Ifrit
Ifrit ( Arabic عفريت, DMG ʿIfrīt plural:عفاريت / ʿAfārīt ; derived from ʿafar /عفر / 'Dust'), also Afrit or Efreet (old spelling), is a spirit being in Islamic mythology that was created out of fire and is said to influence people's lives in both good and bad ways. The Afarit belong to the jinns and are demons who predominantly live in the (analogous to heaven) seven-level underworld . They are equipped with horns, lion claws or donkey hooves, among other things.
The ideas about the manifestations of the afarit are different, they are generally considered to be very strong, they can have seven heads or appear as muscular young men. Djinn and Afarit rarely have sufficiently formulated properties to have an individuality and their own name. One of the exceptions is the feared and revered female obsessive spirit Aisha Qandisha in Morocco . According to older representations, the term Ifrit is applied to spirits of revenge who haunt murderers and criminals and punish them. They are ghosts of the murdered who return from the realm of the dead to take revenge on the murderer . They would appear as a column of smoke at the scene of the murder and arise from the blood of the victims. The afarit belonging to the jinn, however, are not associated with spirits of the dead, threatening spirits of the dead have no ancient Arabic origin.
Islamic mentions
In the Koran in ( Sura 27 : 39-40) a powerful jinn is introduced as Ifrit, which should bring the throne of the Queen of Sheba :
"One of the jinn, an 'Ifrit, said:" "I will bring it to you before you rise from your seat. I have the power to do so and I am reliable. The one who had scriptural knowledge said: Me will bring him to you in a moment. When he saw him now (in a wonderful way suddenly) standing with him, he said: This is (something) of the grace of my Lord, so that he may test me (and see) whether I am I am grateful or ungrateful. If one (God) is grateful, it is for his own benefit. And if one is ungrateful (God does not harm). My Lord is rich (or: does not depend on anyone) and in itself) excellent (and needs neither recognition nor thanks). "
According to a Hadith from Bukhari , an Ifrit wanted to interrupt the prayer of the Islamic prophet Mohammed , but he was able to overcome him with the help of God and wanted to tie him to a pillar and show him the next morning, but decided to release him again and through prayer To drive out Solomons.
Furthermore, an Ifrit is mentioned in the story of Muhammad's Ascension . Accordingly, an Ifrit appears who threatens Mohammed with fire. To defeat him, he asks the Archangel Gabriel for help, who then teaches him a prayer that will make the Ifrit disappear.
In Middle Eastern folk beliefs and literature
In the story collection Arabian Nights is reported that Sulaiman , those Ifrit punished that the service of God did not want to submit. They were therefore locked in jars that were closed with a lead seal with the name of God printed on them.
The blind poet Al-Maʿarri mentions the Afarit in one of his works. In it he describes a paradise of its own for the Afarit, with "dark and narrow valleys".
Al Buni connects four afarit by name with arch demons who are diametrically opposed to the four archangels of Islam.
Similar traditions appear in the Ars Goetia . There are also parallels to the Fallen Angels in the Christian faith. The Afarit are mentioned as Solomon's workers, are supposed to speak in place of the dead during a necromancy in order to confuse people, make a pact with people by granting them wishes which, however, will cost their souls and cannot have the name of God imprinted on them touch. In addition, the Ifrit usually have no free will, as is the case with conventional jinn, but are obliged to a master.
In video games
In modern video games , Ifrit appear mainly in the various versions of the Japanese series Final Fantasy , or in witches (computer game) . There they are assigned to the element fire as summons, alongside other mythological figures such as Shiva to the ice. In addition, some older editions of the trading card game Magic: The Gathering have the creature type Ifrit.
Also in the third part of the Heroes of Might and Magic series you can find the Ifrit (Efreet) and also Efreet Sultans, who are red fire demons with horns or turban on their heads (Efreet Sultans), a human upper body and a vortex of fire instead of legs in contrast to their archenemies, the Djinns, who have a kind of ice vortex instead of legs.
The word Ifrit also occurs in the video game ArmA 3 , there is an armored military vehicle called Ifrit.
In the full 3D mobile RPG "Summoners War: Sky Arena", "Ifrit" appears as a muscular young man with a slightly demonic appearance as a summonable and playable animal / monster.
In fiction
In the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud , Afrites (Ifrites) are part of a categorization of “beings” of the “other place”. These beings are subdivided into a ranking of comparatively lower beings such as goblins, foliots and jinns to the Afrites (Ifrites) and Marids. Stroud's Afriten (Ifriten) live in a world called "the other place".
In Ralf König's comic The Magic of Schabbar (2005, Part 1 by Dschinn Dschinn ), Ifrit Schabbar is the lover of the Indian women's shoe designer Salmonella.
In the trilogy The Chronicles of the Underworld by Cassandra Clare , Ifrite warlocks are incapable of magic.
In the book series children of the lamp by Philip Kerr , the Ifrit's worst Dschinnstamm are.
In the trilogy The Storm Kings describes Kai Meyer the Ifrit as peaceful Wunschdschinn, where there is great sport to play man silly pranks. Depending on their mood, the Ifrit are able to grant people three wishes.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tobias Nünlist: Belief in demons in Islam. Walter de Gruyter, 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-033154-7 , p. 267.
- ^ Edward Westermarck : Ritual and Belief in Morocco. Volume 1, Macmillan and Co., London 1926, pp. 263f, 371, 387.
- ↑ Sura: 27 - an-naml - verse: 40. ( corpuscoranicum.de ( Memento from January 3, 2017 in the web archive archive.today ))
- ↑ Jinn in Hadith Sahih Bukhari. (jinndemons.com , English)
- ↑ Brooke Olson Vuckovic: Heavenly Journeys, Earthly Concerns: The Legacy of the Mi'raj in the Formation of Islam. Routledge, 2004, ISBN 1-135-88524-9 , p. 36.
- ↑ Gustav Weil (trans.): A thousand and one nights. Arabic stories. First volume. 1865: story of the fisherman with the spirit. ( at Project Gutenberg )
- ↑ Amira El-Zein: Islam, Arabs, and Intelligent World of the Jinn. Syracuse University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8156-5070-6 , p. 20.
- ^ Robert Lebling: Robert Lebling IBTauris, 2010, ISBN 978-0-85773-063-3 , pp. 86-87.