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Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 7, Number 1, Summer 2012,

pp. 124-127 (Review)

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DOI: 10.1353/mrw.2012.0007

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124 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft  Summer 2012

Bruno and Moritz Hofmann) concluded that Anna Fessler had died specifi-
cally from arsenic poisoning, despite the fact that the autopsy report con-
tained no empirical evidence proving the presence of arsenic, and put
forward an alternative theory (that Fessler’s own body had generated the
poison that killed her) that could have been used to exonerate Schmieg. As
Robisheaux points out, Bruno and Hofmann ‘‘were not following the evi-
dence at all but actually asserting their own erudition’’ (p. 254)—in other
words, they were opting for the interpretation that was most damaging to
Schmieg. Von Gülchen’s willingness to look to his alma mater of Strasbourg
for legal approval to have Schmieg tortured again (after Altdorf had advised
against it) perhaps also hints at a personal, professional interest in ensuring that
Schmieg was convicted. As Robisheaux concedes, the Strasbourg opinion on
this point implicitly advised von Gülchen to treat Schmieg’s witchcraft as an
exceptional crime—without saying so in as many words—for apparently no
other reason than that Anna Schmieg was ‘‘a godless, barbaric, and crazy old
woman’’ (p. 280). Von Gülchen went on to authorize her torture on not just
one but two further occasions (October 22 and 29); this, combined with
psychological pressure exerted by intense spiritual questioning by the
Langenburg court pastor, Ludwig Casimir Dietzel, duly elicited the required
confession from Schmieg. She was strangled and burned at the stake (after
having her flesh torn with hot irons—an unusually severe additional punish-
ment that goes unremarked by Robisheaux) on November 8, 1672. Von
Gülchen was doubtless a thoughtful jurist with a genuine concern for proce-
dural detail, and he may well have believed that Hohenlohe was under threat
from a diabolical conspiracy of witch-poisoners, but there was also a ruthless-
ness about his pursuit of Schmieg that hints at a distaste on his part for her
and her behavior that amounted, perhaps, to a form of misogyny.

alison rowlands
University of Essex

amira el-zein. Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn. Syracuse, New
York: Syracuse University Press, 2009. Pp. xxiii  215.

The actions of the shape-shifting jinn found in Arabic and Persian litera-
ture (most famously, perhaps, in The Thousand and One Nights), and the meth-
ods by which their malevolent influences could be curtailed or their
beneficent energies channeled, have been the topic of considerable medieval
and modern speculation. Yet surprisingly few monographs are devoted to this

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 Reviews 125

complex topic. The present volume surveys both the historical and the mod-
ern role of jinn in the Muslim (and to a large extent Sufi) view of the uni-
verse, in which there is constant renewal of the universe by the Creator and
a fusion of the mental and physical realms. In this context, the jinn are the
bridge between the seen and unseen worlds, constantly reminding humans
that physical reality is not the only reality.
To understand this world of the jinn, one must understand the traditional
Islamic hierarchical view of the cosmos, in which the universe is composed
of three realms: the celestial realm, the intermediate or imaginal realm, and
the terrestrial or material realm of human existence. The jinn occupy the
intermediate or sublunary realm, and while they cannot trespass into the
celestial realm above them (the realm of angels), they can operate in the
terrestrial realm. Jinn are usually invisible, but can be invested with a physical
corporeality, often taking the forms of animals or even humans. There could
in fact be love affairs between humans and jinn, and the author devotes an
entire chapter to this fascinating topic. Presenting a range of stories to illus-
trate this jinn activity, for the most part taken from The Nights, El-Zein char-
acterizes the actions of the jinn as a ‘‘game of shape shifting’’ (p. 109) in
which the swift metamorphosis of the jinn bewilders the human partner.
The jinn, who were created before humans, were forbidden to bear news
from heaven to Earth, for that role was left to the angels. Considerable space
is devoted to the relationships and similarities between jinn and angels. Both
are of the invisible realm, but angels are made of light and jinn of fire. Both
are disembodied spirits. Both are ‘‘shape-shifters,’’ but angels appear only in
beautiful forms while jinn can take any possible form, even ugly ones. Angels
are immortal, while the jinn can die.
Before considering the effect of the advent of Islam on attitudes toward
jinn, El-Zein discusses angels, gods, and jinn in the pre-Islamic period. She
argues convincingly (p. 35) against Toufic Fahd, who had asserted that pre-
Islamic Arabs were entirely ignorant of the concept of angels.1 This reviewer
would have liked for her to address the ideas and attitudes of Joseph Hen-
ninger’s study of pre-Islamic and early Islamic belief in spirits and jinn2 —a

1. Toufic Fahd, ‘‘Anges, démons et djinnes in Islam,’’ in Génies, anges et démons

ed. Denise Bernot (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1971), 153–215.
2. Joseph Henninger, ‘‘Geisterglaube bei den vorislamischen Arabern,’’ in Arabia
Sacra, Joseph Henninger, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 40 (Göttingen, 1981), pp.
118–69; in English as ‘‘Beliefs in spirits amongst Re-Islamic Arabs’’ in Magic and
Divination in Early Islam, ed. E. Savage-Smith, The Formation of the Classical Islamic
World 42 (Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, 2004), 1–53.

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126 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft  Summer 2012

study that seems to have completely escaped the author’s attention, although
an English translation has been published in a book cited elsewhere in this
volume.
With the advent of Islam, the jinn (or at least some of them) were made
subservient to the One God. In the Qur’ān it is twice said that jinn listened
to the Prophet Muhammad, heard the Qur’ān, and accepted the revelation.
The jinn were described as mere shapes, wrapped in blackness. These passages
generated controversy as to whether the Prophet actually saw the jinn, or
only heard them, but they were generally interpreted as asserting the submis-
sion of jinn (or some of them) to God.
It was the jinn who had not converted to Islam that were dreaded by
humans, for they could be malevolent spirits. Because the jinn could exist in
both the invisible and visible realms, they could intervene and interfere in
the daily lives of Muslims at any time and at any place. They could enter
houses, roam the streets, even get into food and drink. People turned to
magical techniques to provide protection. El-Zein reviews some of the pre-
Islamic magical technologies, including the nearly universal practice of mak-
ing binding knots—a practice mentioned in the Qur’ān itself. She then
addresses the difficult issue of distinguishing in Islam between magic and
‘‘sorcery,’’ or licit and illicit magic, or that which is addressed to God and
His powers and that which is addressed to jinn or demons. As examples of
Islamic magical techniques for healing and giving protection, she focuses on
the employment of Qur’ānic verses, the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of
God, and the letters of the alphabet.
Regrettably, the author seems unaware of some important recent studies
of Islamic magic, such as that by Remke Kruk.3 Had the author read the
essay by Jan Just Witkam on the magician al-Būnı̄4 she would not have made
such an obvious mistake as to have called him ‘‘a prominent mathematician’’
(p. 81). Moreover, it is unwise in the extreme for anyone to take up the
topics of possession and madness without first consulting Michael Dols’s Maj-
nūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society.
The author, however, is a poet at heart and in practice, and that makes
the writing provocative and stimulating. Parallels are frequently drawn with

3. Remke Kruk, ‘‘Harry Potter in the Gulf: Contemporary Islam and the Occult,’’
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32 (2005): 47–74.
4. Jan Just Witkam, ‘‘Gazing at the Sun. Remarks on the Egyptian Magician al-
Būnı̄ and his Work,’’ in O ye Gentlemen: Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture
in Honour of Remke Kruk, ed. Arnoud Vrolijk and Jan P. Hogendijk (Leiden: Brill,
2007), 183–99.

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 Reviews 127

practices in other religions. Taoism, for example, is introduced in the discus-

sion of possession by evil spirits. On another occasion, when discussing the
common link of jinn to the threshold of a house, she evokes a story (collected
by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats) of a woman made ill by the fairies because
she threw out her trash each morning as they were passing. The historical
connections between some of these parallel practices is not always evident,
but some interesting questions are raised. Why, for example, were jinn so
often linked to the threshold of a house or building or with boundaries in
general? El-Zein’s wide-ranging and comparative approach can be rewarding
and stimulating. She offers, for example, some fruitful reflections on the pre-
dilection of the jinn to assume the form of a serpent by setting that predilec-
tion against the apparently universal preference of spirits across the world to
dwell in serpents.
As is fitting for a poet-author, the final chapter is devoted to the role of
jinn in poetic inspiration. Through whispering, the jinn can intervene in a
writer’s work and compel him to commit to paper what has been whispered
to him. The topic of poetical inspiration before the coming of Islam is also
discussed. The volume concludes with an appendix on the different classes
and types of the jinn as well as a glossary of Arabic words and names. The
latter is very useful to those not familiar with Arabic. The former is so infor-
mative that it might have been placed much earlier in the volume. The jinn,
in all their shape-shifting varieties, are an integral part of Islamic culture,
literature, and poetry, and because the author of this small volume is herself
a poet as well as a scholar of comparative literature and mysticism, she has
been able to provide some unique insights into their world.

emilie savage-smith
University of Oxford

josé ignacio cabezón, ed. Tibetan Ritual. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010. Pp. 304.

In this edited volume, Cabezón brings together eleven chapters by special-

ists in Tibetan culture and ritual expression. This book began as a collection
of papers presented at the 2007 conference ‘‘The Practice and Theory of
Tibetan Ritual,’’ which drew scholars from various countries and from vari-
ous subgenres of the field of Tibetan studies (p. 29). The volume manages to
reflect a diversity of viewpoints and methodologies without feeling scattered.
Two of the eleven chapters are by anthropologists working in Tibetan com-

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