This might be a piece in the puzzle:
In Thousand Nights and a Night, Sir Richard F. Burton writes: ?Jinni -
The Arab singular (whence the French "genie"); fem. Jinniyah; the Div
and Rakshah of old Guebre-land and the "Rakshasa,' or "Yaksha," of
Hinduism.
It would be interesting to trace the evident connection, by no means
"accidental," of "Jinn" with the "Genius" who came to the Romans
through the Asiatic Etruscans, and whose name I cannot derive from
"Gignomai" or "genitus." He was unknown to the Greeks, who had the
Daimon, a family which separated, like the Jinn and the Genius, into
two categories, the good (Agatho-daemons) and the bad (Kako-daemons).
We know nothing concerning the Jinn amongst the pre-Moslemitic or
pagan Arabs: the Moslems made him a supernatural anthropoid being,
created of subtle fire (Koran chapts, xv. 27; lv. 14), not of earth
like man, propagating his kind, ruled by mighty kings, the last being
Jan bin Jan, missionarised by Prophets and subject to death and
Judgement. From the same root are "Junun" = madness (i.e., possession
or obsession by the Jinn) and "Majnun" = a madman. According to R.
Jeremiah bin Eliazar in Psalm xli. 5, Adam was excommunicated for one
hundred and thirty years during which he begat children in his own
image (Gen. v. 3) and these were Mazikeen or Shedeem - Jinns.?
(?Notes: Djinn,? http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/Djinn.html )
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