The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

The Jinn are said to appear to mankind most commonly in the shapes of serpents, dogs, cats, or human beings. In the last case, they are sometimes of the stature of men, and sometimes of a size enormously gigantic. If good, they are generally resplendently handsome: if evil, horribly hideous. They become invisible at pleasure (by a rapid extension or rarefaction of the particles which compose them), or suddenly disappear in the earth or air, or through a solid wall. Many Muslims in the present day profess to have seen and held intercourse with them. The Zóba'ah, which is a whirlwind that raises the sand or dust in the form of a pillar of prodigious height, often seen sweeping across the deserts and fields, is believed to be caused by the flight of an evil Jinnee. To defend themselves from a Jinnee thus "riding in the whirlwind," the Arabs often exclaim, "Iron! Iron!" (Ḥadeed! Ḥadeed!), or, "Iron! thou unlucky!" (Ḥadeed! yá mashoom!), as the Jinn are supposed to have a great dread of that metal: or they exclaim, "God is most great!" (Alláhu akbar!).[77] A similar superstition prevails with respect to the water-spout at sea, as the reader may have discovered from the first instance of the description of a Jinnee in the present work, which occasions this note to be here inserted.