Driving an unused nail into the blood is supposed to stop their formation. Only people who are killed give rise to a dangerous and active ifrit, drawn to the blood of the victim. A person who died a natural death does not have a malevolent ifrit. They live in cemeteries, wander around places the dead person frequently visited, or roam the earth close to the place of death, until the Day of Judgment. Probably influenced by the Ancient Egypt idea of Ka, the afarit are often identified with the spirits of the dead, departing from the body at the moment of death. Mask depicting Bes, ancient Egypt deity, sometimes identified with afarit by Muslim Egyptians, early 4th–1st century BC ( Walters Art Museum, Baltimore)Īlthough afarit are not necessarily components of a person, but independent entities, a common belief in Islamic Egypt Īssociates afarit with part of a human's soul. Further, an ifrit can be compelled by a sorcerer, if summoned. Such obligations can nevertheless be ruthless, such as obligation to blood vengeance and avenging murder. īut despite their negative depictions and affiliation to the nether regions, afarit are not fundamentally evil on a moral plane they might even carry out God's purpose. Nizami Ganjavi describes the ifrit tormenting Mahan, as created from "God's wrath", thus underpinning the ifrit's role secondary to God's will. In Islamic folklore, the afarit became a class of chthonic spirits, inhabiting the layers of the seven earths, generally ruthless and wicked, formed out of smoke and fire. Muslim texts explain, God sent the ifrit on purpose in order that Gabriel might teach Muhammad and his ummah (Muslim community) to overcome their fear of demons at night. In the latter account, the "ifrit among the jinn" threatens Muhammad with a fiery presence, whereupon the archangel Gabriel taught Muhammad a Du'a (Islamic prayer) to defeat it. An "ifrit among the jinn" is mentioned in a hadith of Muhammad al-Bukhari, attempting to interrupt the prayers of the prophet Muhammed and in a narrative of Muhammad's night journey recorded in the 8th century by Malik ibn Anas. And verily, I am indeed strong, and trustworthy for such work." However, the duty is not given to him, but to somebody who is endowed with knowledge of the scripture. The ifrit offers to carry the throne of Bilqis (the Queen of Sheba) to Solomon: "An ifrit from the jinn said: 'I will bring it to you before you rise from your place. In the Quran itself, such an ifrit is mentioned in ( Q27:38–40). However, within the Islamic scriptures themselves, the term is apparently used as an epithet to describe a powerful or malicious spirit of undefined nature. Due to the ambiguous meaning of the term jinn, which is applied to a wide range of different spirits, their relation towards the genus of jinn remains vague. In Islamic scriptures the term ifrit is always followed by the expression of the jinn. The ifrit Al-Malik al-Aswad (The Black King) sitting on the right listening to the complaints of jinn from a manuscript in the late 14th century Book of Wonders They became identified either as a dangerous kind of demon ( shayatin) preying on women, or as spirits of the dead. These popular beliefs were elaborated in works such as in al-Ibshihi's Mustatraf. In folklore, the term developed into a designation of a specific class of demon, though most Islamic scholarly traditions regard the term as an adjective. Some Western philologists suggest a foreign origin of the word and attribute it to Middle Persian afritan which corresponds to Modern Persian آفريدن (to create), but this is regarded as unlikely by others. It is further used to describe sly, malicious, wicked and cunning characteristics. Traditionally, Arab philologists trace the derivation of the word to عفر ( ʻafara, "to rub with dust" or "to roll into dust"). The term itself is not found in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, although variants such as ifriya and ifr are recorded prior to the Quran. The word ifrit derives from the Quran, but only as an epithet and not to designate a specific type of demon.
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