‘The Djinn’: By Ihsan Abdel Kouddous

The Djinn

By Ihsan Abdel Kouddous

Translated by Nabeel Yaseen

Despite being a university professor, a doctor in the science of atoms, a member of the Supreme Council of Science, a scientist, and one of two scholars in the Middle East whose publications are recognized by the American and Russian Scientific Institutes, I am still obsessed with a simple question that enters every child’s mind. I could not find an answer to it in books or in my head. Do djinn exist?

I spent almost my whole life attempting to answer this baffling question. I studied astronomy, psychology, metaphysics, and supernatural phenomena. This question even motivated me to study the science of atoms. Despite all these efforts, I could not find an answer.  Whenever I am asked the question, I simply don’t answer, because I am afraid that my argument will reveal my confusion. I just shrug my shoulders and say with indifference, “Stop this nonsense! What djinn? Ask something important.” But in reality, this “nonsense” is the problem that has followed me my whole life.

The problem began when I was eight years old, during my last visit to our village, Kafr Mimouna. It was a small village in the district of Shubra Al-Yamen, in Zifta Center. My father’s grandfather was a member of the last generation of the family that lived in the village. He sent his son, my grandfather, to study at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he later settled down and got married. His connection with the village did not end; he visited his relatives in the village almost every month, and the people of the village would come to Cairo and visit us. They would stay in our home to complete their religious visit to the shrines of God’s pious worshippers. In my father’s time, our connection with the village started to fade and tear, but we still remembered and talked about our relatives. We still received authentic ghee cans, eggs, and flaky Feteer Meshaltet, as well as maids to help in the house.

Now that I have grown and become a young man, our connection with our people in the village has been cut off, and there is nothing to connect us except the rent of three acres (the only property we own in the village). Sheikh Abdisamad comes to our house in Cairo twice a year to give us the rent, and I often don’t find the time to meet with him; my secretary meets with him on my behalf.

Even though my last visit was thirty years ago, when I was eight years old, I still remember our village. When I think of it, something tugs at my heart and at the veins that are rooted there; I fall into deep sadness and feel heartbroken, like I do when I remember my mother, whose death left me alone and lost. And I remember the djinn.

I went there with my cousin, who is ten years older than me. At that time, I was a weak and withdrawn child. My family used to feed me a teaspoon of fish oil every day to help me become stronger, but my cousin was already strong and full of energy. He was the leader of the Boy Scouts at Fouad I High School. A small dagger usually hung from his belt. He always impressed me; he was my hero, and I always walked behind him while attempting to imitate him. I would gaze admiringly at his Scout’s uniform—especially the green handkerchief around his shoulders, the whistle he kept in his pocket (from which braided white rope dangled), and the red ribbons wrapped around his socks. I saw him as a robot who could, with his small dagger, kill ten burglars, slaughter many lions, and even kick the English occupiers out of Egypt.

Every evening, the people of the village would sit together in the house yard as a family and talk: women, girls, babies, and young boys. We always ended on the topic of djinn, such as the beautiful djinn that would appear in the Nile on moonlit nights. She would brush her hair and sing a charming melody that no man’s ear could resist. When the man forgot himself and tried to get closer, the djinn would pull him down to the bottom of the sea and force a marriage.

However, most of their talk was about a particular djinn that lived in the village, specifically in Mahalla Al-Mukhtar, near the graveyard. He was only active at night. If a child passed by him, he would grab him by the legs, carry him upside down, and split him in two. If an adult passed by, he would jump onto his shoulders and force him to run the whole night.

Umm Ibrahim was one of the eldest in the family. She always told strange stories about djinn. She swore that once, the djinn rode on Shaikh Awadeen’s shoulders, and also that five years ago, they killed Bahia Dasouqi’s child. She told us that Hamada al-Alaaf saw a djinn last week. He’d seen it on his way back from Shubra Al-Yamen, and it began to chase him. Out of fear, he began to recite the Throne Verse. This pursuit kept going until Hamada reached the village, stepped into his home, and locked the door. If he hadn’t read the Throne Verse, the djinn would have caught him, jumped onto his shoulders, and ridden him like a horse. Umm Ibrahim swore that thirty years ago, the leader of the guard, Shaikh Suleiman, had requested that the sheriff exempt him and other guards from guarding that particular area, because the djinn would spend the whole night riding on the guards’ shoulders, and would force them to jog. The sheriff rejected Shaikh Suleiman’s request and relieved him of his duty as a leader. He replaced him with Mohammad al-Sanousi, who soon resigned after a djinn rode on his shoulders. So, the sheriff sent military forces from the Directorate, led by a lieutenant. The djinn jumped on the lieutenant’s shoulders and kept him running the whole night. The police officials escaped from the djinn and, in the morning, sent the lieutenant to the mental asylum. Afterward, they left the graveyard area without any guards at all.

As I listened to these stories, I began to tremble. My body felt chilled and shrank so that, out of fear, I could not stretch my limbs out again. Fear filled my heart, and it haunted me the whole night. To feel safe, I left my bed, which I shared with two other boys from our family, and I ran to sleep beside my cousin. I knew he kept a dagger beneath his pillow.

My cousin listened to these stories and mocked Umm Ibrahim. He told her, “Oh, old lady, quit talking nonsense. You’re delusional.” Umm Ibrahim shot back, “Oh, my son, you should say Astaghfirullah! Djinn are mentioned in the Holy Quran.” I believed Umm Ibrahim and the Holy Quran, but I also could not disbelieve my cousin, my hero.

One night, I was deep in sleep, having nightmares. I often had dreadful nightmares after I listened to stories about djinn. I began to feel like somebody was powerfully shaking my body. I woke up, terrified, choking on a frightful scream. Then I saw my cousin beside my bed, wearing his Scout’s clothes, with the whistle’s rope wrapped around his shoulders, the dagger attached to his belt, and a flashlight in his hand. He whispered in my ear to avoid rousing the others. “Wake up and put on your shoes,” he said.

“Hussein, where are we going? Are we traveling somewhere?” I asked.

He answered, hurrying me: “Just wake up and put on your shoes.”

As I mentioned earlier, I always walked behind him and dogged his steps. I always copied his actions, always followed his orders. So I woke up, put on my shoes, and silenced my objections so he wouldn’t think that I was scared to go with him. We left the house and snuck out, walking on tiptoes. I walked beside Hussein with shaky legs, wearing the same gallabiyah I’d slept in. My cousin walked with steady, firm steps, wearing his Scout’s uniform and glancing around like he was looking for prey to hunt. I did not know what time it was. It could’ve been after midnight, one a.m., or later. It was too dark; I could not even see my fingers. The whole village was silent, and the people were sleeping. Our footsteps sounded like those of huge animals, and when the corn stalks swung, they whispered like the hisses of a million snakes.

Speeding up to walk beside him, I asked my cousin, “Why don’t you tell me where we’re going?”

He simply replied, “We’re going to see the djinn.”

He stopped when he saw my legs quiver and my teeth chatter. In fact, my whole body trembled. I answered, my teeth chattering uncontrollably, “W-w-what?” My cousin eyed me with disdain. He then replied, in a tone belonging to a veteran Turkish commander, “Are you scared?”

I looked at him like I was searching for help. “No, I’m not sc-scared. Please, Hussein, l-let’s go b-back.”

He answered in the same veteran tone. “Be a man! We should prove to the whole village that all their talk about djinn is just nonsense and superstition!”

He stepped forward like a military soldier; he was confident I would not go back home alone. I followed him, and my eyes started to water. I did my best to hold back my tears. I walked beside him and tried to gather some power and bravery. I even copied his military stride, but my body shuddered, and my heart fluttered like a slaughtered dove. Tears gathered in my eyes like pebbles. We did not speak.

I felt the inky darkness, the dead silence, and the snake-hiss whispers of the cornstalks. We approached the graveyard, but I could not walk any further.

My cousin yelled at me: “Be strong! Act like a man!” I caught his shirt cuff and walked beside him like a crawling baby. He began to drag me.

I yelled, “I’m s-s-scared!”

Pitch blackness filled my eyes, and the cornstalks looked dark, too. The hissing sound filled my heart. We were at the graveyard now. I couldn’t handle this anymore. I felt like passing out. “Please, Hussein, I want to go home. By the life of the Prophet, let me go home.” Hussein dragged me by the arm to walk behind him. He then lit his flashlight and focused it on the graves.

He said in a sardonic tone, “No djinn. Nothing.” He then stepped forward, getting closer to one of the graves. He sat down, resting his back against it, holding the torch in one hand and the dagger in the other. He pulled me toward him and said, “Sit down, and let’s wait ’til Mr. Djinn shows up.”

I sat down, shivering like I had a fever. He turned the light off, and, to my eyes, the graves looked like ghosts. My gaze focused on one grave in particular; I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Then I imagined that the walls of the grave had split apart, and a human skeleton came out, opening its jaws wide, laughing boisterously. I could not scream, or cry, or even turn my head right or left. My whole body was frozen. I was full of fear. Suddenly, a flashlight lit up, and I gasped. I felt like my soul was being ripped out of my body.

Thankfully, I heard my cousin say, “Don’t get scared, it’s just me. I turned on the light.” He went on talking, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was scared to death. My gallabiyah rode up my legs; the air might have lifted it, but it felt like the arms of djinn did it to carry me upside down by the legs, then split me into two. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. I tried to catch my cousin’s hand, but my hands wouldn’t move.

I realized that my cousin had stopped talking. With shuddering breaths, I called his name to make sure he was still around. “Hussein!”

He replied with a voice that trembled like mine. “The flashlight stopped working.” I heard him reciting the Throne Verse from the Holy Quran. As he recited, I saw something moving in the darkness; the darkness itself might have been moving. Suddenly, I heard loud screams, and a hand jerked me along. I jumped to my feet and ran. Hussein was running as well, but far ahead of me, reciting all the way.

We reached home, and I fell down, unconscious. Hussein dragged me to my bed. Nobody even noticed that I was sick the next day, and I remained sick for more than two weeks. We never told our story to anybody. Hussein never even mentioned the dagger he left behind.

However, when Umm Ibrahim talked about the djinn again, Hussein retorted, “Oh, stop that baloney! This is nonsense!” I was shocked by the way he said it.

This is exactly what happened to me when I was eight years old, and, since then, I have wanted to know whether djinn really exists. I have read books that might have helped me reach my conclusion, but whenever I got closer to the answer, the memory of this incident in the village interrupted my thoughts and brought me back to my original confusion. I cannot tell you for sure that I saw real djinn in my childhood, but I have a strong feeling about it.

In order to reach the truth, scientists should be objective and free themselves from all preconceptions. They should use only reason. However, scientists are just humans and individuals in this community. God doesn’t want humans to reach the truth—at least not the whole truth. So, the Almighty creates not only human reason, but also the passions that always mislead reason. Do you understand me now?

Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (1919–90) is one of the most prolific and popular writers of Arabic fiction of the twentieth century. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Abdel Kouddous graduated from law school in 1942 but left his law practice to pursue a long and successful career in journalism. He was an editor at the daily Al-Akhbar, the weekly Rose al-Yusuf, and was editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram. The author of dozens of books, his controversial writings and political views landed him in jail more than once. A Nose and Three Eyes is his second book to be translated into English, and his first was I Do Not Sleep.

Nabeel Yaseen holds a PhD in English Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Master of English literature and composition from the University of Akron-Ohio. He taught at various universities in the US and the Middle East. Dr. Yaseen taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Pennsylvania State University. Now, he is an assistant professor at Qassim University where he teaches English literature and translation. He is interested in the 19th and 20th century American literature and literary translation; especially, the literary works of Ihsan Abdel Quddous and other Arab writers.

Read more:

An excerpt from Abdel Kouddous’s I Do Not Sleep

A Talk with Jonathan Smolin: On the Intersections of Abdel Kouddous’s Politics and His Fiction

Ali Shakir: The Silencing of Ihsan Abdel Kouddous

Photos & Films: Ihsan Abdel Kouddous

Two short stories by Abdel Kouddous:

“The Qur’an,” translated by Rahma Bavelaar

“God is Love,” translated by Rahma Bavelaar