A Jann
Jann are the supposed 'ancestor' of the jinn in Islam-related beliefs. They are said to have inhabited the earth before Adam, ruled by a king called Jann ibn Jann.
Description[]
Jann were often considered to be "prototype" life forms that differ from the more celestial ones like angels. They were similar to humans in many ways and would share the Earth with the Shedim. In folklore, however, many consider them to be punished and turned into the weakest class of jinn, comparable how apes are seen as transformed humans. The father of the jinn is also called Abu Al-Jann. Powerful Jann can still take the form of a camel, generally white, and travel slowly between the oasis under their control. They occasionally will disappear in a cyclone of sand.
The Medieval Sunni mystic Ibn Arabi, famous for his teachings of Unity of Existence, describes Jann, the father of jinn, as the origin of animal power. Accordingly, God created Jann as the interior of human being, the animal soul hidden from the senses. Among the strongest powers of the animal power is the power of illusion, which is materialized in Satan, interpreted metaphorically as one of the descendants of Jann in Ibn Arabis' metaphysics.
History[]
Genesis[]
The Jann were the earliest beings created by God to inhabit and inherit the world alongside the Shedim, and were ruled by Jann ibn Jann (Son of Jann), two thousand years before Adam and humanity was created. The Jann contended with a primordial race of demons known as the Old Breed and successfully drove them away from claiming the planet as their own. It is also believed that the Jann were placed upon the Earth after the destruction of the Ogdru Hem by the various deities of polytheistic faiths though the gods showed nothing but contempt towards the Jann especially since they would rid the Old Ones from the Earth for the sake of humanity and not the Jann.
However, Jann ibn Jann offended the heavens when he discovered that he and his ilk were to serve Adam and his children. For this transgression God sent Al-Harith (Iblis) with an army of angels to chastise him. But Jann ibn Jann refused to submit to the angels' demands and a war ensued. At the end, Jann ibn Jann was overthrown by Al-Harith and the angels, who reigned the world onwards instead. After their destruction, not one of their grand structures remained. One theory that is held out by John Constantine was that the Jann created structures similar to the pyramids of Giza and through contact with humanity thousands of years later, the Jann gave the ancient Egyptians the blueprints to create the famous pyramids of Giza.
Cain and Abel[]
The Jann were among the first Jinn that humans came in contact with, for they oversee the oasis as perhaps seen as the most beautiful place in the eyes of travel-hardened men. Cain was said to be the first to witness the Jann through Satan as the Adversary shows him the shadowy realm of Hades inhabited by "primordial phantoms". Satan, in the guise of an angel, explains that the phantoms flying around are the spirits of beings that God made and destroyed before he made mankind, that being the Jann themselves.
Despite their imprisonment, the Jann's 'descendants' so to speak that being the Jinn held the ancestral hatred and disdain towards mankind. Throughout the ages, caravans suffered or prospered at their hands, for it is said they could hide an oasis from those who had previously mistreated them or shown disrespect. The Jann are known to hold a hatred towards humans especially since they robbed them of their rightful inheritance to rule the Earth. The Jann would have their vengeance when they created an alliance with Eisheth Zenunim, one of the Queens of Hell. Eisheth planned to have the Jann inhabit the bodies of the Shedim who were imprisoned in the deepest parts of the Red Sea and use them as a means to conquer the human world.