Abstract
Jinn are an established part of the Islamic religious and cultural heritage. However, their ontology, characteristics, and effects are much disputed. First Oriental Studies and later Islamic Studies—in other academic settings, also Near and Middle Eastern Studies—and other disciplines such as anthropology and transcultural psychiatry have been involved in analyzing this complex and multifaceted phenomenon. As highly mobile spiritual beings, but nota bene not mere ghosts, jinn unfold relevance in a myriad of settings and have evoked an enormous amount of research literature. However, they have hardly been studied in a systematic manner within a globalized world in relation to psychological and physical challenges. That is what this edited volume is about.
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Acknowledgements
This book is the outcome of a process to which many contributed. First and foremost, we would like to thank the authors for entrusting their contributions to us and involving us in a stimulating learning process. This book, the workshop on jinn, and other activities during Annabelle Böttcher’s two-year research stay were generously funded by the Welfare Innovation Fund of the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense. The Center for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies and its colleagues offered a stimulating space to explore and experiment. We would like to particularly thank Dietrich Jung, the Director of the Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies at SDU, for his continuous and enthusiastic support. We are also indebted to Professor Martin Rheinheimer, Head of Department of the Institute for History at SDU, the colleagues, and the staff, especially Kirsten Digge Larsen, Annette Groenbæk, and Helle Kildebæk Raun. Furthermore, we are grateful to the students of the Institute for Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, Anna Steffen, and especially Farid El-Ghawaby and Maren Krause for preparing the chapters for editing and struggling with the Arabic terminology and various dialect expressions, and to Mitch Cohen for his language editing. We also thank our anonymous reviewers for their time and patience and hope to have integrated most of their comments.
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Böttcher, A., Krawietz, B. (2021). Introduction. In: Böttcher, A., Krawietz, B. (eds) Islam, Migration and Jinn. The Modern Muslim World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61247-4_1
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