Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A Bottle of Djinn


Genies or djinns are great fun. Robin William’s genie in Aladdin was a hoot. But when is Robin Williams not a hoot? Okay, don’t tell me about One-Hour Photo, Insomnia, or Death to Smoochy. Nobody bats a thousand.

Ahem. That’s not the subject here. It’s genies.

Let’s not talk about I Dream of Jeannie. That is clearly a complete and utter corruption of the wonderful race of magical beings brought to us from Moslem tradition. So, here’s the skeenie on genies.

From Wikipedia:

In Arabic, a genie (also jinn, Djinn, jinni) is a supernatural creature which occupies a parallel world to that of mankind, and together with humans and angels makes up the three sentient creations of God (Allah). Possessing free will, a djinn can be either good or evil.

The Djinn are mentioned frequently in the Qur'an, and there is a Surah entitled Al-Jinn. While Christian tradition suggests that Lucifer was an angel that rebelled against God's orders, Islam maintains that Iblis was a Djinn who had been granted special privilege to live amongst angels prior to his rebellion. Although some scholars have ruled that it is apostasy to disbelieve in one of God's creations, the belief in Jinn has fallen comparably to the belief in angels in other Abrahamic traditions.

Golly, that’s not near as much fun as Robin Williams. Still, a supernatural being that can wreak havoc on humans is right up our alley, right?


My Mashup

In “The Seven Adventures of Cadida,” Bascoda serves Cadida. Well, ‘serves’ is a bit of a stretch. He suggests, advises, and pretty much makes her figure out how to get things done. Every once in a great while, he will whomp up a little magic if Cadida is about to fall off a cliff or something else dangerous.

Bascoda appears in every adventure except one: Cadida and the Great Vizier (Cliffhanger). In that story, an evil genie has tricked Bascoda into the bottle that Aladdin put him in years before. He introduces himself to Cadida as Volfass, Apprentice Djinn Second Class, and claims to be taking over for Bascoda while he’s missing. Cadida is naturally concerned for Bascoda. The evil genie (disguised as a boy djinn) wants to lure her into helping him kill the Great Vizier ---- screeeech! Calling a halt here. The plot is too complicated to explain in full.

The short of it is that Cadida and her gang have to rescue Bascoda from the bottle. To do that, they have to put the bad genie into another bottle. Cadida, Poltrice the water demon, Gravella the cave demon, Sheik the dog, and Sulawesi the eagle are all needed to put that dang bad genie back in his bottle and get Bascoda out.

To learn what else happens to the gang, you’ll just have to buy a copy of the book.

4 comments:

  1. So interesting, Marva. Thanks. I knew a woman once.. in her 80s back in the 90s, who as a young woman spent a good deal of time in Morocco. She told stories of falling asleep in the desert at night, her ear to the sand, and hearing the music of the Djinn. Always haunted me, that image.

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  2. That's eerie, Lauren. Thanks for stopping by to read. I appreciate every visitor, even the Spammers. Gives me something to do (delete their comments).

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  3. I read all the adventures of Cadida. What fun to read. I enjoyed everyone of them.
    I'd say they were a must read for kids and us, ahem, adult kids.
    Who doesn't like Arabian tales?
    Oh, the wonders of Candida and her friends.

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  4. "Lucifer" (loosely translated) in Latin, I believe, means "bringer of light" and some have translated as "enlightened." Not an image the churches want to portray of the bad guy, I'm guessin'.

    I love the Cadida series. Good stuff!

    L

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