Jinn to genie

Magic lamps and three wishes – where does the genie as we know it come from?

Perhaps the most famous image of a genie is

Disney’s blue-skinned, wise cracking entity voiced by Robin Williams that appeared in the 1992 animated version of Aladdin. This version of a jinn, living inside a magical lamp and granting three wishes, sums up some of the most commonly understood attributes and behaviours of jinn for most in the West. While two stories in A Thousand and One

Nights pertain to a jinn being trapped inside a brass container and feature wishes (not to mention tales of King Solomon trapping jinn to harness their power) it is the story of Aladdin that truly formulates the modern concept of the genie. Not part of the original manuscript, it was French translator Antoine Galland who added the story, along with the tales of Ali Baba and Sinbad. Galland was originally told the story by a Syrian storyteller, Hanna Diyab. However, where Diyab originally heard the tale – or if he invented it himself – is a mystery.