Jinn in popular culture

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 and ifrit.

Books

 * Jinnicky the Red Jinn is one of Ruth Plumly Thompson's original Oz characters. His most notable appearances are in Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, The Purple Prince of Oz and The Silver Princess in Oz.
 * Christopher Moore’s book Practical Demonkeeping describes the pre-human origin of the djinn 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.
 * Several references to djinn occur in the final short story, "Ramadan", in Neil Gaiman’s sixth The Sandman collection, Fables and Reflections. In Gaiman's novel American Gods, an ifrit drives a taxicab in New York.
 * In the Bartimaeus Trilogy books by Jonathan Stroud, a djinni is one of five major spirits, the others being afrits (a form of Ifrit), marids, foliots, and imps.
 * Djinn appear frequently in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series. The Wardens who control fire, weather and earth capture the djinn in bottles, and use them to channel their powers.
 * Dragon Rider, a novel by Cornelia Funke, features a djinn 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 djinn "tribe" named Marid. In the series, djinn 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 djinn dedicated to breaking casinos, makes note of the rule that no djinn shall be allowed to make money for him- or herself. Djinn can only use their powers when it is warm.
 * In Jinn by Matthew B.J. Delaney, a jinn is hunted.
 * There are several passing references to djinn 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 supernatural drama The Jinniyah by Maria Aragon, an Englishman during the reign of Henry the Eighth gains unwanted immortality when he opens a gift decanter and releases the female jinn inside.
 * 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 is described as the inspiration for the genies of Earth.
 * 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 djinn and a mortal.
 * Djinn is the title of the 1981 novel by French author Alain Robbe-Grillet.
 * In Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Rose of the Prophet trilogy, djinn are created by the gods to handle the day-to-day woes of humanity, thereby freeing the gods from having to deal with it.
 * Djinn are the primary power in Tim Powers' 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.
 * One of the main characters in the second book of The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice is a djinn queen and one of the leaders of the djinn army.
 * Alura's Wish, by Elizabeth Hallam, tells of two djinn who live in fire opals. Once freed from the stones, these immortal spirits will serve their master's commands. These djinn also have another purpose – to bring the wearer a true and lasting love.

Comics

 * In the anime and manga series Dragon Ball Z, the character Mr. Popo is a djinn who protects Kami's Lookout, and the final and most powerful villain faced by the heroes was a stylistically-Arabic demon called Majin Boo. Majin is the Japanese word for magical being or genie. Boo is a spirit formed from smoke and clouds who 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 in the Dragon Ball universe. The Dragons Shenron & Porunga are also djinn, whose sole function is to grant the wish(es) of whoever collects all 7 Dragonballs.
 * In the Image comic book series Amazing Joy Buzzards, El Campeon 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 djinn is released from a bottle by a malicious vizier who hopes to destroy Fabletown and murder his master, Sinbad. The djinn 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 djinn to return to its bottle, or else it will be free.
 * In the comic Jesi the Genie, a former milk goddess is cursed with becoming a genie and released during the time of the Arabian Nights by a young man. Jesi also appears in the webcomic Gaijin Hi.
 * 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 djinn.
 * Comic fiction author Tom Holt titled one of his novels Djinn Rummy, combining the word djinn with the popular card game Gin Rummy. The novel is about a number of djinns in the human world, many of whom have corporate sponsoring. Djinns appear frequently in Tom Holt's books.
 * The DC Comics characters Johnny Thunder and Jakeem Thunder are masters of a djinn 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 djinn 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 together, changing the Thunderbolt's summoning word to "so cool". The 5th 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 djinn.
 * In the anime and manga series Magic Knight Rayearth, the princesses from Chizeta, Tarta and Tatra have two djinn guardians.
 * In the 2007 Lebanon-published book Malaak, an angel with the appearance of a young girl fights evil jinns, which only she can see as they really are. The jinns maintain an ongoing civil war in an alternate-reality Lebanon.
 * In the comic book Re:Gex, there is a character named Genie.

Movies and television

 * In the 1992 Disney film Aladdin, the hero becomes the master of a genie, voiced by Robin Williams, after rubbing the side of a magical lamp. Genie offers Aladdin three wishes.
 * 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.
 * The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) features Baronni, a child genie, who is freed and becomes Sinbad's cabin boy.
 * 1987's""The Outing (film)"" featured an evil Jinn who is unleashed in a museum and hunts down the teens who let it out.
 * The original Twilight Zone features two episodes with genies in them: "The Man in the Bottle" and "I Dream of Genie".
 * 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 master who had found her bottle and set her free in modern America. It was spun off into the animated series Jeannie in 1973.
 * The horror film Wishmaster features an evil djinn as its villain. The film has spawned three sequels.
 * In the 1996 film Kazaam, Shaquille O'Neal played a rapping genie who lived in a boombox.
 * In the animated series Martin Mystery, episodes called "Curse of the Djini" and "Return of the Djini" featured an evil djinn trapped in a skull who could read peoples' mind’s and make them state their wishes. If the djinn 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 djinn, 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. So for example if someone wished for a million dollars the genie had to break into a bank and steal a million dollars for them. 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.
 * 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 fiance (Barbara Eden, who herself would enter the bottle the next year in I Dream of Jeannie).
 * 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.
 * An episode of the TV series Charmed called "I Dream of Phoebe" has the Charmed Ones confronting a trickster genie who is trying to gain its freedom by granting three wishes; another episode featured a genie whose wishes unintentionally caused disaster for the sisters despite his efforts to help.
 * An episode of the CW paranormal drama Supernatural called "What Is And What Should Never Be" featured Dean hunting a djinn who did not actually grant wishes. Instead, it caused the victim to enter a dream in which their greatest wish was granted; meanwhile, the djinn fed off their life.
 * Some episodes of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured vengeance demons, a race of demons who granted wishes for humans seeking revenge; like genies, these wishes commonly featured the exact wording of the wish being obeyed while not giving the wish-maker what they wanted. For instance, Cordelia Chase's wish that Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale created a world where vampires were in control, 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 called Je Souhaite, Mulder and Scully find a man and his dimwitted, wheelchair-bound brother, who chooses three wishes which end progressively worse.
 * Desiree from the animated series Danny Phantom is a genie-like ghost who grants any wishes she hears, gaining power by doing so.
 * In the film Long Time Dead, the characters use a ouija board, which brings out a vengeful spirit named Djinn.
 * In 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, he subsequently realised his mistake and, having gained three more wishes by trapping Norm in another lamp, 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.
 * In the 1940 movie The Thief of Baghdad, 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.
 * 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.
 * In the episode "Justin's Little Sister" of Wizards of Waverly Place on Disney Channel, Alex calls upon a genie for wishes, which the genie twists.
 * Disney's TV series Aladdin features a genie named Eden who becomes the girlfriend of Aladdin's Genie.
 * In Ducktales, Scrooge and Flintheart Glomgold gain Aladdin's Lamp. Flintheart's first wish is that the genie leave Scrooge on a desert island. He remarks that he wants to see the look on Scrooge's face, which the genie takes as his second wish. On the island, he comments, "I wish we didn't find this cursed Lamp!", causing the genie to take them into the past.
 * In the children's game show Nick Arcade, one of Mikey's enemies is a djinni who turns him into a chicken. The djinni can be found in the Forgotten Desert. The same djinni appears in the Video Zone in the level "Enchanted Flight", trying to zap the contestant with lightning bolts.
 * The 2009 horror movie Red Sands depicts a platoon of US soldiers stationed in a remote area of Afghanistan who accidentally wake an imprisoned jinn.
 * 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'?", and the magic words "Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho."
 * In the popular live-action, Paranormal reality-style documentary Destination Truth, Josh Gates travels to the ancient ruins of Petra in Jordan to capture evidence of the Arabic Djinn. 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.

Music

 * South Korean girl group Girls' Generation released a hit song and mini-album, Tell Me Your Wish (Genie), in June 2009, sweeping records charts in South Korea.
 * Christina Aguilera's song Genie in a Bottle is the first hit single and the signature song from her debut album, Christina Aguilera.

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 and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, 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 strategy game series Heroes of Might and Magic 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 djinn 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 djinns, led by King Iblees and Queen Malikel. These djinns 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 djinn: Shahra the Ring Genie, a Genie of the Ring, who assists Sonic through the game, and Erazor Djinn, the game's main villain, who is a Genie of the Lamp.
 * 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 djinn who has turned an entire town into ghosts.
 * 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.
 * 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 the second of the Quest for Glory games. The protagonist also has the opportunity near the game's end to summon a lesser djinn, who grants him three wishes.
 * In the Game Boy game Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land, the game's main villain uses a genie to attempt to defeat Wario during the final boss battle.
 * 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 Game Boy Advance game Mega Man Battle Network 3 White Version, one of the Navis you must fight is Mist Man, whose appearance is that of a genie.
 * In the expansion Hordes of the Underdark for Neverwinter Nights, the player can encounter a djinn who acts as a portable merchant.
 * In the PC Online MMORPG Tibia, djinn sell and buy items in Darshia.
 * In MMORPG Guild Wars, good and bad djinns are encountered. Good djinns protect treasures and people and grant wishes. Bad djinns are enemies. These djinn 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 video game Shifters, a genie is a playable form.
 * In the video game Shadow of Memories, the character Homonculus is a djinn 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 marid by the name of Razia helps the Prince, giving him powers and upgrades.
 * In the MUD Lensmoor, genies are one of the many remort races available, falling into four categories: djinn (air), efreet (fire), mariad (water), and dao (earth).
 * In the online RPG Adventure Quest there is an uncommon monster called a djinn.

Others

 * 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, and a fifth type known as the Jann, who draw their existence from all four elements. A six type, the Qorrash, linked to the pseudo-element of cold, has been introduced.
 * In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering there are more than two dozen djinn-related cards, mostly larger-than-usual creatures with a drawback, and a dozen ifrit/efreet cards.
 * In Malaysia, the pages containing the article "Born of Fire" were torn out of all issues of the Economist dated December 19, 2006. The government's explanation was that "Muslims cannot believe in Jinns as this goes against Islam."
 * The Ars Arabica supplement to the roleplaying game Ars Magica classifies genies into several tribes: Jinn, Jann, Marid, Ifrit, Shaitan, and Ghul.
 * 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.

Jinn in fiction
The Spirit of the Lamp in the story of Aladdin, who had been bound to an oil lamp, is a familiar djinn to the Western world. A way of summoning jinn was mentioned in The Thousand and One Nights: writing the name of God in Hebrew characters on a knife and drawing a diagram, involving strange symbols and incantations.

Ifrit

 * 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.


 * 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 ifrit is brought forth by Erazor Djinn. The ifrit appears as a djinn (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 djinn 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 Tales of Symphonia, Efreet is the summon spirit of Fire.

Marid

 * Marids are found in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. They are the highest in the order of beings that includes afrits, djinns, 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 djinn, 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, coned-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.