Commenting on this incident, Ibn Kathīr has quoted several reports from the Musnad of Aḥmad, which establish the following facts. The Holy Prophet met a party of jinn at Nakhla when returning from Ṭā’if in the tenth year of the Call. These are said to have come from Nineveh. On the other hand, there is a well-established story that the Holy Prophet on his way back from Ṭā’if took rest in a garden where he met a Christian who was a resident of Nineveh; and the man listened to his message and believed in him. It may be that he had other companions to whom he spoke of the Holy Prophet, and that these came to him later on. Another party of jinn is said to have waited on him when he was at Makkah, and he is reported to have gone out of the city to a lonely place at night time, and to have spent the whole night with them. And we are told that their traces and the traces of the fire which they had burned during the night were visible in the morning. When prayer-time came and the Holy Prophet said his prayers in the company of Ibn Mas‘ūd, the narrator, two of them are said to have come and joined the service. They are supposed to have been Jews of Nisibus and were seven in number (IK. 46:29). The Holy Prophet went to see them outside Makkah, evidently because the Quraish would have interfered with the meeting and ill-treated any who came to see him. At any rate the Holy Qur’ān and the Ḥadīth do not speak of the jinn as they exist in the popular imagination, interfering in human affairs or controlling the forces of nature or assuming human or any other shape or taking possession of men or women and affecting them with certain diseases.31
There is another misunderstanding in connection with the devils or the jinn which should be removed. It is thought that according to the teachings of the Holy Qur’ān, the devils have access to Divine secrets, and stealthily overhear the Divine revelation which is communicated to the angels. This was an Arab superstition borrowed either from the Jews32 or the Persians, and the Holy Qur’ān has rejected it in emphatic words. Thus, speaking of the revelation of the Holy Book, it says: “And surely this is a revelation from the Lord of the worlds. The Faithful Spirit has brought it on thy heart … And the devils have
31 Such ideas are unfortunately associated with the existence of jinn in the Gospels. The stories of Jesus casting out devils are more wondrous than fairy tales: “And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God” (Lk. 4:41). A devil was cast out of a dumb man and he began to speak (Mt. 9:33); a woman from Canaan had a daughter possessed with the devil and Jesus at first refused to cast out the devil because she was not an Israelite (Mt. 15:22-24); as many as seven devils went out of Mary Magdalene (Lk. 8:2); the devils cast out of another two men were sufficient for a whole herd of swine: “They went into the herd of swine; and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters” (Mt. 8:32). And this power of casting out devils was given to all those who believed in Jesus (Mk. 16:17).
32 “The Talmud teaches that angels were created of fire and that they have various offices … that the jinn are an intermediate order between angels and men … that they know what is to happen in the future, because they listen to what is going on behind the curtain to steal God’s secrets” (RI. p. 68). The Quranic teaching is opposed to this; it is not the angels that are created of fire but the jinn. The jinn are not an intermediate order between angels and men; man is placed highest of all, even above the angels; the jinn are invisible beings of a very low order, their only function is the insinuation of evil into the hearts of men, and they have no access to Divine secrets.