Demons, Spirits and Hidden Beings from Persia to the Islamic World

Daeva: In Zoroastrian scripture the daevas are hostile, deceiving spirits opposed to Ahura Mazda and to asha, the order of truth. The word shares a root with Sanskrit deva and Latin deus, so its fall into a word for demon traces Zoroaster's reform, which already has the Gathas urge believers to reject them.

Yazata: The positive counterpart to the daevas, the yazatas are benevolent beings worthy of worship who serve Ahura Mazda without being his equal. They include Mithra, Anahita and Sraosha, and tradition names one to preside over each of the thirty days of the month.

Asmodeus: Called Ashmedai in Hebrew sources, he is a demon king first attested in the Book of Tobit, where he kills Sarah's bridegrooms until Tobias drives him off. The entity page records that his name most likely descends from Aeshma, the Avestan daeva of wrath, carrying the Persian thread into Jewish tradition.

Shedim: The Hebrew Bible names the shedim only twice, at Deuteronomy 32:17 and Psalm 106:37, to condemn sacrifice to them. The Talmud then fills the silence, placing them between angels and humans, an invisible population said to surround each person.

Yaksha: Turning east, the yaksha is a nature spirit of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain tradition, attendant on Kubera and guardian of groves, water and buried treasure. Folk religion treats yakshas as generally protective, and yakshi carvings at Sanchi and Bharhut are among the earliest surviving Indian religious sculpture.

Gandharva: A celestial musician of Indra's court, conventionally paired with the apsarases as the music and dance of heaven. The Rigveda already speaks of a Gandharva connected with soma, so the class reaches back to the oldest Vedic layer.

Rakshasa: A class of malevolent, often man-eating shapeshifters tied to night and wilderness, whose most famous member is Ravana, the ten-headed king of Lanka in the Ramayana. The entity page notes that some rakshasas are pious or allied with the heroes, so the class is not purely monstrous.

Shaitan: In Islamic tradition shaitan, plural shayatin, names the rebellious, corrupting jinn, distinct from Iblis, their leader. The Quran also uses the word for any misleading force, including devils from mankind and jinn at 6:112.

Marid: The strongest and most dangerous class of jinn in Arabic folklore, its name from a root meaning rebellious or insolent. Folk classification ranks it above the ifrit, and it appears in the sealed-vessel stories of the Thousand and One Nights.

Qarin: The qarin, a companion, is the individual jinn paired with every person from birth who whispers temptation. A hadith in Sahih Muslim has the Prophet say he was helped to subdue his own, and the idea grows from an older Arabian belief in a jinn double.

Nasnas: A half-human creature of Arabian desert folklore with one eye, one arm and one leg, said to hop. Tellings differ on whether it belongs to the jinn or is the remnant of a punished tribe, and it recurs in classical Arabic geographical writing.

Zar: The path ends with possessing spirits of Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and southern Arabia, which are placated through ceremony rather than exorcised. I. M. Lewis's study of spirit possession is the recorded source, and the belief runs among Muslim, Christian and traditional communities alike.