foreigners jinn because they were concealed from their eyes. It is in this sense that the word jinn is used in the Holy Qur’ān in the story of Solomon: “and of the jinn there were those who worked before him by the command of his Lord … They made for him what he pleased of synagogues and images” (34:12, 13). The description of the jinn here as builders shows them to have been men. And they are also spoken of as devils (shayāṭīn) in 38:37, where they are called builders and divers, and it is further added that some of them were “fettered in chains.” Surely those who built buildings and dived into the sea were not invisible spirits, nor do invisible spirits require to be fettered in chains. These were in fact the strangers whom Solomon had subjected to his rule and forced into service.27

In one place in the Holy Qur’ān jinn and men are addressed as one class or community (ma‘shar).28 In this verse both jinn and men are asked the question: “Did there not come to you messengers from among you?” Now the messengers who are mentioned in the Holy Qur’ān or Ḥadīth all belong to mankind, and the Holy Book does not speak of a single messenger from to this, the word jinn is explained by Arabic lexicologists as meaning mu‘aẓẓam al-nās (Q., TA.), i.e., the main body of men or the bulk of mankind (LL.) In the mouth of an Arab, the main body of men would mean the non-Arab world. They called all among the jinn. The jinn in this case, therefore, are either non-Arabs or the iniquitous leaders who mislead others. In one verse, it is stated that “if men and jinn should combine together to bring the like of this Qur’ān, they could not bring the like of it” (17:88), while in another, in an exactly similar challenge, the expressions “your helpers” or “leaders” have been used instead of jinn (2:23). The jinn mentioned in the first section of ch. 72 are evidently foreign Christians, since they are spoken of as holding the doctrine of sonship (72:3,4). In 72:6, they are called rijāl (pl. of rajul), which word is applicable to the males of human beings only (LA.). Again, in the 46th chapter the word jinn has been used in the sense of foreigners when a party of the jinn is stated to have come to the Holy Prophet and listened to the Holy Book and believed in it,29 because all the injunctions contained in the Holy Qur’ān are for men, and there is not one for the jinn. This was evidently a party of the Jews of Nisibus as reports show, and the Holy Qur’ān speaks of them as believers in Moses.30