PEACE, NOAH
What do you think of the following analysis?
It remains a true mystery to me that, some here will continue to define Iblis as malaika when Allah clearly defines him of those created of a scorching wind--15:27 and 18:50. To define Iblis as malaika, is to undermine the credibility of Allah's Words. Allah, says that,--if we were to take all of the oceans, double them and turn them into ink and take all of the forests, double them and turn them into pens, we could not exhaust His Words. With this in mind then, why is it so difficult to to accept that Allah knows exactly what He is talking about when He chose the word Jinn to define Iblis? Did Allah err and you, who maintain that Iblis was a malaika, have corrected Him? Nowhere does Allah explicitly/definitively, refer to Iblis as malaika, however, He does explicitly/definitively, refer to him as one of the Jinns. In effect, to define Iblis contrary to how Allah has defined him, is to change Allah's Words.
Anyway...
6:130 "O ye assembly of Jinns and men! came there not unto you messengers from amongst you, setting forth unto you My signs, and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours?" They will say: "We bear witness against ourselves." It was the life of this world that deceived them. So against themselves will they bear witness that they rejected Faith.
22:75 Allah chooses messengers from angels and from menfor Allah is He Who hears and sees (all things).
If one believes that ayat 6:130 is stating that the Jinn, like men, had their own messengers, then it appears that that assertion would contradict ayat 22:75. Ayat 22:75 states that, Allah, chooses messengers from the angels and men and not anything else.
Now, if an angel went to the Jinn, it would have only been to give a Message/wahy to a particular Jinn to give to other Jinns[no angel actually leads men, hence, Allah saying...if angels inhabited the earth, He would have sent an angel as a Messenger]. Clearly the Jinn inhabit the earth, hence, if they were other than homo sapien sapiens, Allah would have had to send a Jinn as Messenger to the Jinns [as he sent a man to men] and not just angel as a bearer of revelation.
If the Jinn didn't inhabit the earth and they weren't homo sapien sapiens, how then, could they have helped Solomon build his many and prodigious edifices? An angel could not have been their prophet/Messenger example. What Message did a Jinn bring to other Jinns? Allah, makes it clear that, he only chose angels and men as Messsengers and He sent men to men--rijalun [male human beings]. You still have not reconciled 6:130 and 22:75.
I want to now pursue the ayats mentioning Solomon and the Jinn:
27:17 Soloman's troops, made up of jinn and men and birds, were assembled for him, paraded in tight ranks.
The key words, for me at least are:
1. troops/junooduhu= body of soldiers/troops, collected body of men prepared for war.
2. Jinn=people of different far flung countries living detached from other civilized peopled; beings who remain aloof from other people, hence, making them inaccessible to view i.e. powerful people.
3. birds/ttayri= cavalry, swift animals, company of men.
4. ranks/yoozaAAoona= they were arranged in separate well-disciplined columns.
The ayat begins with defining what Solomon's hosts were--junooduhu, hence, what follows cannot be an aggregate of invisible fiery beings/jinn, human beings, and feathered creatures/birds. This makes no sense at all nor does history support any such fantastic notions.
The idea of "birds" symbolizing men is not new. Alexander Hislop, in his book, The Two Babylons writes:
When we look at such figures as those which are here presented to the reader, with their great extent of expanded wing, as symbolising an Assyrian king, what a vividness and force does it give to the inspired language of the prophet! And how clear is it, also, that the stretching forth of the Assyrian monarch's WINGS, that was to "fill the breadth of Immanuel's land," has that very symbolic meaning to which I have referred--viz., the overspreading of the land by his "mighty ones," or hosts of armed men, that the king of Babylon was to bring with him in his overflowing invasion! ...Now, the understanding of this equivocal sense of "Baal-aberin" can alone explain the remarkable statement of Aristophanes, that at the beginning of the world "the birds" were first created, and then after their creation, came the "race of the blessed immortal gods." This has been regarded as either an atheistical or nonsensical utterance on the part of the poet, but, with the true key applied to the language, it is found to contain an important historical fact. Let it only be borne in mind that "the birds"--that is, the "winged ones"--symbolised "the Lords of the mighty ones," and then the meaning is clear, viz., that men first "began to be mighty on the earth"; and then, that the "Lords" or Leaders of "these mighty ones" were deified.
There leaves no doubt that, "birds", can only be referring to Solomon's cavalry of swift moving men, either on foot or horse or both.
Turning to the bible, 1Kings 5:13-17:
Main Entry: LEVY : the enlistment or conscription of men for military service.
13] And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
[14] And he sent them to Lebanon ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy.
[15] And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains;
[16] Beside the chief of Solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work.
[17] And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house.
2Chrons. 2:17-18
Main Entry: ALIEN: a person of another family, race, or nation
17 Solomon took a census of all the aliens who were in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600.
18 He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working.
The strangers/aliens mentioned in verse 17, describes exactly one of the main definitions of Jinn--people from other lands.
Allah, in Al-Quran states:
34:12. And to Solomon (We made) the Wind (obedient): Its early morning (stride) was a month's (journey), and its evening (stride) was a month's (journey); and We made a Font of molten brass to flow for him; and there were Jinns that worked in front of him, by the leave of his Lord, and if any of them turned aside from our command, We made him taste of the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.
34:13. They worked for him as he desired, (making) arches, images,
basons as large as reservoirs, and (cooking) cauldrons fixed (in their places): "Work ye, sons of David, with thanks! but few of My servants are grateful!"
Once again turning to the bible the following verses support the above ayats:
1Kings 5:13 King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel-thirty thousand men. 14 He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. 15 Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, 16 as well as thirty-three hundred [d] foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen. 17 At the king's command they removed from the quarry large blocks of quality stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple.
1Kings 7: 13_15
13 King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram,
14 whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre and a craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
15 He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits around, [h] by line. 16 He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits
high. 17
2Chron. 4:6 He then made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. In them the things to be used for the burnt offerings were rinsed, but the Sea was to be used by the priests for washing.
In conclusion, if the Jinn were other than homo sapien sapiens, then why is there no description of these...other than human creatures of fire or invisible fire, to be found in the bible concerning the building of Solomon's temple? Why is there no mention of these...other than human creatures mentioned anywhere in the historical records? On the contrary, the bible accounts are very close to the Quranic accounts concerning Solomon's building projects and no one worked on those projects other than...homo sapien sapiens...Jinn included.
Main Entry: GENTILE: Pronunciation: 'jen-"tIl: Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin gentilis, from Latin gent-,GENS-nation : a person of a non-Jewish nation or of non-Jewish faith; especially : a Christian as distinguished from a Jew: HEATHEN, PAGAN
When I look at the word gentile-GENS [the root word of gentile], I cannot help but notice how close it resembles JINNS-GENS. Just a coincidence?...I don't think so. What better defines/describes the gentile world/peoples, than...fire free of smoke?
"The Gentiles are the Non-Jews, a name given by the Hebrews to all those who had not received the law of Moses...Hebrew Goyim signified the nations, the surrounding nations, foreigners, as opposed to Israel. A Goy was a foreign nation; hence a Gentile."
http://www.latter-rain.com/Israel/gentile.htm
"The jinn mentioned in the Holy Quran are certainly not the genii of fairy tales or what people usually imagine them to be. This word indicates "something hidden from view", and is used in the Quran with several different meanings referring to people or beings who are remote and not seen. It is applied to leaders, as contrasted with the ordinary public, and to people of foreign lands. For instance, the Quran says:
"O assembly of jinn and men, did there not come to you messengers from among you. . ." (6:131).
As messengers from God only came to human beings, the jinn here are also humans, and the address "jinn and men" is to the leaders and the ordinary people. Similarly, the Quran twice mentions some jinn as accepting its teachings (46:29; 72:1). In the first case, a tribe of Jews is meant, and in the second some Christians are meant, being called jinn because of their remoteness".
http://www.aaiil.org/text/books/others/zahidaziz/introductionislam/appendixjinn.shtml
From the above two passages, it is interesting how similar in both sound and meaning Jinn and Gentile [read--Jinntile] are. It appears then that, Jinn and men, while both being human beings, do represent different communities, relative, to whether or not they a Law from Allah. The Last Messenger, as spoken of in ayat 7:157, appears to have been of the Jinn himself:
7:157. Those who follow the Messenger-Prophet, the Ummi, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel. He enjoins them good and forbids them evil, and makes lawful to them the good things and prohibits for them impure things, and removes from them their burden and the shackles which were on them. So those who believe in him and honour him and help him, and follow the light which has been sent down with him ? these are the successful.
"Some have, however, argued that ummi and "unlettered" should not be taken to mean illiterate, but rather scriptureless. This would mean that when Muhammad is described as ummi, it means that he is not one of the Jews (a people "of the Book") or simply that he is not a member of a group which has yet received a revelation from God - at least, not until he received the Qur'an. Such a translation seems more likely to many because Muhammad is also described as having been a merchant, and it is unlikely that a completely illiterate person could have functioned as a merchant".
Metaphorically, speaking:
The Jinn: represent the id/drives/appetites/passions/"fire"-nar, inherent in the homo sapien sapien nature.
The Malaika: represent the conscience/drive for perfection/internal punisher, inherent in the homo sapien sapien nature.
Adam: represents the ego/balance between the Jinn nature and Malaika nature, inherent in homo sapien sapien nature.
The Tree: represents a people and their worldview/philosophy, specifically, the Iblis lead Jinn people, who are astray either because of ignorance or design.
The Jinn, therefore, as a people before Adam, were more id/drive/passion dominated. The Jinn nature given it orientation, could not be in charge of the earth because they would cause more damage than not, hence, the need for a Khalifa/Successor--Adam [and his people], one who would come to bring balance and an orientation toward submission to a Divine Law, in other words--a "cooler being".
Of course this theory needs work, but I think I am in the ballpark.
Looking forward to any critical analysis which would contradict these findings.
