Bones and dung as sustenance: How anthropology of religion can help us understand the Jinn

The problem

In the prophetic ahadith, we find some peculiar details about feeding habits of the jinn:

The delegate of Jinns of (the city of) Nasibin came to me--and how nice those Jinns were--and asked me for the remains of the human food. I invoked Allah for them that they would never pass by a bone or animal dung but find food on them. [Source] 

They (the Jinn) asked him (the Holy Prophet) about their provision and he said: Every bone on which the name of Allah is recited is your provision. The time it will fall in your hand it would be covered with flesh, and the dung of (the camels) is fodder for your animals. [Source]

These and other ahadith suggest that the jinn feed on material things. But if that's the case, why do the material things- the bones and dung in this case- not simply disappear?

This should be an easy problem to solve. Jinn are supernatural entities, so there's no reason to expect that their feeding habit would be similar to ours. Maybe they don't eat the bones and dung themselves, just the supernatural "essence" of it. The second hadith actually makes this more explicit- when the bones are accessed by the jinn, flesh appears on them supernaturally, and that's what they eat.

My goal in this post is not so much to solve any problem, but to use this example to highlight a point: studying anthropology of "primitive" religion can either corroborate, or at least help us make sense of, some descriptions and activity of the jinn.

I want to start with some anthropology of religion, except framed from an Islamic demonology perspective. Bear with me.

Primitive animistic deities were probably jinn

Animism is a form of religion centered around "nature spirits"- belief in, and some sort of worship of, spirits living in trees and rocks and other inanimate objects. I think a strong case can be made that at least some of these "spirits" are jinn, and this form of religion was inspired by jinn-centered phenomena. For one, Andrew Lang makes a strong case that at least some primitive religious beliefs were inspired by genuine supernatural phenomena. His case is based on the eerie commonalities between primitive spiritual beliefs as reported in anthropology, and modern day parapsychological phenomena. You can read my review of his book here for a brief digest of his case. More generally, however, this also goes to show that existence of jinn and their behavior offer a ready explanation of how pervasive animistic beliefs are among humans.

Andrew Lang and his 1898 book, where he makes the case that a lot of primitive religious beliefs were inspired by veridical supernatural phenomena

Secondly, and perhaps more acutely, the behavior of the spirits as documented by anthropologists is very reminiscent of Islamic descriptions of ill-intentioned jinn. In the words of Winfried Corduan, the spirits tend to be "fickle, demanding and selfish" (reference below). The typical mode of "worship" offered to these creatures is not sincere, prayerful devotion- but mostly material offerings, as a negotiating tactic to extract favors. These behaviors explain why animistic religions tend to be unmoral- they don't come associated with a moral code for people to follow, simply because the deities and their commands are too transactional to base a moral system on. In sum, supernatural beings constantly demanding offerings from people in exchange for materialistic favors, and not inspiring piety of any sort- this description seems to fit well with how Islam portrays ill-intentioned jinn.

Finally, from an Islamic perspective, its very plausible that the jinn are responsible for polytheistic beliefs. Indeed, a hadith tells us how shirk began on earth- Satan, himself a jinn, inspired people to worship statues [Source].

Taking all of this together, it seems quite plausible that at least some of the primitive animistic deities were, in fact, jinn.

How did these jinn-deities eat?

Once we accept that fact, an important conclusion follows: the behavior of these spirits in animism could tell us about the behavior of jinn. In that connection, let's now look at their feeding habits to see if they shed light on our opening ahadith.

In his book In the Beginning God: A Fresh Look at the Case for Original Monotheism, Winfried Corduan discusses how "offerings" to these spirits would look:

Animistic cultures typically make abundant sacrifices to the spirits; frequently, they speak of “the spirits being fed.” If I may take an example from a highly developed culture, it is an important part of Chinese religion to present food to the ancestor spirits. The spirits, if they are so inclined, will consume the “essence” of this food and leave behind its material remnant, which can then be eaten by human beings. Sacrifices, in this sense, are ways of negotiating with the gods and spirits. The spiritual beings profit from what is being given them, and the human being hopes that his sacrifices will generate particular help from the spirits or gods. This attitude underlies much of the motivation in animism. [p. 143 in EPUB version. Emphases mine]

Some interesting themes to emerge from this are:

1. The spirits demand and feed on material offerings, not supernatural ones;

2. Their mode of feeding is supernatural- they don't chow down on the food itself, just absorb its "essence" somehow, leaving the material behind.

As it happens, these descriptions apply to the ahadith's description of jinn feeding habits as well: the stuff they eat from is material, but the mode of eating is supernatural so the "food" doesn't disappear. In this case, granted some plausible premises, anthropology of religion offers confirmation of the hadith descriptions of jinn feeding.

Anthropology of religion and demonology

I think anthropology of religion, especially "primitive" religion, is an extremely useful discipline for apologists to look into. Islam makes some specific claims about world religions (e.g. the first humans were monotheists, for example), and work done by anthropologists like Wilhelm Schmidt is definitely relevant in that regard. But there's another important utility. As this post was meant to demonstrate on a small scale, the objects of worship in many of these "primitive" religions are jinn, and anthropological literature about beliefs pertaining to these beings would be useful from a demonology perspective. This information could either corroborate what we already know from scripture- like in the feeding case- or, perhaps more interestingly, they can offer clues about their behavior that scripture is silent on.

This is useful, because we often reach for demonological explanations to account of "non-Islamic" supernatural phenomena- like exorcism in the name of deities besides Allah, certain forms of clairvoyance and fortune-telling, and perhaps most importantly, memory and behavior suggestive of reincarnation. These are supernatural phenomena that, in their theological content, are contrary to Islam. The practice of explaining them in terms of jinn is something that scripture itself endorses. For example, a hadith in Ibn Majah tells us that the wife of Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) used a particular amulet that prevented her eyes from watering. Since amulets, talismans or charms are haram, this would be an example of a non-Islamic "faith healing". Ibn Mas'ud explained this phenomenon by appealing to ill-intentioned jinn- a jinn was causing the eye problem to begin with, and he stopped it when, as a sign of obedience to him, the amulet was worn [Source]. Another example would be the Prophet's hadith on soothsayers: when some people told him that, contrary to Islamic beliefs, the soothsayers seem to know some details about the future somehow, the Prophet invoked the jinn as the supernatural source of this information [Source].

This book is a great example of how demonology can provide theologically sensible explanations of supernatural phenomena- UFOs in this case

As such, to explain religious experiences with problematic theological content, we often need to use jinn as explanations. An attractive example here is the so-called "reincarnation evidence". There are some instances where a person can recall accurate, verifiable details about the life of another, now deceased, person, even though there was no way of knowing this information. In some cases, the person can even speak in the accent of the deceased, display the mannerisms peculiar to them, or even speak a language they didn't know before. While these could be suggestive of reincarnation, Islamic demonology also provides a specific way of explaining this set of phenomena. We believe each human individual is constantly accompanied by a jinn [evidence]- an entity that knows everything there is to know about us (Wikipedia sums it up nicely by calling them our "spiritual double"). So in case of "past life recall", a jinn-explanation would be- the spiritual double of the deceased person has possessed the recaller. This of course would also explain sightings of the deceased, as jinn can shape-shift.

In order to provide explanations of this sort, and for these explanations to be good, we need more information on jinn behavior and activity. Sources of this information consist of scriptural data, and "field research" by Muslim exorcists (raqis). However, given the theoretical and practical considerations laid out in this post, anthropology of primitive religion could also be another important source of information in this regard. In the same vein, it should also be useful to study jinn-related religious anthropology in Arabia.

I think the utility of this project is better appreciated by someone who understands the challenges posed by problematic parapsychological phenomena in general. My next article would be on that broader topic.