Genies in popular culture

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Illustration of Aladdin's djinni from the Arabian Nights flying away with two people

Genies frequently occur as characters or plot elements in fictional works. They are often divided into different categories, of which the most prominent are marid, genie or jinn, and ifrit.

Genie[]

Books[]

• Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar is a book by Robert Lebling with foreword by author Tahir Shah and has been called "the most complete compendium of research on the jinn to date."^[1]
• Tahir Shah's books In Arabian Nights (2008) and The Caliph's House (2006) reference Eastern culture and history in relation to his experiences in Morocco, including stories and places related to jinn.^[2]
• Jinnicky the Red Jinn is one of Ruth Plumly Thompson's original Oz characters. He appears in four of the canonical Oz novels, beginning with Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, and appears in the sub-canonical novel Yankee in Oz.^[3][4]
• Christopher Moore’s book Practical Demonkeeping describes the pre-human origin of the jinn and God's favor toward humans.
• The "Djinn in Charge of All Deserts" gives the lazy camel his hump in the story "How the Camel Got His Hump" from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.^[5]
• Neil Gaiman refers to or features jinn in his works, such as a taxi cab driving ‘ifrīt in the novel American Gods.^[6]
• In Summoned by Rainy Kaye, Dimitri is a modern-day genie who must fulfill wishes even though he has no supernatural powers.
• In the Bartimaeus Sequence books by Jonathan Stroud, a djinni is one of five major spirits, the others being afrits (a form of ‘ifrīt), marids, foliots, and imps.
• Jinn appear frequently in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series. The Wardens who control fire, weather and earth capture the jinn in bottles, and use them to channel their powers.
• Dragon Rider, a novel by Cornelia Funke, features a jinni named Asif who is huge, omnipotent, and has a thousand eyes.
• In the book series Children of the Lamp, the protagonists discover that they are members of a jinn "tribe" named Marid. In the series, jinn are said to be made of fire and have special powers that allow them to do anything they please according to "The Baghdad Rules." In The Blue Djinn of Babylon, the second book of the series, Edwiges, a jinni dedicated to breaking casinos, makes note of the rule that no jinni shall be allowed to make money for him- or herself. Jinn can only use their powers when it is warm.
• In Jinn by Matthew B. J. Delaney, Jinns are the Villains.
• There are several passing references to jinn in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
• "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" is a short story by British writer A. S. Byatt, published in an anthology of the same name.
• In the Doctor Who novel The Stone Rose, the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler encounter an artificial life form called a GENIE – Genetically Engineered Neural Imagination Engine – which the Doctor reveals is the inspiration for the Arabian genies. The book has them as creatures created to make wishes and some of them became the mystical genies when they transported their owners back to Arabian times. These GENIEs were wiped from existence when the timeline they came from was averted to save the Earth from the destruction the GENIEs in the future were causing with their wishing, but echoes and ripples of the timeline still remained and mystics and wise men could sense them, causing the stories to persist. The Doctor and Rose encounter a prototype GENIE that survived the destruction of its timeline and is inadvertently causing great trouble. The two are able to capture the GENIE and reverse all of the wishes it granted. Remembering the story of Aladdin, Rose wishes the GENIE free and it departs for a peaceful place where it can still grant wishes, but only those it wishes to grant.
• In the novel Proven Guilty in Jim Butcher's series The Dresden Files, Lucius Glau, Madrigal Raith's lawyer, is a jann – the scion of a jinno and a mortal.
• Djinn is the title of a 1981 novel by French author Alain Robbe-Grillet.
• In Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Rose of the Prophet trilogy, jinn are created by the gods to handle the day-to-day woes of humanity, thereby freeing the gods from having to deal with it.
• Jinn are the primary power in Tim Powers's book Declare.
• In C.S. Lewis' 1949 novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver tells the Pevensie children that the White Witch is half jinn and half giant. Efreets are mentioned as being among her servants.
• One of the main characters in the second book of The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice is a jinni queen and one of the leaders of the jinn army.
• In A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Mariam's mom claims to have been entered by a jinni which caused seizures.
• In Graham Joyce's Requiem, Ahmed, Tom, and Sharon are all haunted by their djinn from past experiences.
• In Syren (Septimus Heap Book 5), Merrin Meredith (aka.. Septimus Heap, or Daniel Hunter) releases a jinn from a charm intended as a protection to be given to the true Septimus Heap.
• A jinn is featured in Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson.
• William Dalrymple's 1994 travelogue City of Djinns describes New Delhi as a city of metaphorical jinns.
• Graham Masterton's novel The Djinn is a modern-day story about a businessman trying to use a djinn for gain.
• Richard Wormser's novelization of the 1961 film The Thief of Bagdad is told from the point of view of Abu Hastin, the 762-year-old Jinni of Bagdad and supposedly reveals a great deal about the rules that govern the lives of jinnis (including that the story about jinns granting three wishes is false and only got around because one jinni got trapped inside a bottle and had to grant three wishes to a mortal in order to be freed).
• In the climax of Matt Ruff's alternate history novel The Mirage, it is revealed the a historical setting was created by a pre-Islamic djinn, who subsequently converts to Islam and abstains from his powers.
• In the short story "The Last Wish" from the fantasy novel of the same name, the bard Dandilion unwittingly unleashes a malevolent air genie called a djinn.
• In the second part of The Quantum Thief science fiction trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi, The Fractal Prince features jinns, sentient disembodied entities who resemble a genie in many aspects.
• Javaid Laghari wrote a book called Ifrit about terrorists and the jinn Ifrit teaming up to steal Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
• A jinn is one of the main characters in Uncanny Collateral, a Novella by Brian McClellan, where the jinn is trapped inside a ring but she is able to communicate with the bearer.
• Two djinn, named Daizel and Hazruel, are featured in Diana Wynne Jones' book Castle in the Air.
• Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer discuss the possibility of deploying genies in a make believe bout of banditry in Mark Twain's book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Comics[]

• In Marvel Comics, then known as Atlas Comics, Astonishing Tales #4, published in 1959 (story by Stan Lee and by artist Jack Kirby), a man steals the powers of a green genie and begins terrorizing humanity, only to be thwarted in the end. The story was later reprinted in #11 (1974) and then Marvel Masterworks volumes of Astonishing Tales. In a previous comic story, an evil man finds a genie in a bottle and releases him. Switching places, the genie-turned-human orders the evil man turned into a genie, trapping him seeming for all time. The once-genie vows to lead a good life, unlike his former master trapped in the bottle. As told in a previous comic "I Am the Genie" (Astonishing Tales #3), this is a brief retelling of that story. Months later, a wandering man comes across the bottle and opens it, but seeing nothing but an old, muddy relic discards it, without releasing the emerald genie inside. Now masterless, the green genie begins to plague humanity, first by repelling the law of gravity, transforming cats and dogs into huge monsters and bringing the Moon closer to Earth. The evil green genie then conjures up an army of giant soldiers to conquer Earth. Still wanting more, he decides to conquer all of space, by leading an invasion force of ships across the stars. In the end, it is his undoing, as once in deep space, beyond Earthly influences, his powers fade, undoing all his magic. Trapped again in the same bottle, as before, the green genie is trapped, but is not released by the stranger that found him in the first place.
• In the manga series Dragon Ball, the final and most powerful villain of the Dragon Ball Z series Majin Boo is clad in stylistically-Arabic garb. Majin is the Japanese word for magical being or genie. Boo can reform from smoke and clouds and utilizes transmutation sorcery to transform living beings into candy to sate his monstrous appetite. He possesses incredible power, rivaling that of the most powerful gods (save for the God of Destruction, Beerus) in the Dragon Ball universe. The series' dragons Shenlong and Porunga (which are considered Dragon Gods) also recall genies, in that their sole function is to grant the wish(es) of whoever collects all seven Dragon Balls. In fact, the Namekian Dragon Porunga is capable of granting three wishes when summoned, the common number of wishes a genie can usually grant.
• In the Image comic book series Amazing Joy Buzzards, is a Mexican wrestler genie who can be summoned by the rock group through a magical amulet and the magic words "Go El Campeon Go!".
• In the Vertigo comic Fables, a jinni is released from a bottle by a malicious vizier who hopes to destroy Fabletown and murder his master, Sinbad. The jinn are considered among the most powerful creatures in existence, described as almost 97% pure magic (compared to "your average Elder God", who are about 50% magic) and as "wild things with no sense of good and evil". Notably, the third wish must be for the jinn to return to its bottle, or else it will be free.
• ClanDestine, a comic book series by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer and published by Marvel Comics, is about a family of British superheroes in the Marvel Universe, children of a human and a female jinni.
• Comic fiction author Tom Holt titled one of his novels Djinn Rummy, combining the word jinn with the popular card game Gin Rummy. The novel is about a number of jinn in the human world, many of whom have corporate sponsoring. Jinn appear frequently in Tom Holt's books.
• The DC Comics characters Johnny Thunder and Jakeem Thunder are masters of a jinni from the fifth dimension named Thunderbolt. Genies in the DCU are summoned by their masters by saying their name backwards. Thunderbolt's true name is Yz, which when said backwards sounds like "Say you". Disgraced superhero Triumph was later manipulated by an evil jinni named Lkz, which when said backwards sounds like "So cool". After a conflict involving both the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America, the two genies merged, changing the Thunderbolt's summoning word to "So cool". The fifth dimension is also home to Superman's enemy, Mister Mxyzptlk. In the pages of JSA it was revealed that imps, such as Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, are seen as something akin to children. Thunderbolt's son, Shocko and Shocko's wife, Peachy Pet, are also jinn.
  • Another jinn appears in the DC comics, as a 4,000-year-old teenage girl named Djinn, as a member of Damian Wayne's new Teen Titans team.^[7]
• In the manga series Magic Knight Rayearth, the princesses from Chizeta, Tarta and Tatra have two jinn guardians.
• In the comic book Re:Gex, there is a character named .
• In the manga series Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, the djinn are the rulers of dungeons and sleep deep inside their dungeon until a Dungeon Capturer reaches where they are. Once this happens they possess an object of the Dungeon Capturer, creating a Metal Vessel.
• In the Marvel Comics series Sleepwalker the Jyn'ai (jynai, jinni, genie) are a race of genie-like creatures that frequently manifest upon the material plane. They deal with specific humans, using their powers to grant wishes. They have reality warping powers, can manipulate matter and energy and can use some psionic powers like telepathy, clairvoyance and a kind of psychic erosion. Their human form was giant-like (7 ft). They have enhanced human agility, strength (1 ton range) and vast endurance. They can live for millennia. Although the jyn'ai are creatures from the astral plane, they can assume human shape when they are on the material plane. The first appearance of the jyn'ai was in Sleepwalker Holiday Special #1 (January 1993) with a Sleepwalker's foe called Mister Jyn (Jinn is the Arabic word for genie).
• In the manga/anime series One Piece, there are supernatural fruits known as Devil Fruits that grant those that eat them special abilities. One character named Charlotte Daifuku ate a Devil Fruit called the Puff-Puff Fruit that allows him to summon a powerful genie from his own body as long as he keeps rubbing himself.

Film and television[]

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• In the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad, Abu the thief frees a genie from a bottle. The genie promptly tries to kill him, but after Abu tricks the genie back into the bottle, the genie gives him three wishes. Abu asks first for sausages, second to be taken to king Ahmad, and third, in a fit of anger during an argument, for Ahmad to go to Baghdad, after which the genie abandons Abu. Abu destroys the All-Seeing Eye, freeing good spirits who help him defeat the evil Grand Vizier Jaffar.^[8] According to English studies scholar Kathleen Coyne Kelly, the genie in the film represents colonized peoples, specifically of the British Empire, who here are subservient but upon whom the success of their ruler depends.^{[9]: 212–213}
• In the 1945 film A Thousand and One Nights, Evelyn Keyes plays a voluptuous redheaded genie named Babs, who is the Slave of the Lamp of Nador. She falls head-over-heels for her new master, Aladdin, and reluctantly helps him win the heart of a busty blonde princess.
• A-Lad-In His Lamp (1948) Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon Bugs Bunny. Bugs uncovers a magic lantern, which contains an exuberant but uncooperative genie. After being transported to fabulous Baghdad, Bugs is pursued by Caliph Hassan Pfeffer, who tries to take the lamp away from him. Hilarity ensues.^[10]
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) features Baronni, a child genie, who is freed and becomes both a mortal and Sinbad's cabin boy.
• Genies have appeared in a couple of The Twilight Zone episodes, most notability in "The Man in the Bottle" and "I Dream of Genie".
• The 1964 comedy The Brass Bottle features a genie (Burl Ives) who causes more problems than he solves for his master (Tony Randall) and his fiancée (Barbara Eden, who herself would enter the bottle the next year in I Dream of Jeannie).
• The sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, which began in 1965 and ran for five seasons, featured Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old blonde Persian genie completely infatuated with the American astronaut who had found her bottle and set her free in modern America. It was spun off into the animated series Jeannie in 1973.
• In the 1967 Hanna-Barbera cartoon Shazzan the title character is a genie serving two modern American teenagers in the ancient Middle East. He appears whenever the two halves of a magic ring are put together.
• The 1987 film The Outing featured an evil jinni who is unleashed in a museum and hunts down the teens who let it out.
• The horror film Wishmaster features an evil djinn as its villain, the Djinn attempting to trick people into making wishes so that it can gain power in the real world to unleash the forces of the Djinn upon the world and from the void where they have been trapped at the moment God created the world. Although the Djinn can grant wishes to others, these wishes involve the wish-maker sacrificing their souls for what they asked- and the Djinn can even twist their words and taunts around into actual wishes to be used against them if it is phrased properly-, and only the person who released it from the gem can ask for and receive the necessary wishes to release the Jinn's full power without losing their soul (The Djinn even granted its 'master' a test wish that would not count towards the original three which resulted in it being ordered to shoot itself in the head, albeit to prove that it couldn't die). The Jinn was defeated in the first film when the Jinn's master used her third wish to undo the chain of events that led to the Jinn escaping in the first place. The film has spawned three sequels, the first sequel featuring the Djinn being once again defeated by a wish that negated the circumstances of its escape, while the other two featured its victims wishing for the aid of an angel to kill the Djinn.
• In the animated series Martin Mystery, episodes called "Curse of the Djini" and "Return of the Djini" featured an evil jinni trapped in a skull who could read peoples' minds and make them state their wishes. If the jinni died, the wishes would be undone.
• In the episode "The Wish" of the UPN horror/comedy series Special Unit 2, Special Unit 2 encountered an evil genie-like link who needed to grant 3,000 wishes in order to gain free will. Unlike traditional jinn, this genie did not have supernatural powers other than the ability to transform between gas and solid states. As a result, the genie had to carry out wishes physically; for example, if someone wished for a million dollars the genie had to break into a bank and steal a million dollars for them, or if someone wished for a relationship with a beautiful model the genie would have to kidnap the model. These wishes almost always ended in disaster for the genie's masters. After 3,000 wishes had been granted the genie would no longer have to live in bottles or grant wishes.
• Two episodes of the TV series Charmed featured different types of genie; the first episode, "Be Careful What You Witch For", featured a genie whose wishes unintentionally caused disaster for the sisters despite his efforts to help, while the second episode, "I Dream of Phoebe" featured them facing a demon who had been trapped in a bottle and turned into a genie as a punishment, the genie nearly escaping when she tricks one of the sisters into wishing her free at the cost of her taking the genie's place, but they eventually manage to trap her back in the bottle by possessing the demon and making her wish them free.
• An episode of Supernatural, "What Is And What Should Never Be", featured protagonist Dean hunting a Djinn who did not actually grant wishes; the Djinn instead caused the victim to enter a dream in which their greatest wish was granted, allowing the Djinn to drain and feed on their blood-in Dean's case, that his mother had never been killed-although Dean was able to escape the dream when he confronted the Djinn after realizing the consequences of his wish (believing that he was still in a real world where those he and his family had saved as hunters died without them there to save them). A "bastard offshoot" of Djinn induce a similar type of dream, but instead of a person's wishes, it shows them their greatest fears, scaring them to death while allowing the Djinn to feed off the fear.
• Some episodes of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured vengeance demons, a race of demons who granted wishes for humans seeking revenge for various wrongs; like malevolent genies, these wishes commonly featured the exact wording of the wish being obeyed while not giving the wishmaker what they fundamentally wanted. For instance, Cordelia Chase's wish that Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale-believing that she would thus escape the loss of social status that she had suffered due to her association with Buffy-created a world where vampires were in control without the Slayer to aid the humans, and Dawn Summers's wish that nobody would leave her resulted in the guests at Buffy's 21st birthday party being unable to leave her house.
• In a season 7 episode of The X-Files titled "Je Souhaite", a man awakens a genie who grants him three wishes, but always uses loopholes, resulting in often disastrous outcomes for the person.
• Desiree from the animated series Danny Phantom is a genie-like ghost who grants any wishes she hears, gaining power by doing so. Her wishes, though, can carry disastrous consequences, like when Sam Manson wished she never met Danny Fenton, it resulted in him remaining fully human. In her former life, she was the favorite harem girl of the sultan, who fell in love with her and gave her a kingdom of her own. His jealous wife, though, banished her and she died of old age and a broken heart.
• In the film Long Time Dead, the characters use a ouija board, which brings out a vengeful spirit named Djinn.
• In The Fairly OddParents, there is a genie named Norm (voiced by Norm Macdonald), who, like traditional malevolent genies, grants the wish precisely without giving the wisher exactly what he wanted. Although the series' main character Timmy Turner initially attempted to use Norm for three rule-free wishes in his first appearance-his fairies being restricted to rules such as not being able to make anyone fall in love or help the wisher win contests-he subsequently realized his mistake and, having gained three more wishes by trapping Norm in a vacuum, subsequently wished for a lawyer to help him draw up another wish to ensure that there would be no way for Norm to "cheat" his way out of the wish. Norm has appeared as a recurring adversary in subsequent stories. One occasion saw him teaming up with Timmy's teacher/enemy Denzel Crocker-Norm revealing that Crocker could actually wish for more wishes to help him against Timmy, claiming that genies have been "bluffing for centuries" about only being able to grant three wishes and no more-but Crocker's incompetence, as he makes various inappropriate and useless wishes, drove Norm to give the lamp back to Timmy just to get away from him. On another occasion, Norm manipulated events so that Timmy would drive Cosmo and Wanda away so that he could become a fairy godparent himself and no longer be bound to his bottle, but his ignorance of 'magical backup'-where a godparent has to grant wishes or explode-prompted him to undo his actions and allow Cosmo and Wanda to return to Timmy.
• In the Wizards of Waverly Place episode "Justin's Little Sister" on Disney Channel, genies are depicted as con-artists that will twist your wish to their liking if it wasn't phrased appropriately, as Alex calls upon a genie for wishes, which the genie twists.
• In DuckTales, Scrooge and Flintheart Glomgold gain a lamp containing a genie when they fall into a cave system and they compete to determine which of them will be the genie's master as they both rubbed it simultaneously. Having won the race, Flintheart's first wish is that the genie leave Scrooge on a desert island, but when he remarks that he wants to see the look on Scrooge's face, which the genie takes as his second wish, sending him to the island with Scrooge. On the island, Flintheart comments, "I wish we'd never found this blasted lamp!", causing the genie to reset history so that the lamp fell into the rubble when Scrooge and Flintheart fell into the cavern and both of them thus missed it.
• An episode of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers featured the main character Montery Jack finding a lamp with a genie, only to turn into the genie himself when he uses a wish to free the genie, resulting in him being used by the Rangers' enemy Fat Cat to destroy his friends. Fortunately, Fat Cat is forced to pass the lamp on to his henchmen after he exhausts his own three wishes, allowing Monterey to trick the henchmen into making wishes that will actually benefit his friends until Chip and Dale can get their hands on the lamp. The chipmunks subsequently wish that the previous events never happened, undoing the events that led to Montery finding the lamp.
• In DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, a genie named Gene was found by Scrooge McDuck during a trip to the middle east to seek the treasure of Collie Baba and becomes a friend of Huey, Dewey and Louie.
• Bernard and the Genie is a 1991 BBC comedy about a hapless art dealer who discovers himself to be in possession of a real life genie imprisoned in a lamp.
• In the 1992 Disney film Aladdin and its two sequels, the title hero becomes the master of a benevolent and comical genie, after rubbing the side of a magical lamp. Genie offers Aladdin three wishes on anything he wished, with explicitly only three limitations: Genie could not kill anyone, make anyone fall in love, or bring people back from the dead (although his words implied that he could bring people back from the dead, but it is so horrifying that he will not do it) - and also underscoring that he grants only "three wishes", so one cannot "wish for more wishes". He is also required to obey the specific wishes of whoever holds the lamp, thus forcing him to work for Aladdin's enemy Jafar when Jafar steals the lamp, although he was also able to assist Aladdin without Aladdin explicitly making a wish, even if he appeared to disapprove of the concept. Kathleen Coyne Kelly underlined the importance of the character, stating that the film was "famous for the voice of Robin Williams as the virtuoso blue Genie", and described him as "a polymorphous wonder".^{[9]: 202, 219}

In the spin-off TV series, Genie was freed from his lamp, now able to come and go from the lamp as he wished, which apparently resulted in his powers being 'downgraded' so that he had less power than demonstrated in the film (now describing himself as possessing 'semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic power' as opposed to his previous description of himself as possessing 'phenomenal cosmic power'). The TV series spin-off features an additional genie named Eden, originally a Genie of the Bottle, who becomes the girlfriend of Aladdin's Genie, although her master's third wish that they could always be together puts Genie's relationship with Eden on hold until her master dies. Will Smith plays the Genie in the 2019 live action adaptation of the animated film, by Walt Disney Pictures.

• The Indian television series Alif Laila (Thousand Nights, 1993–1997), an adaptation of stories from the One Thousand and One Nights, extensively features jinns or genies in many of its episodes.^[11]
• Grihalakshmi Ka Jinn (Housewife's Jinn), is an Indian television series that aired on Zee TV channel from 1994 to 1997. It showed a story of an Indian housewife's confrontation of real life problems with the help of a genie (jinn), sent by God in response to her prayers. The genie has batteries for food and a small pony tail.^[12]
• In the 1996 film Kazaam, Shaquille O'Neal played a rapping genie who lived in a boombox.
• In the Timon & Pumbaa TV series, two episodes saw the characters deal with wishes. "Wishy Washy" sees the two characters find a lamp and wish for a million wishes, only to wish they never found the lamp after their impulsive wishes prove too troublesome, such as Pumbaa being sent to the Arctic. "Be More Pacific" sees Pumbaa get three wishes from a wishing whale, but after his first two wishes fail-the wish for something big and expensive just gives them the Statue of Liberty, and the wish for Timon to be a king makes him the size of King Kong-his third wish sees him misremember a key detail, resulting in them being pursued through a castle by a giant fire-breathing chicken that they cannot defeat (Timon having requested a 'fire-breathing monster with claws and wings' that he can defeat).
• In Pee Wee's Playhouse, Jambi was a blue-faced genie who lived in a jeweled box. He usually appeared once per show to grant Pee Wee a wish. His catchphrases included "Wish? Did somebody say 'Wish'?", the magic words "Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho" and "The wish is granted. Long live Jambi."
• In the paranormal reality-style documentary Destination Truth, Josh Gates travels to the ancient ruins of Petra in Jordan to capture evidence of the Arabian jinn. The evidence is analyzed later on within the episode by Jason and Grant of the popular Paranormal television series Ghost Hunters to either prove or disprove what the crew captured.
• The 2000 Hallmark two-part miniseries Arabian Nights depicts two different kinds of Jinns, in the form of a melodramatic Genie of the Lamp and a nervous Genie of the Ring, both played by John Leguizamo.
• The 1992 Japanese Tokusatsu TV series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger featured a genie called jin that appeared in episode 11 who was said to be the genie originally possessed by Aladdin from the legends he was a powerful sorcerer and was temporarily turned into a villain called dora Djinn his American counterpart was called genie from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, he was featured in the episode the difference between him and his Japanese counterpart is that his Japanese counterpart was first good then turned bad for a brief time while the genie was first evil all through the episode.
• Bangladeshi novelist, writer and film director Humayun Ahmed directed and wrote a series of three television dramas featuring Aladdin's Djinn as the main character. The dramas are: Cherager Doitto,^[13] Nogore Doitto^[14] and Nitu'r Ghore Fera.^[15] In all of the dramas, Jayanta Chattopadhyay portrays the Djinn.
• The 2005 Japanese tokusatsu TV series Mahou Sentai Magiranger introduced a feline genie character named Smoky the Magical Cat. He resided in a lamp, which also acted as a gun to assist his master (Hikaru/MagiShine) in battle. His American counterpart is Jenji in Power Rangers Mystic Force, who cannot leave his lamp for longer than a few hours without collapsing, although he naturally possesses enough power to rewrite the entire world if the proper wish is made.
• The 2009 horror film Red Sands depicts a platoon of US soldiers stationed in a remote area of Afghanistan who accidentally wake an imprisoned jinni.
• The 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans includes Djinn as a race of desert sorcerers who have replaced their flesh with magic and ash.
• Jil Jil Genie is a series of Indian animated adventure-fantasy films beginning with Mahesh Vettiyar's 2011 film Jil Jil Genie - The Begins. These follow the adventures of a baby genie and his friends against an evil wizard.^[16]
• The 2013 Emirati horror film Djinn, directed by Tobe Hooper, features a young Emirati couple menaced by a malevolent Djinn in their high-rise apartment located in Ras al-Khaimah.
• The 2014 film Jinn features a Muslim-American man tormented by a Djinn due to an ancestral curse.
• On ABC's hit television show Once Upon a Time there is a genie featured in the episode "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree". He is known as the Genie of Agrabah, a reference to the Disney film Aladdin. He falls in love with Queen Regina, played by Lana Parrilla, and eventually becomes the Magic Mirror when he is given the ability to use his last master's third wish and wishes to be with Regina. He is responsible for the death of Snow White's father, King Leopold, and his cursed Storybrooke state is known as Sidney Glass, acting as the town's reporter before he is locked up for rebellion. He is played by Giancarlo Esposito. The Genie's magic lamp is seen in Mr. Gold's shop in multiple episodes.
• Mere Genie Uncle (My Genie Uncle) is a 2015 Indian fantasy-comedy film by Ashish Bhavsar. Set in modern-day India, it stars Tiku Talsania in the titular role of the genie.^[17]
• In Nick Jr.'s 2015 animated children's television series, Shimmer and Shine, the show's titular protagonists are two fraternal twin genie sisters who serve a young girl named Leah as her secret genies who can grant Leah three wishes per day. However, since Shimmer and Shine are young genies they often misconstrue Leah's wishes. Shimmer and Shine often have to work together with Leah to fix their mistakes and help Leah solve both Leah's problems along with the mistakes they created. Shimmer and Shine live in the land of Zahramay Falls located inside the magic bottle pendant on the necklace Leah wears.
• The 2016 horror film Under the Shadow features an evil djinn who terrorizes a mother and her young daughter.
• In the sixth season of Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, a djinn - known as Nadakhan - serves as the main antagonist.
• In 2017, Mousa Kraish appears as the Jinn in the Starz television adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. The Jinn is working as a taxicab driver in New York when he meets and has a sexual encounter with Omani businessman Salim.
• The John Hughes 1985 film and subsequent 1994 television show spin-off, Weird Science features a woman named Lisa created by the protagonists Gary and Wyatt who demonstrates magical powers and wish fulfillment abilities. Lisa describes herself as being a Genie in the television show.
• Netflix's Jinn (2019) follows a group of Jordanian youth encountering the supernatural.^[18]
• In 2019, the first season of the Netflix TV series The Witcher features a trapped djinn in episode five.^[19]
• Yehh Jadu Hai Jinn Ka (This Magic is of The Jinn) is an Indian fantasy drama television series that aired on Star Plus from 2019 to 2020. It follows a romantic plot between a man under the dark shadow of a jinn and woman with angelic qualities.^[20]
• The 2020 Japanese Tokusatsu TV series Mashin Sentai Kiramager focuses on genies.
• The series Trulli Tales features a genie that traps beings inside bottles.
• The 2020 animated series Droners features a species of creatures called genies.

Music[]

• Christina Aguilera's song "Genie in a Bottle" is the first hit single and the signature song from her debut album, Christina Aguilera.
• Jeannie Ortega's song "Crowded" in which guest Papoose raps "Since your name is Jeannie, can I make a wish?".
• Radiohead's "The Gloaming" includes the lyrics "Genie let out of the bottle".
• Death metal band Nile's song "The Howling of the Jinn" references to the Jinn as a malevolent and spiritual force.
• South Korean girl group Girls' Generation released a hit song "Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)" and a mini-album of the same title, Tell Me Your Wish (Genie), in June 2009, sweeping record charts in South Korea.
• In the 1992 album "Amused to death" by Roger Waters, there is a song entitled "three wishes". In the lyrics, Waters gets his three wishes granted, but around the middle of the song realizes he would like to have a fourth wish, this way expressing man's endless appetite for more, even when one's intention is good.
• Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Sorcerer, the sorcerer's song, "...look in / On our resident Djinn..."[1]
• Black metal band Melechesh is heavily influenced by Middle Eastern mythology, with songtitles such as "Wardjinn", "A Summoning of Ifrit and Genii", "Genies, Sorcerers and Mesopotamian Nights" on the album Djinn.

Video games[]

• The Game Genie cheat cartridge series was so named for its ability to change aspects of games at will.
• In the videogames Golden Sun, Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, players encounter djinn, small benevolent creatures who use their powers to aid the protagonists in battle. There are 18 djinn for each element. Some are hostile and must be beaten in combat to earn them.
• The Heroes of Might and Magic strategy game series features genies as playable characters and units. A genie named Solmyr is a major protagonist in the series.
• In the 1980s video game Archon: The Light and the Dark, the jinni is the champion of the light side, opposite the dragon, who is champion of the dark side.
• In the video game Primal, the world of Volca is inhabited by evil creatures called jinn, led by King Iblees and Queen Malikel. These jinn live dormant in a volcano, awakening only when the volcano is about to erupt.
• In the video game Sonic and the Secret Rings, there are two jinnis: Shahra the Ring Genie, a Genie of the Ring, who assists Sonic through the game, and Erazor Djinn, the game's main antagonist, who is a Genie of the Lamp.
• In the video game series Sonic Riders, the Babylon Rogues are descendants of avian genies known as the Babylonians. It was later revealed that the Babylonians were actually aliens desiring to return to their home.
• In the video game series Final Fantasy, one of the summoned creatures is named Ifrit and offers fire elemental magic. In Final Fantasy III, the player must defeat a jinni who has turned an entire town into ghosts. In Final Fantasy XI, djinn are bomb type enemies that explode when attacked with magic corresponding to in-game day of the week.
• In the Mana series, Jinn is one of the eight Mana spirits, representing the element of wind.
• The Pokémon Jirachi is said to grant any wish that is written on a tag and attached to the three star points on its head. The Pokémon Hoopa, in its Unbound form, is also known as the Djinn Pokémon and can "grant wishes" with its rings in Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages.
• Genies are a major plot element in King's Quest VI as part of the Green Isles folklore.
• Iblees, while not the main villain of the story, is featured as an entity summoned by the game's antagonist in Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire games. The protagonist also has the opportunity near the game's end to summon a lesser jinni, who grants him three wishes.
• In the Game Boy game Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, the game's main villain uses a genie to attempt to defeat Wario during the final boss battle.
• In The Sims series, Genies are recurrent characters, in The Sims: Livin' Large the Genie is an NPC that can be summoned with a magic lamp and grant 2 options for a wish, in The Sims 2: FreeTime, your Sims can be given a Genie lamp by a gypsy. The genie will grant three wishes per Sim, In The Sims 3: Showtime The Genie is also a life State and can be obtained by releasing them from a magical lamp or with magic potions in The Sims 3: Supernatural.
• In Dark Cloud the fourth playable character is a genie, Ruby.
• In the Game Boy Advance game Mega Man: Battle Network 3 White Version, one of the Navis you must fight is MistMan.EXE, whose appearance is that of a genie. His weak spot is his lamp, and he is shown to have the power to summon souls and even release poisonous mist.
• In the Super NES game Super Mario RPG, an evil genie named Fautso serves as a minion of Box Boy.
• In the expansion Hordes of the Underdark for Neverwinter Nights, the player can encounter a jinni who acts as a portable merchant.
• In the PC Online MMORPG Tibia, two distinct factions of Djinn exist; the Blue Marid and the Green Efreet, who have been warring with each other for millennium. Through a quest chain player characters can join one of the two factions to gain access to trading with special Djinn NPCs in each. Completing the quest for one faction locks out the ability to join the other for that character.
• In MMORPG Guild Wars, good and bad jinn are encountered. Good jinn protect treasures and people and grant wishes. Bad jinn are enemies. These jinn are usually associated with an element or gem stone.
• In the N64 title Diddy Kong Racing, an elephant genie named Taj can change your vehicle from a car to a plane or hovercraft.
• In the N64 title Yoshi's Story, an evil genie named Cloudjin who was sent by Baby Bowser to patrol the mountains of Yoshi's Island, serves as a boss of the level Poochy and Nippy.
• In the video game Shifters, a genie is a playable form.
• In the video game Shadow of Memories, the character Homonculus is a jinni who helps the protagonist, though he seems to have an agenda of his own.
• In the N64 titles Mario Party 2 and Mario Party 3, there are items similar to a magic lamp, which calls a genie to get to a star.
• In the MMORPG RuneScape, there is a quest involving a genie. A genie is also summoned when an experience lamp is selected as a random event reward.
• In Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a marīd by the name of Razia helps the Prince, giving him powers and upgrades.
• The Magic Giant in Skylanders: Giants is an elven ninja named Ninjini, and she has several magical powers, including telekinesis and energy balls. She is shown to be skilled in dual swords, and can hide in her bottle, firing rockets and releasing trance-inducing mist, and can emerge from it in an explosion.
• In the online RPG Adventure Quest there is an uncommon monster called a "djinn."
• In the Shantae series, the titular character is a playable half-genie who must save her town from an evil pirate named Risky Boots. She is demonstrated to have powerful shapeshifting abilities, taking the forms of animals like a monkey or elephant.
• In the online flash game, "RPG Shooter: Starwish" there are genies that live on a planet Lucerna. There are Djinn, Marid, Efreet, Jann, and an unnamed Earth genie.^[21]
• In Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, after drinking the water of Iram of the Pillars, Nathan Drake starts hallucinating that all soldiers he encounters are reborn as Fire Djinn, better known as Ifrit, after being killed. The NPC Salim also talks of the legend of the Djinn as the reason the city was closed off.
• In Champions Online the player can play transform to a Djinn through a device, using combination of fire and sword based attacks to cut down enemy NPCs.
• In Realm of the Mad God, A Djinn is a "god" enemy in the mountainous or snowy regions of the map, also known as the "Godlands". It attacks by shooting white circles around it in all directions, then walking towards the nearest player, while invincible. It then repeats this cycle.
• In the popular online MMORPG AdventureQuest Worlds, the Middle Eastern-themed zone the Sandsea Desert features a Djinn Chaos Lord named Tibicenas, as well as a Djinn realm which the player can explore.
• Akinator, the Web Genius is an internet game (en.akinator.com) with a genie named Akinator as its main character. Sometimes Akinator's family (who are also genies) appear in the game.
• Calypso, who is the fictional figurehead in charge of the popular video game franchise Twisted Metal, has wish granting powers that for a majority of the time resembles that of a malevolent genie in which he grants the wish a person wishes for but twists the words around to usually resulting in death.
• In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a side quest named "The Last Wish" (after the short story^[22]) has Yennefer and Geralt hunt a Djinn in order to break the spell which bind the feelings between them.
• Djimmi the Great, boss of the "Pyramid Peril" stage in the second world of Cuphead, is a red-skinned genie who assumes numerous forms over the course of the battle.
• In Brawl Stars, there is a brawler named Gene who is a purple skinned genie.
• In Just Dance 2014, there is the Genie from the Disney's classic Aladdin as a playable coach in the map Prince Ali.
• In Phasmophobia, Jinn appear as one of the types of ghost that players can hunt in various locations. In this appearance, the Jinn frequently interact with electronics such as radios, phones, and light switches, and can be weakened by flipping the breaker in the building they inhabit. Phasmophobia's Jinn are also depicted as territorial, having a higher chance of jumpscaring or even attacking players the longer they spend in the specific areas they haunt.

Others[]

• Dragon Ball character Majin Boo's physical forms (Fat Buu; Super Buu; Evil Buu and Kid Buu) bears strong resemblance to a genie. Even his clothes are Arabic in nature, and his name denotes to ''Jinn'' as well.
• Jinn is a character in Volume 6 of RoosterTeeth's "RWBY", who may be summoned from her magical lantern—the Relic of Knowledge—using this name. She was created by one of the series' gods to "aid humanity in their pursuit of knowledge" and is an espouser of knowledge, rather than granting wishes. She can answer three questions every 100 years. She appears most prominently in, and narrates the entirety of, Volume 6 Chapter 3 "The Lost Fable".
• In the Dungeons & Dragons series of roleplaying games, genies are powerful elemental spirits from the Inner Planes, each of the four classical elements having its own subspecies of genie: Djinn for air, Dao for earth, Efreet for fire, Marids for water. While the djinn and efreet are based on their namesakes from Arabic folklore, associated with air and fire, respectively, the marid were largely changed from their mythological counterparts to fit to the element of water. Keith Ammann assumes the game's creators were inspired by the syllable mar- meaning "sea" in Latin, even though there is no such connection in Arabic. The dao were newly invented for the game altogether to fill the gap for the remaining element.^[23] In the game exists a fifth type of genie known as the Jann, who draw their existence from all four elements.^[24] A sixth type, the Qorrash, linked to the pseudo-element of cold, has been introduced.^[25] Appropriate to their creative origins, genies featured prominently in the game's orient-themed setting.^[26][27]
• In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, there are more than two dozen jinn-related cards,^[28] mostly larger-than-usual creatures with a drawback, and a dozen ifrit/efreet cards.^[29]
• In Malaysia, the article "Born of Fire" was censored from the issue of Economist dated December 19, 2006. The government's explanation was that "Muslims cannot believe in the mislead concept of jinns as this goes against Islam."^[30]
• There is a card in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game called La-Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp. This card and several others aligned with it (Ancient Lamp) parallel common stereotypes regarding genies.
• In Monster High, Gigi Grant is the daughter of the genies.
• Blue genie to fulfill wishes - This work is not a magical act and everything in this world will become yours. There is no magic genie or Aladdin lamp that will bring you eternal happiness and wishes, etc., because this work is specialized for the love and intense acceptance of men and women, so every person who sees you will be attracted to you and obey you. That is why a person must go out and go and work so that things are in his favor.^[31]
• In My Singing Monsters, Déjà-Jin resembles the Jinn.

Ifrit[]

• A fiction thriller, Ifrit is written by Javaid Laghari and published by Austin Macauley. The plot focuses on terrorists and the jinn Ifrit teaming up to steal Pakistan's nuclear weapons, leading to a possible nuclear war between Pakistan and India.^[32]
• There is an Ifrit in the 2001 fantasy novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman. He is able to switch bodies by having those who believe in his kind perform fellatio on him.
• Ifrit is an MVP (boss) at Thor Volcano in Ragnarok Online.
• In the Final Fantasy series of games, Ifrit has become a trademark representative of the element of fire, inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons Efreeti, and appears as a horned demonic entity in most of the artistic imagery of the game.
• In the original Devil May Cry video game, Ifrit is a fire demon which the protagonist can transform into temporarily after picking up his flaming gauntlets. The gauntlets grant the ability to use the fire element in hand-to-hand combat and a protective shield of fire during a jump to evade enemy attacks. Upon using the "Devil Trigger" with the gauntlets on, the character Dante transforms into Ifrit and his attacks become more powerful. Additional attacks become available in this mode, such as the ability to launch a fireball at enemies. A similar ability is seen in God of War: Chains of Olympus as the first magic attack that Kratos can unlock.
• In the Bartimaeus Trilogy, an afrit is one of the five levels of demon that can be summoned by human magicians. It is considered the second most powerful out of the list, which goes in ascending order of power: imp, foliot, djinni, afrit, and marid. They are described as beings of fire and power, and are often employed by elite magicians as enforcers or bodyguards.
• In Sonic and The Secret Rings, an ‘ifrīt is brought forth by Erazor Djinn. The ‘ifrit appears as a jinn (rather than a demon) and can control fire. It is the boss of the third level.
• In the game Exile 3 by Spiderweb Games, an efreet is a powerful, magic-casting demon who is encountered in the more dangerous parts of the surface of the Exile world. The efreet are hard to kill, have a poisonous bite, and can cast the highest-level damaging spells. They appear as fiery, demonic figures and have a damaging flame aura.
• In the Weather Warden series, an ‘ifrit is the jinn equivalent of a vampire.
• In Heroes of Might and Magic, an Efreet is a demon from the Inferno faction. They are immune to fire-based magic and hate Genies (dealing extra damage to them in combat).
• In the Tales of saga, Efreet is the summon spirit of Fire.
• In the online game "Mabinogi" created by Nexon, the Ifrit appears as a large fire elemental beast in the 'Ant Hell' beneath Filia.
• In Stephen King's novel Christine, it is speculated that the supernatural force inhabiting the Plymouth Fury is an Afreet, created when the original owner's daughter choked to death in the car.
• The fifth season of the HBO television series True Blood features an ifrit who appears to be pursuing Terry Bellefleur and his Iraq War comrades after being invoked by a dying Iraqi woman.
• In the Showcase television series "Lost Girl", Afreet are a breed of Fae who feed off of human emotions associated with fame.
• Similar to Final Fantasy, Ifrit, named Efreet, appears as a summonable Fire spell in Wizard101, dealing high damage and drastically lowering the damage of the target's next attack.
• In the mobile game Arknights, there is an operator codenamed Ifrit who utilises a magic-powered flamethrower.
• Pari: Not a Fairytale (English: Fairy) is a 2018 Indian supernatural horror film. The film revolves around an ifrit.^[33]

Marid[]

• Marids are found in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. They are the highest in the order of beings that includes afrits, djinn, foliots and imps.
• Marids are mentioned in the P. B. Kerr's Children of the Lamp children's book series as the most powerful tribe of jinn, who preside over good luck.
• Marid is one of the elemental enemies in the video game Vagrant Story. Its appearance resembles that of a bluish humanoid with fins and webbed feet, and it wears a distinctive, cone-shaped piece of headgear.
• Marids are included in Microsoft's Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. They are blue-colored genies who hurl spheres of elemental energy at their enemies.
• Marid is a playable elemental character in the SNES game Arcana, also known as Card Master: the Seal of Rimsala. Marid appears as a mini-boss in the game who must be defeated before she can be recruited to the player's team. She is the main healer of the group and is effective when confronting high-powered villains in the game.
• Marids appear in Final Fantasy XI as large, elephant-like beasts. They were introduced in the Treasures of Aht Urgan expansion pack, which contains themes largely based on Arabian mythology.
• Several Marids appear in Christopher Stasheff's 'Wizard in Rhyme' novels Crusading Wizard, and My Son, the Wizard.

References[]