to the Judgment.

90 And the Garden will be brought nigh to those of 

prudent fear

91 And Hell will be made manifest to those who err,

92 And it will be said to them: “Where is what you served,

93 “Besides God? Do they help you, or help themselves?”

94 And they will be hurled therein, they and those who 

err,

95 And the forces of Iblīs all together.

96 They will say while they dispute therein:

97 “By God, we were in manifest error

98 “When we made you equal with the Lord of All 

Creation!

99 “And none but the lawbreakers led us astray,

100 “So now we have no intercessors,

101 “Nor sincere loyal friend.

102 “Would that we might return and be among the 

believers!”

(26:90-102)

We will look at what is meant by the forces of Iblīs later in this 

article. However, we can assume human agents given that the 

term translated here the lawbreakers (Arabic: al mujrimūn) at 

26:99 can nowhere outside this context be linked with non-

human agents (6:55, 6:123, 6:147, 7:40, 7:84, 7:133, 8:8, 9:66, 

10:13, 10:17, 10:50, 10:75, 10:82, 11:52, 11:116, 12:110, 14:49, 

15:12, 15:58, 18:49, 18:53, 19:86, 20:74, 20:102, 25:22, 25:31, 

26:99, 26:200, 27:69, 28:17, 28:78, 30:12, 30:55, 32:12, 32:22, 

34:32, 36:59, 37:34, 43:74, 44:22, 44:37, 45:31, 46:25, 51:32, 

54:47, 55:41, 55:43, 68:35, 70:11, 74:41, 77:18, 77:46).

20 And Iblīs had proved right in his assumption about 

them, and they followed him save a faction among the 

believers.

21 And he had no authority over them save that We might 

know him who believes in the Hereafter from him who is 

thereof in doubt; and thy Lord is custodian over all things.

(34:20-21)

We note that most men will follow Iblī�s, and that only a faction 

among the believers will not. Thus, being a believer does 

not exclude one from following Iblī�s. We note also that Iblī�s 

performs a particular function: to distinguish those who believe 

in the Hereafter from those who do not and that, ultimately, he 

is subject to God.

We turn now to the final segment which mentions Iblī�s by name. 

71 When thy Lord said to the angels: “I am creating a 

mortal from clay,

72 “And when I have formed him, and breathed into him of 

My Spirit, then fall down, to him in submission.”

73 Then the angels submitted, all of them together.

74 Not so Iblīs; he had waxed proud, and was of the false 

claimers of guidance.

75 He said: “O Iblīs: what hindered thee from submitting 

to that which I have created with My hands? Hast thou 

waxed proud? Or art thou of the exalted?”

76 Said he: “I am better than he; Thou createdst me of fire, 

and Thou createdst him of clay.”

77 He said: “Go thou forth from it; for thou art accursed;

78 “And upon thee is My curse until the Day of Judgment.”

79 Said he: “My Lord: grant Thou me respite until the day 

they are raised.”

80 He said: “Thou art of those granted respite

81 “Until the day of the known time.”

82 Said he: “Then by Thy power and glory will I cause 

them to err all together,

83 “Save Thy servants among them that are sincere.”

84 He said: “Then the truth: — and the truth do I say —

85 “I will fill Gehenna with thee, and whoso follows thee 

of them all together!”

(38:71-85)

The segment above reiterates and confirms motifs we have 

already seen to this point.

Summary and references

We are not able to provide definitive proof on the nature of Iblī�s 

vis-à-vis the angels. My view is that Iblī�s is active on the unseen 

strata of the operating system of the Matrix as it were, as are 

angels. We discuss this Matrix more fully in the next Section.

Iblī�s was created of fire, but was not privy to the creation of the 

heavens and earth, or to that of himself. While he is mentioned in 

one breath with the angels multiple times, it does not follow that 

he was an angel; the point is left moot. We allow for this lack of 

clarity in our translation by rendering the Arabic illā (normally 

rendered save, in the sense of except or excepting) by means of a 

new sentence in Not so (e.g. Not so Iblīs).

We have noted several seamless transitions from Iblī�s to al 

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

ٱلشي , َّ and conclude that the latter term identifies 

the function of the personage called Iblī�s. We develop this 

question below as well as the underlying meaning of satan 

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn(

َ

َي

ش (as adversary.

We have established here that Iblī�s has progeny in the plain 

sense of that word; and given an identification of Iblī�s with the 

satan, at least where the context demands it we can assume his 

progeny to be satans (shayāṭīn / طني ِـٰ

َ

َي

.(ش

We consider the satan (al shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

.below َّ ) ٱلشي

ِيس / Iblīs

ل

ْ

ِب

إ is found at 2:34, 7:11, 15:31, 15:32, 17:61, 18:50, 

20:116, 26:95, 34:20, 38:74, 38:75.

َطٰـن / shayṭān al

ْ

َطٰـن / shayṭān َّ ; ٱلشي

ْ

َي

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn al; ش

َ

َّ ٱلشي

Typically, the words listed above are translated satan(s) or 

devil(s) or similar. More Western-influenced translations will 

talk about evil impulses and the like. 

As touched on above, a further reason for the confusion about 

some of the terms which form the focus of this article is the fact 

that the words which refer to satan / satans in the Qur’an have 

an underlying or related meaning of adversary or adversaries. 

We have pointed out cases above where that correlation is clear, 

and we shall see more in what follows.

While all satans are adversaries, only some humans are, and it is 

not always clear which is in view. We have also anticipated the 

opaque or ‘merging’ quality of satans into humans which we will 

touch on more fully further into the article.

On a pan-textual basis, it is clear that shayṭān means adversary; 

adversary is also the primary meaning of ןָ ֛טָ ּׂש) satan) in Hebrew 

(see Strong’s Concordance 7854).

We can form a pan-textual view of the Qur’an’s use of al shayṭān

by reviewing all instances. Since there are so many, we will 

summarise the contexts.

َطٰـن / shayṭān al

ْ

َّ ٱلشي

2:36 — caused Adam and his wife to fall.

2:168 — mankind is not to follow him; he is an open enemy who 

enjoins evil and sexual immorality, and that we ascribe to God

.

112/113

112 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 113

what we don’t know.

2:208 — those who heed warning are not to follow him; he is an 

open enemy to those who heed warning.

2:268 — promises those who heed warning poverty, and enjoins 

sexual immorality.

2:275 — can possess to the point of making men lose control 

of themselves.

3:155 — causes men to slip on the basis of what they themselves 

have earned.

3:175 — has allies whom he can fill with dread.

4:38 — is a companion to those who spend without fear of God 

and who do not believe in God and the Last Day.

4:60 — desires to cause men to stray.

4:76 — those who heed warning are to fight his allies; his plan 

is weak.

4:83 — can be followed by believers save by the bounty of God 

and His mercy.

4:119 — can be taken as an ally instead of God.

4:120-121 — he promises those who follow him only delusion 

and leads them to Gehenna.

5:90-91 — alcohol, gambling, idolatry, and divination are his 

handiwork; those who heed warning should avoid them. He 

wishes to turn them away from the remembrance of God and 

from duty.

6:43 — he can delude men by hardening their hearts and 

making them see their actions as fair.

6:68 — he can cause a man to forget God’s directives.

6:142-144 — he is an open enemy to man (by creating and 

ascribing lies to God which then take on the form of a religion).

7:20-22 — he whispers subtle lies in order to divert from the 

command of God; he claims to be on one’s side and to have one’s 

interests at heart. He is an open enemy.

7:27-28 — children of Adam exhorted not to let him subject us 

to means of denial (of God); it is clear that he has others like him 

who are allies of those who do not believe. Those who follow 

them justify their sexual immorality.

7:175-179 — he follows the man who detaches himself from the 

proofs of God and causes him to err; such men are indifferent to 

exhortation or rebuke.

7:200-202 — he provokes believers but can be resisted by 

seeking refuge in God.

8:11 — can scourge believers, but that can be removed by God.

8:48 — can make men’s deeds seem fair to them, but will turn 

tail and disown those who follow him. He fears God, though he 

tempts men to turn against God.

12:5 — can cause discord among brethren and provoke them to 

plan against their own.

12:42 — can cause a man to forget something.

12:100 — can provoke to evil among brethren.

14:22 — lies to his followers and will disown them on the Day of 

Judgment; his only power is to call (i.e. suggest / offer). Man is at 

fault for following him.

16:63 — he makes the deeds of men who end in the Fire fair 

to them.

17:27 — he is ungrateful to God.

17:53 — he provokes to evil among men; he is an open enemy 

to man.

17:64-65 — he promises only delusion; he has no authority over 

God’s servants.

18:63 — can cause a man to forget (in this case, the directive of 

a prophet of God).

19:44 — is defiant to the Almighty.

19:45 — being his ally results in punishment from the Almighty.

20:120 — whispered lies (in this case, to Adam).

22:52-54 — spoils the work of messengers and prophets by 

polluting their message; but God abolishes that pollution and 

makes it a means of denial for the diseased and hard in heart, 

and makes plain the truth to those given knowledge.

24:21 — those who heed warning are not to follow him; those 

who follow him enjoin sexual immorality and perversity.

25:29 — he is a traitor to man.

27:24 — makes men’s deeds fair to them so they turn away from 

the path of God.

28:15 — can cause a man to kill his brother; he is a manifest and 

misleading enemy.

29:38 — makes men’s deeds fair and turns away from the path 

of God.

31:21 — he invites to the punishment of the Inferno.

35:6 — is an enemy to mankind, and should be taken as one; 

calls his party to be companions of the Inferno.

36:60-65 — children of Adam instructed by God not to serve 

him; he is an open enemy. He will lead a great multitude astray 

into Gehenna.

38:41 — can touch one with distress and punishment.

41:36 — can provoke; one should seek refuge in God.

43:62 — we are not to let him divert us; he is to us an open 

enemy.

47:25 — can entice, and grant temporary respite.

58:10 — private (i.e. conspiratorial) conversation is of him, to 

grieve those who heed warning; he cannot harm them but by 

God’s permission.

58:19 — can overcome one and make one forget the 

remembrance of God; those who do are his party. They are the 

losers.

59:16 — calls man to deny God but disowns him once he has 

denied Him.

َطٰـن / shayṭān

ْ

َي

ش

4:117-121 — a rebellious satan called to instead of God; one 

cursed; will lead men astray; promises only delusion and guides 

to Gehenna.

15:17 — every accursed satan finds the sky guarded against him.

22:3-4 — every rebellious satan is followed by those who dispute 

concerning God without knowledge; he leads those who follow 

him into the punishment of the Inferno.

37:6-10 — every refractory satan finds the lower heaven of stars 

a protection; they are unable to listen in to the exalted assembly 

(of God); they are pelted and repelled. Those who snatch a 

fragment are followed by a flame.

43:36 — a satan is assigned as a companion to those who are 

blind to the remembrance of the Almighty.

81:25 — it (i.e. the Qur’an, or at least sūrah 81) is not the word 

of an accursed satan.

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn al

َ

ٰـ ِطني / shayāṭīn and َّ ٱلشي

َ

َي

ش

2:14 — addressed directly by men who claim falsely to believe.

2:102 — (the Jews) followed what they recited (of sorcery); the 

satans themselves denied God; what they teach men deprives 

those who adopt it of any share in the Hereafter.

6:71 — can seduce a man away from guidance.

6:112-113 — God has appointed for every prophet an enemy: 

satans of servi and domini who create flowery speech and lies.

6:121 — instruct their allies to dispute (with men); if one 

follows them, he is an idolater.

7:27 — are the allies of those who do not believe.

8:30 — those upon whom misguidance was due take them as 

allies instead of God, and think they are guided.

17:27 — the squanderers are brothers of them.

19:68 — are to be brought into Gehenna with men on bended 

knee.

19:83 — the satans are sent upon the false claimers of guidance, 

inciting them onwards.

21:82 — among them were those diving and doing other work 

for Solomon.

23:97-98 — the Prophet told to say: “My Lord: I seek refuge in 

Thee from the goading of the satans, / And I seek refuge in Thee 

lest they be present with me.”

26:210-212 — did not bring it (i.e. the Qur’an) down; they are 

not able to, and they are excluded from hearing.

26:221-222 — descend upon every sinful deceiver.

37:65 — the Tree of Zaqqūm has spathes like the heads of satans 

(note: heads of adversaries have traditionally been placed on 

spikes on battlements).

38:37 — built and dived for Solomon.

67:5-11 — the lower heavens are thrown at them; they will 

enter the punishment of the Inferno; the same is for those who 

deny their Lord and the warnings they received.

Summary and conclusions

A constant characteristic within contexts which treat of satan

/ satans is that of adversary, which point comports with the 

Hebrew sense of the word ןָ ֛טָ ּׂש) satan).

Clearly, demons (i.e. non-human, ethereal beings) exist. Within 

our taxonomy, these are satans; all satans are adversaries (i.e. to 

the command of God). 

The question is: are all adversaries demons? Is the term not 

being used to refer, at least some of the time, to human beings 

also? My view is that to answer these questions we need to 

be specific about what we mean. In the interests of time, I will 

resort to popular culture to assist in making the necessary 

distinctions, at least in part.

In the film The Matrix, the agents (chief among whom is Agent 

Smith) are analogous to what one might properly call satans

in the sense of demons. Agent Smith and his colleagues serve 

— and are biologically related to — some dominant character 

(whom we do not see represented in the film). This dominant 

character may be taken as analogous to what we are calling in 

our work the demon dominus, and who here is named Iblī�s. Iblī�s 

is, as it were, the head of the Agency, the one for whom all agents 

work. 

This Agency Head is, in certain contexts, the satan. However, 

the satan is used as a generic term in the Qur’an also. We can 

compare this usage with the generic term agent in the context 

of the Matrix: ultimately all agents represent the Agency Head.

In addition to the lack of consistent specificity (due to the 

cohesion of purpose and loyalty among satans) between any 

individual satan in general (Arabic: shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

َي

ش (and the 

satan (Arabic: al shayṭān / ـنٰطَ

ْ

ٱلشي ( َّ since the latter term may or 

may not refer specifically to Iblī�s, there exists a further level of 

complexity as far as humans (Arabic: al nās) are concerned. As 

we have already seen, humans collectively comprise two general 

categories: al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس , ِ or domini and servi 

respectively.

For a moment we will consider our own physical and 

metaphysical reality as a matrix similar to that in the movie. We 

can regard this matrix as something akin to a computer system. 

That computer system has a front end (i.e. that small part of the 

system’s processes the user sees on the screen, and which is the 

extent to which most people’s perception of reality reaches), 

and a back end (i.e. the majority of the system’s processes, all of 

which inform, regulate, and drive the entire system — including 

what the users see and interact with). 

Satans are capable of traversing the Matrix unseen as well as 

operating within the seen part of it. That is, they can move freely 

through the underbelly of the operating system undetected and 

enter the visible part of the Matrix at any point which receives 

them. As such, they are able to ‘absorb’ both the unsuspecting 

and the willing participants in the visible world and use them 

for their own purposes.

Unsuspecting participants may be used for temporary purposes 

and discarded either at no cost to the satan, or at the expense of 

the target, who will never be the wiser. Willing participants are 

a separate category, and that includes those who form binding 

contracts with the demonic forces.

(I have come to understand that satanic forces buy people 

at their own estimate of their worth. The ruling elites sell 

themselves for specific ends; the ignorant masses often pay to 

serve the satans.)

The metaphor we have established above serves as the best 

launchpad I can think of from which to elaborate upon the points 

I wish to make.

Having considered all instances of satan / satans, I am of the view 

that the meaning of the term in the Qur’an is fluid as regards 

human beings. Certainly, there exist demons, and these demons 

are satans which operate according to their agenda in the world, 

as we have stated. However, lesser human beings (servi) who 

— though perhaps not ‘agents’ in the permanent and positive 

sense — may operate to some degree unconsciously as agents 

at any time. 

People who allow themselves to be so used are, I would assert, 

what the Qur’an calls the party of the satan, and are those 

whom the satan has induced to forget God. These people are 

used by satans at no cost to themselves and, absent any active 

repentance and return to God on the part of the human vehicle, 

that person’s destination is the Fire.

18 The day God raises them all together, they will swear to 

Him, as they swear to you and think that they stand upon 

something. In truth, it is they who are the liars.

.

114/115

114 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 115

19 The satan overcame them, and made them forget the 

remembrance of God. Those are the party of the satan. In 

truth, the party of the satan, they are the losers.

(58:18-19)

5 O mankind: the promise of God is true; so let not the life 

of this world delude you; and let not the Deluder delude 

you about God.

6 The satan is an enemy to you; so take him as an enemy; 

he but calls his party that they might be among the 

companions of the Inferno.

(35:5-6)

There exists another category of man also, perhaps closer to the 

character called Cypher in the movie The Matrix. These are those 

who are not ‘deluded’, but who willingly and wittingly contract 

with Agents to achieve social and material advantage within the 

framework of the Matrix. 

If we cast our minds back to our broadening of the themes 

provided by Colin Wilson which produced a coterie of top-

level rulers under 2,500 men, we will recall that the force of 

initiative and will to command among men is attended with a 

corresponding increase in occult power. Thus, there will be 

people of the type analogous to Cypher — those who trade their 

souls for little or nothing among the lower or mid levels. But at 

the level of genuine domini, not only is the will to power at its 

zenith, so also are the occult faculties.

In addition to this, elite families breed to optimise their 

genetic lines and receptivity to the satanic forces which keep 

them in charge. Such are those among the domini who have 

compromised their souls (see 2:102 for confirmation that such 

denial entails loss of hope for good in the Hereafter).

This category comprises those who are active in their allegiance 

with the satan. They actively oppose those who stand up for 

what is true and right and are, in my view, what the Qur’an calls 

the allies of the satan.

76 Those who heed warning fight in the cause of God; and 

those who ignore warning fight in the cause of idols. Then 

fight the allies of the satan; the plan of the satan is weak.

(4:76)

I have inferred that Qur’anic usage indicates that the term satan

extends to a wide number of demonic entities, and within that 

framework I take Iblī�s as the highest-level satan. On that basis, I 

take ‘the forces of Iblī�s’ to comprise both ‘the party of the satan’ 

and ‘the allies of the satan’.

94 And they will be hurled therein, they and those who 

err,

95 And the forces of Iblīs all together.

(26:94-95)

Summary and references

According to our analysis, the dividing line between the 

following senses of satan is both opaque and porous:

• Satan in the sense of temporary human adversary (i.e. one 

who is passively and unwittingly used in opposition to the 

command of God);

• Satan in the sense of permanent human adversary (i.e. one 

who actively serves as an adversary to the command of God 

for reasons of ambition or greed);

• Satan in the sense of demon (i.e. a demonic entity descended 

from Iblī�s);

• Satan in the sense of Iblī�s.

Leaving aside the historical conflation of terms we have already 

summarised, the understanding of satan / satans in the Qur’anic 

text has been plagued by the complexity caused by the multiple 

facets listed above whose gradations, levels of transparency, 

and distinctions have been compounded by pre-existing and 

subsequent cultural notions about non-material entities.

In conclusion, we take the existence of satans in the sense of 

demons as a given, and accept the degree to which humans serve 

demons on a sliding scale. At the zero end of this scale we would 

find those who sincerely serve God, and at the maximum end of 

it we would find those who deny God among members of the 

domini.

This understanding resolves and explains such verses as those 

where the domini say:

8 “And that: ‘We touched the heaven, but found it filled 

with strong guards and flames.’

9 “And that: ‘We sat there on seats to hear; but whoso 

listens in now finds for him a flame waiting.’

(72:8-9)

The contents of the verses above readily connects with verses 

which speak of satans (15:16-17, 26:210-212, 37:6-10, 67:5). At 

72:8-9 above, it is the domini speaking — that is, men whose 

levels of temporal power must be assumed to be matched 

by equally high levels of occult power. Those who at each 

level in the power hierarchy (from the levels of servi through 

the ‘nobility’ to the actual rulers) exercise a commensurate 

potential control over satans to its fullest extent integrate with 

their demons to such a degree as to render themselves fully 

possessed, at which point the distinction between satan and 

human becomes meaningless. In the case of servi, this will result 

in general possession, and of minor powers. In the case of the 

domini, it was capable, at least up to a point in history, of gaining 

them near access to the heavenly court.

This point is important: at whatever level in the temporal 

hierarchy a man fully submerges his will in that of a satan, the 

man and the satan become effectively one unit, which question 

brings us to the category we review in the next Section: al jinna

َّة /

الجن

ِ .

All instances of satan / satans are found at 2:14, 2:36, 2:102, 

2:102, 2:168, 2:208, 2:268, 2:275, 3:36, 3:155, 3:175, 4:38, 4:60, 

4:76, 4:76, 4:83, 4:117, 4:119, 4:120, 5:90, 5:91, 6:43, 6:68, 6:71, 

6:112, 6:121, 6:142, 7:20, 7:22, 7:27, 7:27, 7:30, 7:175, 7:200, 

7:201, 8:11, 8:48, 12:5, 12:42, 12:100, 14:22, 15:17, 16:63, 

16:98, 17:27, 17:27, 17:53, 17:53, 17:64, 18:63, 19:44, 19:44, 

19:45, 19:68, 19:83, 20:120, 21:82, 22:3, 22:52, 22:52, 22:53, 

23:97, 24:21, 24:21, 25:29, 26:210, 26:221, 27:24, 28:15, 29:38, 

31:21, 35:6, 36:60, 37:7, 37:65, 38:37, 38:41, 41:36, 43:36, 

43:62, 47:25, 58:10, 58:19, 58:19, 58:19, 59:16, 67:5, 81:25.

SECTION THREE

al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

َّاس / nās al; ٱل

ٱلن

We will look at these two terms as far as possible together.

The term al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ occurs five times: 11:119, 32:13, 37:158, 

37:158, 114:6 and is typically conflated by the Traditionalist 

with al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ (which we translate as the domini).

Before looking at the main topics in this Section, we will briefly 

address a related though secondary topic: that of the word 

َّة / jinna

جن . ِThis word means — and I translate it throughout 

— possessed (7:184, 23:25, 23:70, 34:8, 34:46). It is related to 

majnūn, which I translate also possessed. All translators treat 

these two words in similar fashion. 

The underlying sense of the j-n-n root is of something hidden. 

And given this fact, we may appreciate the potential for 

confusion among the terms in this root that we look at in this 

article.

But the term al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is a separate textual entity from jinna

َّة /

جن , ِas the Traditionalist agrees. The question concerns only 

what it means.

The Traditionalist view is that al nās / الناس was created from 

a single soul (4:1, 39:6), and means men, people, mankind or 

humanity, i.e. the totality of human being across all races, and 

operates as the plural of al insān / ـنٰ

َ

ِ نس

ْ

 .ٱل

I broadly agree with this, although with some caveats and 

distinctions which fall beyond the remit of this article. However, 

such things notwithstanding, within our taxonomy, al nās / الناس

is the umbrella term for both al jinn / ّ

الجن

ِ and al ins / اإلنس — ِ or 

the domini and the servi respectively. 

This category covers all beings of a material corporeality 

possessed of freedom of choice.

Of the five times al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ occurs, three come together 

with — and in contradistinction to — al nās / الناس .And of these 

three, two treat of the same outcome. I list these two instances 

below with their contexts, and comment upon them together.

116 Oh, that among the generations before you there had 

but been a remnant forbidding corruption in the land 

save a few whom We saved among them! But those who 

did wrong followed what they had been given therein of 

opulence, and were lawbreakers.

117 And never would thy Lord destroy the cities in 

injustice, when their people were those who do right.

118 And had thy Lord willed, He would have made 

mankind one community; but they will cease not to differ,

119 Save he upon whom thy Lord has mercy. And for 

that He created them; and the word of thy Lord will be 

fulfilled: “I will fill Gehenna with the jinna and mankind 

all together.”

(11:116-119)

12 And if thou couldst see when the lawbreakers hang 

their heads before their Lord: “Our Lord: we have seen and 

heard, so send Thou us back. We will work righteousness! 

We are those who are certain!”

13 And had We willed, We could have given every soul 

its guidance. But the word from Me is binding: “I will fill 

Gehenna with the jinna and mankind all together!”

14 “So taste! Because you forgot the meeting of this your 

day, We have forgotten you. And taste the punishment of 

eternity because of what you did!”

(32:12-14)

Both scenarios include mention of lawbreakers, which word 

consistently pertains to human actors throughout the text. 

The verse at 11:117 treats of cities, which implies — I would 

say conclusively — that the objects at 11:119 and 32:13 must 

both be human. Thus, were we neither primed that al nās / 

الناس comprises all types of humanity, nor that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ

comprise non-human entities, one would incline to the view 

that both terms signify categories of human being given the 

surrounding context. 

But we have established that al nās / الناس comprises all 

humanity, and that it consists of two categories: domini and 

servi.

We are confronted with the question, then: if al nās / الناس

comprises all humanity, since the context treats of human 

objects, is not mention al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ here superfluous if they 

are human also?

We will return to this important question in due course, and turn 

now to sūrah 114, the last sūrah in the Qur’an, and the third and 

final case where we find al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ together with — and in 

some contrast to — al nās / الناس.

1 Say thou: “I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,

2 “The King of mankind,

3 “The God of mankind,

4 “From the evil of the retreating whisperer

5 “Who whispers in the breasts of mankind;

6 “From the jinna and mankind.”

(114:1-6)

A counterpoint between al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ and al nās / الناس is here 

emphasised, with al nās / الناس occurring in this short sūrah the 

same number of times as al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is found in the entire 

Qur’an.

Interestingly, the wording of the final verse reproduces 

identically the core portion of the two other verses where al 

َّة / jinna

الجن

ِ and al nās / الناس occur together (11:119, 32:14). 

And despite the fact that min / من ِcan have meanings in the 

context at 114:6 other than that in the previous instances, 

it is the case that the Arabic reads in all three places: min al 

jinnati wa al nās / اسَّ

َ ٱلن

َِّة و

ِجن

ْ

َ ٱل

من .ِThis signifies to me that the 

segments are logistically as well as thematically connected. On 

that basis, I look to 114:1-6 to provide a broader context on 

the basis of which to understand al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ , then with that

.

116/117

116 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 117

understanding we can review the other cases and see if those 

findings fit.

The summary below presents my understanding of the Matrix 

with the basic layers of the operating system identified:

At the top, surrounding and underlying all things is God, the 

Creator. He occupies the Unseen together with the next level: 

the angels.

Below the angels, the Unseen splits into Unseen and Seen. In the 

Unseen on this level are the hidden forces which drive the Matrix 

(all unseen aspects of the physical and metaphysical world), as 

well as Iblī�s and all the satans in the direct sense of demons.

In the seen part of this level, we find the so-called natural world 

which comprises human beings on the one side, and everything 

else on the other. Humans are distinct by virtue of the fact that 

they have free will and can choose to serve God or not.

The human group itself divides into two: domini and servi.

As we have also touched upon, human society is not flat; there 

exist natural hierarchies — levels within the societal pyramid — 

which strata intersect at various points from the lowest of the 

servi through to the true domini who form the capstone.

My assertion is that the key elements in this system are the 

following:

• Corporeality (i.e. pertaining to the Seen or the Unseen);

• Purpose (for what purpose any part of God’s creation is 

intended: angels to obey God; satans to defy Him; humans to 

serve Him, etc.); 

• Will (the presence or otherwise of freedom of choice);

• Destination (whether a place in the Fire or the Garden).

All aspects of God’s creation may be assessed on each of these. 

However, there is an aspect of duality in each.

To take man: in terms of corporeality he pertains to the Seen. 

Yet if one includes sleep, imagination, prayer, will, intuition and 

any number of other factors, he is understood also to pertain to 

an unseen realm.

Regarding purpose, will, and destination: while it is the case that 

God created men to serve Him, it is a fact that most do not. Is 

God’s purpose thwarted? I would say not. It is, rather, that we do 

not understand how our will stands in relation to God’s purpose. 

That lack of understanding accepted, then, the fact remains that 

despite the fact that we perceive that we possess freedom of will, 

God’s will is over all, and our destination is ultimately a function 

of that reality.

Even within our limited grasp on things, whether man pertains 

to the servi or the domini, his power to choose a path regarding 

God is fundamentally equal; both have their burdens and their 

power to choose. (This point may seem moot to some; however, 

the Roman philosopher and former slave Epictetus remarked 

that while Caesar could chain his leg to a post, he could not make 

him dislike it. By the same token, Marcus Aurelius — though 

Emperor — evinced a love of truth in no way inferior to that of 

Epictetus.)

My broader point is that, as we have already touched upon, 

the distinction between satans on the one hand and passive or 

active human agents for those satans within the Matrix on the 

other can be a subtle one.

I believe that, like al nās / الناس ,al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is an umbrella 

term and comprises all generally non-corporeal beings below 

the angels, i.e. the hidden forces which drive the operating 

system which we perceive as the Seen (and which forces have 

no free will), but includes also Iblī�s himself as and his armies 

of demons.

While the Qur’an does not explicitly say what these hidden 

forces are, we can make inferences on the basis of what we 

know. We know that once the Hour strikes, all matter is going 

to lose its potency: the mountains will become dust, the sky 

will be removed, and all that will remain is the face of God. 

After this, human beings will be resurrected in forms which — 

while recognisable — will be new. The Garden itself also will be 

recognisable — or comparable to what we know — but it will 

also be entirely new.

However, there is a further element to this, which is why al jinna

َّة /

الجن

ِ is mentioned in connection with the umbrella term for 

all humans. There are those among men who follow the satans 

blindly and whose destination is Gehenna. But there are others 

who willingly and actively sell their souls to Iblī�s for worldly 

gain. These people often acquire — at least in the short term as 

we shall see in the quote below — status and power. But those 

who do this are not simply occasional or temporary vehicles for 

satanic agents; they become agents. That is, their fundamental 

spiritual make-up changes. 

Once a man has made such a pact, he essentially acquires a 

separate form of citizenship with that realm we are calling al 

َّة / jinna

الجن

ِ . This is why the Qur’an specifically names these 

people as entering Gehenna since, while physically they pertain 

to the human race, their spirit — through an act of conscious 

will — has changed its fundamental allegiance.

We find this view supported obliquely here:

102 And they followed what the satans recited during 

the reign of Solomon; and Solomon denied not; but the 

satans denied, teaching men sorcery, and what was sent 

down upon the two angels at Babylon, Hārūt and Mārūt. 

And they taught no one until they had said: “We are but 

a means of denial, so deny thou not.” Then from them 

they learn that by which they cause division between a 

man and his wife; but they harm no one thereby save by 

the leave of God. And they learn what harms them, and 

profits them not, knowing well that whoso buys it has in 

the Hereafter no share; and evil is that for which they sold 

their souls, had they but known.

103 And had they believed and been in prudent fear, 

recompense from God would have been better, had they 

but known.

(2:102-103)

The fact of conscious, willing contract is emphasised; the satans 

require that a man who contracts with them is personally 

responsible for what he ‘buys’ from them. 

I am saying that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ comprises the Unseen reality 

which drives the material world and in which layer the satans 

operate and that anyone who makes such a contract becomes 

al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the same way that anyone who takes the 

citizenship of France becomes French. It is a matter of conscious, 

contractual fealty.

This explains the facility for ‘luck’ experienced by those who 

compromise their souls for this world, and are thus aligned with 

the shayṭān. In my observations of those who serve the shayṭān, 

they tend to end badly and their master always short-changes 

them. The shayṭān will buy a man at that man’s own estimation 

of his worth. But he always turns around and betrays him.

At the level of minor players, this characteristic is true of men 

such as Goethe’s Dr Faust, or of men such as Casanova or 

Crowley. However, it will ultimately prove true of the top levels 

of the ruling elite. Today, the elites clearly feel themselves so 

close to their goal of all ages. But the satan’s characteristic of 

betraying his followers after their complete commitment to him 

indicates to me that the elites’ monolith is a house of cards; given 

the right gust of air, it will collapse around their ears.

So, in summary, al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ comprises the totality of that 

realm of the Unseen which is inferior to that of the angels (i.e. 

that which consists of the drivers behind the operating system 

of the Matrix, and the demons themselves). But — and this is 

the crucial point — al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ includes those among domini 

or servi who have contracted with satans actively and willingly 

for gain (the Cyphers, as it were). Such people are no longer 

covered in terms of lordship, kingship, and godhood as per the 

formulations in the verses below.

1 Say thou: “I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,

2 “The King of mankind,

3 “The God of mankind,

4 “From the evil of the retreating whisperer

5 “Who whispers in the breasts of mankind;

6 “From the jinna and mankind.”

(114:1-6)

The ‘retreating whisperer’ is that satan which crosses from the 

Unseen into the breasts of men (temporarily absorbing as it were 

a human who has taken no permanent fealty with the satans), 

but al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ have to be mentioned separately properly 

speaking since in their human form they are permanent agents 

of Iblī�s, all visible correspondence with other human beings 

notwithstanding.

In its human application, I would translate al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ by 

means of demoniacs or demon-possessed to indicate those 

who have fully become agents of the Matrix as it were, and 

functionally indistinguishable from satans. In my view, these 

human forms house spirits which comprise the progeny 

mentioned in the following verse.

50 And when We said to the angels: “Submit to Adam,” 

then they submitted. Not so Iblī�s; he was of the domini 

and was perfidious towards the command of his Lord; 

take you him and his progeny as allies instead of Me?

And they are an enemy to you; evil an exchange for the 

wrongdoers!

(18:50)

In its broader application of that part of the Unseen in which the 

drivers of the Matrix and the satans reside, I would translate al 

َّة / jinna

الجن

ِ by means of hidden forces.

I believe that the second category which falls under the meta-

category of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ comprises the unseen drivers which 

impel those physical and metaphysical forces which we are 

trained to think of as the Laws of Nature. These are those forces 

which we all encounter and which comprise the underlying 

operating system of what we are calling the Matrix. Scientists 

encounter these forces through the barrier of the apparent, and 

measure, manipulate and describe their characteristics, but they 

cannot reach those forces themselves. These are those forces 

which, in effect, Materialists worship and around which they 

base their religions.

By the so-called hard sciences and by esoteric and metaphysical 

practices man may progress some way into the forest, but he can 

never emerge the other side of that forest. Man is locked into a 

range, and that range is encompassed on all sides by God.

To use another computing analogy, we may progress some way 

beyond the obvious constructions of the front end (mouse, 

windows, filing systems, etc.) and observe to some extent 

that various drivers and system files interact with each other 

according to particular patterns. But the forces behind those 

drivers are hidden from us the user.

Materialists disregard the createdness of the entire system, and 

assume the forces as givens and insist that everyone do the same. 

To a large extent, they have been successful in transforming the 

mass of men — usually without the cognisance of their target — 

into secular humanists (i.e. Materialists). Those who retain an 

apprehension of their own createdness and of the Hereafter as 

its obvious function regard that system itself as both temporary 

and as a witness to the power of the Creator.

The Qur’an is clear that at the Hour all things will change, and 

that the constitution of those who arise in the Hereafter will 

be, though comparable, factually different to what we know 

now. The Qur’anic references to the casting of the hidden forces

(Arabic: al jinna / ةَّ

ِجن

ْ

ٱل (into Gehenna comports with this view: 

the entire range of hidden forces from demons through all those 

forces which underpin and act as drivers upon the physical and 

metaphysical world of this temporary creation will be discarded 

at the point of the Hour. 

Materialism is essentially idolatry — not because there is an 

inherent tension between systematic, analytical, provable 

knowledge and faith in God, but because while claiming not to 

be a religion itself, Materialism takes God’s laws as permanent 

givens but disregards the Lawgiver.

I surmise that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ — or what we will call the hidden

.

118/119

118 Addenda to The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation Shayṭān, Jinn, and Related Terms Considered 119

forces — comprises in total invisible forces of two types: those 

with individual, malevolent will (satans), and those with no 

individual will (the underlying forces driving the operating 

system of the Matrix).

Thus, when the Qur’an states that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ are destined 

for Hell, this references both the damned condition of the satans 

and the temporary nature of the underlying operating system 

upon which this dunyā (or temporary life) rests and depends.

This brings us to the last verse which contains al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ .

158 And they have made between Him and the jinna a 

kinship — when the jinna know they will be summoned.

(37:158)

The term in question could be understood here in both its 

general applications.

On the one hand, if we take al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the sense of hidden 

forces or drivers behind the creation, we can say that Materialists 

fabricate a correlation between God and His creation. In this 

regard, I reproduce Muhammad Asad’s comment at this verse, 

and follow it with my own thoughts: Whereas most of the 

classical commentators are of the opinion that the term al-jinnah 

denotes here the angels, since they - like all beings of this category 

- are imperceptible to man’s senses, I believe that the above verse 

refers to those intangible forces of nature which elude all direct 

observation and manifest themselves only in their effects: hence 

their designation, in this context, by the plural noun al-jinnah, 

which primarily denotes “that which is concealed from [man’s] 

senses”. Inasmuch as people who refuse to believe in God often tend 

to regard those elemental forces as mysteriously endowed with a 

purposeful creative power (cf. Bergson’s concept of the elan vital), 

the Qur’an states that their votaries invent a “kinship” between 

them and God, i.e., attribute to them qualities and powers similar 

to His. The idea is that the creation is in some manner God, the 

“laws” of which exist beyond any conception of God; what they 

are not — and must not be recognised as within the doctrine of 

Materialism — is a function of God’s command. 

We have already noted that when the Hour strikes, all the “laws” 

which govern the visible realm will fail. So what happens to 

them? Since they have their origins in that unseen realm in which 

demons also operate — and demons themselves are destined for 

the Fire — I infer that the “laws” which the Materialist worships 

are destined for the same place.

On the other hand, if we take al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ in the sense of 

demoniacs or demon-possessed, into this category fall those 

who have sold their souls to demonic forces in order to achieve 

worldly fame and success. In our time, this would comprise most 

of those who form the pantheon of modern gods called “stars”, 

as well as those at the forefront of business and in other fields. It 

certainly includes the majority of those families which comprise 

the domini of our day and which plan and execute the agendas 

which shape the world.

One quite often sees that such people have compelling and 

attractive personalities. For myself, I have noted that public 

figures at the sub-domini levels who have made these types of 

deals completely change. They typically attain an amount of 

fame and prestige, but are unable to get beyond a certain level. 

Then something happens to them, and they “come back” and 

are suddenly somehow different. They have been sprinkled 

with fairy dust. Thereafter the media gives them a constant 

and favourable wind, and the person himself now espouses 

a narrative which just happens to fit in every respect with the 

broader Satanic agenda. 

The reason for this is that they have made a deal; they have 

joined the ranks of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ .

The human members of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ appear to manifest unusual 

abilities and are possessed of what seems to be incredible luck, 

or creative or financial genius. What is happening is that they 

are accessing the demonic realm, while those around them 

are entirely ignorant of the spiritual dimension. The contrast 

between such people and the mass of men is all the more stark 

when we consider that since the nineteenth century Western 

man has been fully trained in Materialist dogma, and is thus 

incapable of grasping either an understanding of the physical 

world in its proper context because it denies the non-physical 

world.

In terms of sports, one might compare those who understand 

the Matrix from those who do not to two teams: one team is 

training using steroids, a highly effective diet, and is plugged into 

AI, while the other team is living on junk food and doesn’t have 

a basic understanding of the rules of the game. There can be no 

serious competition between the two.

This is not to say that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ are the only people who are 

going to Hell. There are many within the base category of al nās

/ الناس who are going to Hell also. The core point is the shift in 

status. And one’s status is defined by one’s response to the Lord 

of All Creation.

There exist many means of obtaining satans. There are 

corporate means such as fraternal orders, mystery schools, 

oaths and the like. But there are also lower orders of what you 

might call freestyle demoniacs. These would include many who 

ingest certain types of music. I would list sexual deviations 

and many so-called “psychological” and “psychiatric” maladies 

under the same heading. The ingestion of satanic films and 

other supposed entertainment will turn the unschooled into 

open-access wetware when combined with a number of other 

delivery systems (state-mandated education, inferior food, 

pharmaceutical poisons, etc.).

My estimation is that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ predominate among certain 

bloodlines, and that knowledge of how to access the powers 

associated with this connection are passed down within those 

bloodlines. As touched on, there exist also lesser strata which 

serve satans, and this includes the majority of those who 

comprise the “stars” of the present pantheon created by the 

media, as well as sports heroes, business people and politicians. 

They use secret societies as the means of conveying their 

knowledge, and together implement a plan the details of which 

most of those seen in the public space are generally ignorant of.

I do not believe that anyone is born possessed; the opening of 

the soul to such infestation seems to require a decision on the 

part of the recipient. However, it appears that those who are 

either born into a particular line or who are abused or misused 

as children are particularly susceptible to such forces. 

Clearly, it is also true that these people are expendable, and they 

are regularly “thrown under the bus” as the expression goes. But 

at the lower levels, there is a never-ending stream of wannabes 

who can’t wait to have their few years in the sun.

At the higher levels, many of these people live in fear. Certainly, 

this world is kind to them; but there is no VIP lounge the other 

side of death, and death is an insoluble problem for them. 

Added to this is the problem that they are serving an entity 

which will disown them:

48 And when the satan made their deeds fair to them, and 

said: “None among men can defeat you this day, when I am 

at your side,” then when the two companies came within 

sight of one another, he turned on his heels and said: “I am 

quit of you; I see what you see not. I fear God”; and God is 

severe in retribution.

(8:48)

Summary and references

Within the framework of the pan-textual approach taken here, 

the view of the classical commentators that al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ at 

37:118 includes the angels is sustainable only if one agrees that 

the angels are also to be cast into the Fire as per al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ at 

11:119 and 32:13. This view can not be sustained on a broader 

basis. 

While our understanding of al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ is necessarily 

multifaceted, it is consistent across all cases, and comports both 

with the other terms we have looked at in this article and with 

the broader text.

We find it impossible to translate by means of a single word a 

term which covers both those fully possessed agents of the 

hidden realm in human form (and in whom the distinction 

between possessed human and full demon has ceased to apply) 

as well as the hidden forces. Therefore, we render this term as 

the jinna and supply a note to our translation in each instance.

The term al nās / الناس is found together with al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ at 

11:119, 32:13, and 114:6. 

The term al jinna / ةَّ

الجن

ِ occurs also twice at 37:158.

Final word

My case against the ruling elite of today is one based in the 

reality that powerful men will dominate. I’m not against there 

being a ruling elite; there is no point being against reality. It is 

natural that there be a ruling elite, just as every mountain must 

have a summit.

My argument against the ruling elite is that they are failing 

in their obligation to guide the herd in the direction of 

righteousness. The masses will do what they always do, which 

is to follow.

One can train the herd to believe and to do anything, given 

enough time and inducements or blandishments. The elite know 

this — and they are correct; they have been manipulating the 

herd into the shape of a dystopian, amoral nightmare for over 

a hundred years, creating what they see as a perfected form of 

slavery.

But with power comes responsibility. The elites of the world are 

bound by the rules of noblesse oblige. Elites will rule; but they 

need to apply that responsibility correctly, which means to do 

so with the requisite fear of God, and for the ultimate benefit of 

both themselves and the herd which they manage.

Since the elites have gone off the reservation of their natural 

obligations, they need to be held to account.

Such is the principal topic of my work The God Protocol, and is 

discussed more fully there.

....END....SJC...satan Jinn Consider..SAM..