I Dream Of Djinniya

may be triggering or too mature for young audiences. I'll be honest, I often get a bit uneasy with stories about female gin and other kinds of malevolent female entities, because there's no escaping the reality that historically women have often warned the blame for things that go wrong in a family or a community. If a couple can't have children, it's because the wife is barren. If a husband goes astray,

it's because a wife couldn't keep them happy. Even if a region is experiencing drought, somehow women managed to get blamed. And if you don't believe me, just a few years ago, a Texas assemblywoman tweeted the Texas was in a long period of drought until the governor signed an anti abortion law. Yes, that was only one person, but she was just reflecting the kinds of sentiments that have existed for centuries. And that's why when I read about the kinds of terrible

things that female monsters are said to do. I can't help but wonder maybe these stories just to mirror deeply misogynistic attitudes about women in general. But then there's also this possibility that maybe stories of powerful, supernatural female entities are actually projections of the power and ability. Women wish they had the power to control their lives and bodies, the power to exact revenge on those who hurt them, the power to strike error into societies that really help,

no fear of them or respect for them. Maybe these stories are a warning of what could be unleashed if and when there's finally a reckoning. My name is Robbia Chaudhry, and I'll be your guide into the world of the Hidden Gin. Welcome. You could say that vampires have come a long way today. There are dozens of books, films, and TV shows that have sort of endeared them to us.

Vampire comedies like What We Do in the Shadows are a big hit, and thanks to the Twilight series, an entire generation of young people are open to vampire love affairs. And I swear there's an entire section of vampire why a lit in every bookstore I've ever been to. Vampires are kind of cool, right, now they didn't, of course, start out that way. The myth of creatures that crave and survive on blood goes back thousands of years, is found in nearly every culture, but seems to hail not

from Europe but from further east. The earliest evidence we have of any belief in blood suckers are shards of Persian pottery dating back about four thousand years depicting demons trying to drink the blood of men. We find from the same region the tales of La must Do, a word that means quote, she who erases in the language spoken in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, La must Do was a demonus, a monster that killed babies in the womb, and that attacked healthy young men, sucking their blood and

rendering them infertile. Her image was as terrifying as her reputation. She had the head of a woman, the body of a beast, serpents in each hand, and suckled a dog and a pig at her bosom. And there's not that much distance between the legends about La must Do and a horrifying she demon found in Jewish lore. Now you may be wondering what any of these demonists has to do with gin. But remember, the Gin are older than human history, and they take on any in every form.

What one culture now calls a gin has been called by many other names and other cultures, and in Jewish tradition, we have evidence of belief in a creature that lines up neatly with the Gin, the shed Them, which North African Jews also referred to with euphemisms such as tata the yellna our counterparts underground, or Jarndellna, our neighbors. According to the Talmud, the shed them have attributes of both angels and humans. In three ways, they are as angels.

They have wings like angels, fly from one end of the world to the other like angels, and they know what will be in the future like angels. And in three ways they are as humans. They eat and drink like humans, they multiply like humans, and they die like humans. He won't be surprised to learn that the shed Them live in dank, dirty and desolate places, with a particular fondness for bathrooms, and that they can shape shift, changing their appearance in any way they want, with one exception

they can't change their feet. Now these descriptions should ring a Bell if you've heard our previous episodes, including the first one in which we talked about Ashmodai, the mighty demon Jin that King Solomon brought under his control. According to the Talmud, Ashmodai was a shed Dim, and that takes us back to one of many Jin origin stories. In this story, the shed them were created from the union of a demonus and the first man, Adam, and

that demonus is Lilith. Lilith has a rich Semitic history. You might even call her the original vamp hire of Jewish lore, and she is well documented in Rabbinic literature as having been the intended ride of Adam. Some stories say that Adam rejected her because she refused to be a subservient sexual partner. Lilith believed that she and Adam

were created equal, and for that he rejected her. Full of despair and indignation, Lilith abandoned Adam in heaven and dove to Earth, fleeing deep into the ocean in a complete rage. She didn't stay in the ocean, though. Three angels were sent after her to coax her back, and they found her by the Red Sea, where she was a mating with other fallen Gin and bearing baby demons and Isaiah. The Bible speaks of a dark wilderness, and there wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat demons shall call

to each other. There, too, Lilith shall repose and find a place to rest. Lilith was not about to return with the angels, though she told them, I was created only to cause sickness to infants, and I am the sworn enemy of pregnant women. The angels responded, we won't let you go until you accept upon yourself that each day,

one hundred of your children will die. Lilith accepted the condition, and for that reason, one hundred demons die every day, but Lilith, who is immortal, can easily replace them, and is thus considered by some to be the mother of all gin. Lilith is also known to have a sexual appetite that is never satisfied, which certainly helps with the

baby demon making pursuits. She took on many demonic lovers, and some say she made it with Satan himself, But along with her demon lovers, she sometimes chooses mortal lovers, and yet another legend says she came across a mortal wandering in the wilderness. Some one who had just murdered his brother. It was Kane, the son of Adam, who

killed his brother Abel. Lilith showed Kine the life power of blood, and they became lovers together, birthing hundreds of dark souls, which is pretty sinister but ingenious revenge by Lilith against Adam, the man who rejected her. Other tales say that Lilith became the wife of the demon king Ashmadai. Lilith was you see among the legions of Gin that King Solomon took command over with his magical ring, which he used to force the Gin to present themselves before him.

She appeared before him as a female figure with no limbs, just a head and a torso, her hair ratty and ragged. He commanded her to tell him who she was and what she did, and she responded, By night, I sleep not but go my rounds over all the world and visit women in childbirth and diving. The hour I take my stand, and if I am lucky, I strangle the child. But if not, I retire to another place, for I

cannot a single night retire unsuccessful. And now hither Now thither I roam, and to western parts I go my rounds. But as it is, though thou hast sealed me round

with the ring of God, thou hast done nothing. I am not standing before thee, and thou wilt not be able to command me, for I have no work other than the destruction of children, and making of their ears to be deaf, and the working of evil to their eyes, and the binding of their mouths with a bond, and the ruin of their minds, and the painting of their bodies.

So while King Solomon was able to bind her for a time, she eventually, like all the king's other enslaved jins, found her freedom when he died, and she went right back to hunting children. You might say Lilith really holds a grudge like the she demon La must do. Lilith is a sworn baby killer. Lilith doesn't even wait for

a baby's birth to begin attack King it. Her attempts to harm human children begin when the child is in the mother's womb, causing miscarriages and stillbirths, and if they survive that, she pursues their debts for weeks after they're born, sometimes causing them to fall sick and die, and other times strangling them in a jealous rage, and in one final act of revenge against mankind, Lilith also visits unwitting men at night as they sleep, sexually violating them to

steal their seed and bear more demon children. You may have heard of this creature the succubus. Turns out, that's just Lilith. Unfortunately we can't escape Lilith. While women have worn amulets and tied talisman and prayers around their babies for protection against this Gin, these are flimsy guardians against this vengeful spirit, and so this dance of revenge will go on for eternity, because unlike other Gin, Lilith is immortal.

Lilith doesn't stand alone though. In the Jewish cosmology of female demon gin, she's accompanied by three sisters, Nama, Agrith, and Mahalath, who is said to be the queen of the demons and married to the demon king Ashmadi. There is, to be honest, a confusing intersection of all these female

and male Gin, a lot of hooking up between them. Imagine, if you will, a reality show where everyone has been sexually involved with everyone else, kind of like a terrifying Jersey Shore, just with lots of death and destruction, and in all of these stories, the female gin often seemed to have one mission, making lots of demon babies, and that requires a lot of getting it on with other demons. But these ladies don't just stick to one man. They

hook up with really anyone they please. So it's not surprising that Lilith has in more recent times become a symbol of women's sexual freedom and independence, although that's a bit of a hard cell given her baby killing tendencies. But if Lilith and her sisters inspired real life women to claim power over their bodies, the opposite might be true in the story of a real life Moroccan noblewoman that has inspired the tales of a powerful female jin

by the name of Aisha Candiya. According to one fifteenth century legend, Aisha was a beautiful Moroccan woman from the El Jadida region, which was at the time occupied by the Portuguese. Her husband, part of the resistance, was killed at the hands of Portuguese soldiers, and she vowed to

spend the rest of her life getting vengeance. In other versions of the tale, Aisha herself was part of the resistance, a warrior who one by one killed enemy soldiers Aisha used her beauty to seduce a suspecting soldiers and officers into dark corners where she could get them into compromising and vulnerable positions. Once she had them where she wanted them, she would pull out a long knife kept hidden in her robes, slip their throats, and savagely mutilate their bodies.

She killed so many soldiers and was so elusive that the occupiers started fearing her. Some even said she wasn't human. She couldn't be given the things she was able to do, They couldn't capture her. So in order to punish Aisha, the Portuguese executed her entire family, which caused her to flee into the jungle, overtaken by madness. But she didn't stay in the jungle. Instead, they say, she began to

attack locals, young men in particular, and devour them. The Aisha that was once a hero against the Portuguese had now turned into a monster against her own people. And it was this depravity that over the centuries, gave rise to Aisha Condita the Jin know to every little and girl in the region. Even today, she's so feared that the mere mention of her name is forbidden because it

might invite her into your world. Some say that Aisha Kandija the Jin is much more ancient than the fifteenth century figure, that her very lineage is from one of the seven great kings of the Jinn, schem Harush himself. Other scholars and historians believe the legend of Aisha Kandija hails to Canaanite cults whose temples included women called the

Kadeshah known as sacred prostitutes. Now, the practice of sacred prostitution, unfortunately much more common in history and across different societies, going back as far as six thousand b c. Was framed as an act of worship and even female sexual empowerment. But here is a description of the practice as relaid by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. It compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodity and have intercourse with stranger at least once in her life.

Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap and had intercourse with her outside the temple. It does not matter what some of the money is. The woman will never refuse for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred, so she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to

her home. Now, the question of empowerment of these women is a bit questionable, given their inability to refuse any man who approaches them, and pardon me for thinking this feels a little more like exploitation than empowerment. Nonetheless, there's no question between the connection of female sexuality and divinity that these and other societies made, and the figure of Kadisha pops up repeatedly. She goes from being a sacred prostitute to worship in ancient Egypt as a goddish name.

Kadeshu Kadesha was not only a fertility goddess, she was also a goddess of sexual pleasure and sacred ecstasy. The likeliest scenario, then, and how the legend of the jinn Aisha Kndicha emerged, is that multiple threads of beliefs came together to forge the mythology that exists today. In the

region most closely associated with her, Morocco. In some areas she's believed to be a siren like figure, and another is more of an earth mother type, but in all cases she's known to be a sexually ravenous gin not unlike her mythical predecessors. Aisha Kndicha roams a wilderness near bodies of water and northern Morocco, often the Cebu River, but also in some of her other favorite haunts, grottos, springs fountains, where she searches for her next victim, usually

a young man. They say she's tall, with large, alluring eyes full lips, though she never smiles. Aisha Kndicha has a flipped she was figured that can't be hidden in the black carbons that she's draped in. Some say those grapes are her own hair, jet black that has grown so long it wraps around her body, and at times when she's spotted, it's as she's emerging from the water source she haunts, combing her long, wet black hair back from her bare body. While she's feared for causing harm

to pregnant women. What Aisha Kandita is really known for is her fearsome and violent lust, a lust so strong that her only real mission is to seduce men into her bed, and once her victim has been intimate with her, she reveals her true terrifying form. She's gargantuane with teeth like knives, and hidden under the black folds are the

legs and feet of a camel. Not all of the men who fall for her discover the truth of who she is until it's too late, until they've already entered into a sexual tryst with her, at which point he can no longer reject her. He will either have to become her sexual slave for life or risk being murdered by her. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Becoming her slave comes with dozens of conditions. Her new man can only wear a dirty, ragged clothing that's green

or red or black. He can never cut his hair or his fingernails, and he definitely can't cheat on her. And if he rejects these conditions, tough conditions, and refuses them, then he has to pay for it with his life. And that's because I sha CONDITYA doesn't just satisfy her sexual urges with her victims, she also satisfies her other carnal drives. She drinks their blood and eats their flesh.

She is quite literally a man eater. Not all of her victims end up dead, though some end up driven mad, possessed by her, possessed with love and lust for her, but unable to obtain her. They say that those who seek her become married to her and her alone, unable or unwilling to take interest in a human bride, and in that way I should condi Ja has at any given time thousands of lovers and husbands. But beyond her human husband's she's also married to Jen royalty to an

invincible Jin king by the name of Basha Hammou. Hamu's weakness is blood, and so you'll find him at slaughterhouses, but he also possesses people who then slashed their own limbs to satisfy the Jin's desire. Aisha, Condisha and Hammu quite a power couple, you could say, if we lean in, though, what we see in stories about Aisha Kndija are layers of lessons and warnings. A lesson on the power of a woman's sexuality, but also what happens when the sexuality

of a woman isn't in check. Its spirals out of control, lust turning into violence and even death. And it's also warning to men to stay away from tempting beautiful women that you aren't married to, because for all you know, she could be a cannibalistic jin. Engaging and forbidden sexual trysts could literally be the death of you. And even if she doesn't kill you, you could find yourself gone mad with desire for her, wandering the earth the rest of your days, seeking her, useless to the rest of

the world. So in that sense, it's almost a warning against falling in love itself. It might seem that all the female jin have a bad rap, sexually insatiable baby killers and man eaters, but that's not exactly true. Just as there are good and evil humans, there are good and evil gin and the good ones are often as powerful as the not so good ones. In Morocco, where we met Aisha Candia, we also meet La La Rakia el Khammer, which translates to Lady Rekia, daughter of the

Red One. People seeking her blessings travel to the foot of the Atlas Mountains to the enchanting town of Seffru, located hours from the Moroccan capital of Rabat. Centuries ago, Seffreu wasn't important trading city as well as an ancient Jewish Berber settlement and Nestled in the western part of the town is the Fountain of Lady Rerechia, a miraculous fountains set to bring healing for both physical and mental ailments.

Those who believe in the powers of Lady Rerechia fill up their jugs at her fountain, but most Moroccans don't have to go that far to find her. That's because the abode of Lady Rerechia is the bath house. And I don't mean the room where you go to shower in your house. I'm talking about the public bath house, the hammam, which is ubiquitous in North African and Middle Eastern cultures. Ham Moms are culturally, socially and religiously significant,

segregated by gender. The hammam is much more than a shared pool of water, steam rooms, heated marble slabs, rigorous exfoliation, cold showers. It's an entire series of pampering and cleansing rituals. But beyond beautification and cleanliness, the hammons are kind of like a local pub for full get together to linger and trade gossip, albeit naked, relax with friends and neighbors, and the hammam often even has a role in marriages, births,

even birthdays. Apparently there's nothing like water and naked people to attract the wrong kind of gin, which is where Lady Reky steps in. She's a queen in the gin world, deeply respected for her wisdom and diplomatic skills, and she lords over all the gin and every ham mom in the world. She makes it her job to protect the hammed bathers, but only if people request her permission to enter the hammm ask for her protection and greet her

as they enter. Once in the hammam, Lady Rerekia guards both men and women from malevolent beings who might otherwise get too attached to abeather and follow them home or whisper sinful thoughts and to obey the heart leading them into forbidden acts and for the price of keeping peace the hammam, Lady Rekia also demands to be thanked and bid adieu while leaving. She loves offerings of oil, lamps,

incense and perfumes too, especially on special occasions. You could say she's a bit needy, but really, who among us doesn't like to be valued and recognized for their work. Now in the world of good versus bad Gin. There is one that kind of toes the line. If you remember back to earlier in the season, we mentioned one jin that while we aren't able to shake. That's our jin double, the one we're born with and die with, the Corinne. And if you're a woman, well, your female

counterpart is the Carina. There was, however, an original Carina, the one that birthed all the others that were stuck with today. It's believed that at the dawn of human creation, that Carina was Adam's first wife, but was rejected by him and later made it with Satan to produce legions of baby gin ad infinitum. She nominally hated men, but women too, and to punish both, she made children the target of her fury, causing stillbirths and fatal illnesses and babies.

If she sounds like Lilith, you're exactly right. The original Karna and Lilith are one and the same. So for the ladies out there, the Carina that you carry with you everywhere turns out that she's the daughter of the mother of all the gin. Our personal Carina is also sometimes called our or Shakika, both words that mean sister, but this jin takes sibling rivalry to another level. She carries a particular interest in the spouse of her human, fueled maybe by jealousy of all the human beings she's

missing out on. She does her best to break up the couple was to bring hateful thoughts in her humans ears, poisoning her heart against her husband and urging her to leave the marriage, which begs the question though, what if he's just a truly terrible spouse? What if it's a toxic or abuse of marriage? Does blaming a garna let crappy husbands off the hook? Does it redirect blame back to a woman to check herself health, to second guess

the thoughts that she has of leaving? But then, divorce has always carried a heavy social stigma, especially in times and places where women didn't have the agency to make such monumental decisions. Maybe, just maybe, the Carina gives a woman in an unhappy marriage who might find it impossible to leave otherwise away out and so Ladies, maybe, just like their mother Lilith, the Corina are simply asserting power

that's long been kept from women. Speaking of power, there's a fascinating female flip side to the world of Gin, and it's not about the jinn themselves, It's about the power of women in fighting the Gin. North African regions are replete with female jin stories, but they're also replete with the stories of the power of women themselves, women who were able to trick the devil himself into giving

them power. According to the friend writer Aleene de Lenz, who lived in Morocco in the early part of the twentieth century, the oral tradition of how women of the region came to their power goes like this. In antiquity, old women wanted to seize the devil. What can we do to attract him, they asked themselves. While the devil always arrives during a dispute, So the old woman started insulting each other and the devil arrived. Then the shouting

turned to sobbing. What's wrong, asked the devil. The old woman responded, the devil is dead. The devil, confused, said that is a lie. I am the devil, and the old woman said, he is dead. We tell you you, we don't know you, And the devil responded, I speak the truth. If that's so, the old woman challenged him, enter into this glass vial, and we will believe you. And so the devil entered, and the women quickly put

a stopper on the vial. Let me out, he shouted, by fire, we won't let you free, and so the devil berated them ditch a female camel's prostitutes, and the old women rerated him. Back you one eyed person, possessor of a single hair, And that made the devil reconsider, Oh,

my daughters, deliver me and I will help you. But the women responded, helping you help anyone you the father of evil, And the devil said, I will teach you how to prevail over men, and so the old women agreed, and he taught them sorcery as well as the art of curing illness. It said that since then Moroccan women have been feared by some as sorceresses, having the knowledge and power to not to subjugate and control men, keel sickness, and fight the gin, but they also have the power

to control nature itself. One account of this comes to us by way of doctor Emil Moauchamp. Doctor Moauchamp was assigned by the French to establish his medical practice in Marrakesh in nineteen o five as part of the French government's ploy deepen its hold on Morocco through providing healthcare. Yes, that seems crazy, but believe it or not, they weren't

the only colonial power who has used such ploys. Mos Schamp was one of many colonial observers in the region who collected their own ethnographies, fascinated with local customs and traditions, especially relating to magic and sorcery. He explained one point, how to sorceress concocted a magic paste to be able

to control the moon itself. First, the sorceress would buy a new kneading dish during the day, and then she would visit the home of all the gin with it, the slaughterhouses, the toilets, cemeteries, the tombs of saints, as well as synagogues and mosques, with a genie stand guard.

Then she takes the water of seven springs or covered wells, and in the night of the full moon, between midnight and one am, she darkens her right eye with call let's blush on the right cheek, a bracelet on the right arm and anklet on the right foot, and braids a lock of her hair on the right Then she goes alone to the cemetery, puts the dish on the ground, strips naked, and runs holding a reed with a little green flag attached, asking the spirits of darkness to make

the moon descend for her. In the dish she has put the water of the seven fountains. Then one sees the moon mount to its zenith and descend into the dish. Immediately a storm is unleashed. The water phones and spills over, and the sorceress collects this phone. At the same time, Benzoin and Coriander cook in a neighboring pot, and the sorceress commands, I want you to serve me for good

and for evil. When the tub is full of foam, the Sorceress puts out the incense fire and spills the water on the ground, and the liberated moon rises slowly into the sky. Now that is power. Unfortunately, formau Schamp he wasn't able to like these stories for long. Less than two years after arriving in Morocco, he was murdered

right outside his own clinic. His crime he raised a pole or intent of some sort onto his roof, which some locals feared meant he was a French spy connected wirelessly through the pole to a a various network, but I can't help but wonder if he just got on the wrong side of a sorceress. Thanks for joining us this week. Next week we'll be back to take you into another step into the world of the Hidden Gin.

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Patreon episode absolutely free. That's right, we're on Patreon, so if you're a Gin enthusiast, check out the Companion Patreon series at patreon dot com slash Hidden Jin again, that's patreon dot com slash Hidden Gin and remember Jin is spelled d j I n N. That's where you're gonna find an amazing series of interviews between me, scholars, experts, art as, historians, and everyday lay people who have had extraordinary experiences with Jin and everybody can check out the

first episode absolutely free. It's me and my husband sharing our gen stories and it was a lot of fun. And if you have any gin stories, well, I'd love to hear from you, email me at the Hidden Gin at gmail dot com. Once again, it's The Hidden Gin Gin with a D at gmail dot com. And you might just hear back from me, or you might hear your story on the show. And finally, don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and

Instagram with handle the Hidden Gin. There you can tweet, post, insta dm me. I'd love to hear from all of you, and believe me, I read every single message. The Hidden Gin is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted by Robbia Chaudry and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Music for the show was provided by Smith

Sony and Folkways Recordings. Our theme song was created by Patrick Cortez. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.