@nasser @mohini this is fucking cool.
if i may ask a very ignorant question:
you said -jin is magical, is it like the english fae where anything kinda magical falls into the category? i have heard Jin (Jinn?) used to refer specifically to what we call genies. wondering if that’s a western misunderstanding?

@Moss @nasser @mohini djinn are sort of all-purpose spirits including aladdin's wish-giving genie. not a bad analogy with "fae" imo. they are not innately good or evil, it just sort of depends.

@darius @Moss @mohini importantly, they have free will, so I've always interpreted stories where they are bound to an object, like a lamp, and forced to do magic to "grant their masters wishes" as kind of allegories for the arab slave trade, but maybe that's just me overthinking things

@nasser @darius @mohini this is such a fucking cool thread thank you for answering that, i love it. i especially love that almost every culture that acknowledges the queerness of existence usually categorizes us as magical. so fuckin good.

@Moss @darius @mohini jinn are also commonly "shape shifters" and it wouldn't surprise me if that played into an ability to inhabit multiple genders, but I am speculating and projecting my own worldview onto pre-Islamic Arabic culture 😅

@nasser @darius @mohini i love it! i always love to hear how mythology maps onto the real. your theory of captured Djinn being a mythology of colonialism is so valid, this kind of sense-making in cultural stories is found all over the place.
i know i, for one, identify as shape shifter.

@Moss @darius @mohini this is how I have come to understand you, too ♥️

@mohini @Moss i love this!