INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

It’s the end of June, thank goodness - one step closer to the end of summer. I wish all of my muslim listeners a very happy and safe Eid-ul-Adha this week, and I didn’t realise an Islamic monster would also end up on this same week - but what a happy accident. However, this one is a little bit more malevolent, so I hope this monster stays away from your feasts.

DESCRIPTION:

So what monster am I talking about? It’s the Shayatin - you already know this because, funnily it’s the name of the episode. This monster is from Islamic folklore, and so isn’t from a specific place, but a specific religion and culture.

The Shayatin are generally described as evil spirits or demons within Islamic folklore, whose main job is to tempt humans to sin. They are completely invisible to humans, however, it is believed that they are grotesquely ugly and born from fire with horns on their heads like devils. In terms of their physical description, as they’re invisible, that’s about it.

Interestingly though, the most common description of Shayatin are that they are angels - but ones that are conspiring against the word of God, or Allah in this case. They would teach sorcery, convince others to argue with faithful people, slip into angelic meetings, interrupt prayer and eavesdrop and make evil suggestions to humans and other demons alike. However, they are ultimately still Allah’s subjects, and so they still have to obey, including sticking with non-believers and convincing them to disagree with other non-believers.

But if they’re connected to Allah, why are they considered demons? Well because of their angel/devil combo - they’re almost the controllable evil within God’s forces. There is a Satan figure within Islam too called Iblis. Iblis is the leader of devils and was thrown out of Heaven for not bowing before the first man, Adam, becoming the fallen angel that we know. There are other stories that Iblis was actually born a Jinn, another demon within Islamic folklore - and he would not bow to Adam either. 

Anyway, the Shayatin are led by Iblis and some say they are the offspring of him - and share the same name in Arabic, but what kind of powers do they have? Mostly, it’s temptation - they have the power to convince people to stray from the religion or stray from teachings of Islam. As well as this, they can be attached to those non-believers as a punishment and tempt them to do bad things. They report all of this back to Iblis, although ultimately Iblis and the Shayatin still operate under Allah as the temptation from the right choice.

Another is that they’re able to possess people, and make them do these things themselves. These monsters then take orders from Iblis too, meaning that they can encourage murder and rebellion in men as well as the basic stuff, so it can get pretty hairy. If you were possessed, you could scream or drum it out of you, but only if you were conscious you were actually possessed by one.

How could you stop one though if you thought you had it attached to you? Well you could try and be good, that’s probably the easiest - however, you could also scare them away using handmade bowls with Arabic phrases carved around them and putting them in the corners of houses to catch them. It’s suggested that you stay away from graveyards as they are the meeting places of these demons and are generally unlucky places, and you could also use talismans or amulets or name your children after animals to frighten them away.

There are also some sources that say they are born from the blood of a murdered person, and you could stop this preemptively by sticking a clean silver nail into the blood or the body of that person after death. 

ORIGIN:

Now for etymology, Shayatin comes from the Arabic word Šaiṭān which very literally translates to Satan, however, it can also mean devils or demons, as well as adversary and unclean spirit. There are a few different spellings to this word too, I probably chose one of the more uncommon ones honestly, but they’re all pronounced the same way so it’s hard to explain without writing them out. The best thing I can try to do is say you can spell it with an i instead of the y, or without the h - but that’s the best I can do. 

In terms of history, of course this one is a little complicated. There are actually no dates to the creation of these monsters, we can only really go back as far as the Quran which is the Islamic holy text and was written around 610-632 AD, which was a very long time ago. And we only really have this one for background, so it’s not particularly interesting in terms of varied sources, but it does have some good stories in there about the Shayatin too.

One is that they were Solomon’s slaves. Solomon was a prophet of the Isralites and a prophet of God, and had a magical ring and staff. With this, he could speak to animals and to demons, such as Jinn and he eventually used this power to enslave the Shayatin and Jinn. They built monuments for him out of brass and copper. However, in the story, a woman asked to build a statue of her father and Solomon found her worshipping it - therefore God got one of the Shayatin to steal the ring of power and take over his kingdom. Eventually, Solomon repented and got his kingdom back - building an almighty temple and lived happily ever after. 

The last story is that of Adam - I’ve kind of talked about him already, but the most important story of Adam is of course, temptation. Iblis, the leader of the Shayatin was actually the one who caused Adam to eat from the forbidden tree, however - there was an argument between God and Adam as he had not eaten the fruit - therefore the promised immortality was lost and the human race born. But they are born with the choice and freedom to follow the path that is right and the path that is wrong. 

The Shayatin clearly have an incredible influence within the Islamic religion, and do still affect day-to-day life for worshippers. Such as the Shayatin have two horns on their heads and the sun sets and rises between them, which is when the gates of hell are open - so Muslims are encouraged not to pray during this time. Another is that during Ramadan, which is the Islamic fasting month which is followed by the first Eid of the year, the Shayatin are chained up in hell so as not to disturb the tradition. Lastly, Shayatin are said to eat with their left hands, and so it is encouraged to eat with your right - these are known as Hadiths, kind of suggestions to follow in day-to-day life and I love that the Shayatin are still involved in these.

Of course, when talking about Shayatin, Jinn do come up a lot within the same folklore, and are equally influential to modern day Islam. These have been interpreted as genies within modern media and within western language - but are incredibly powerful demons or spirits within the culture. These monsters work alongside Shayatin, and as I said earlier - it’s sometimes thought that Iblis himself was a Jinn, so it’s implied that maybe they’re even more powerful and influential within the Islamic demon hierarchy. I covered them about a year ago if you want more information on them too!

Lastly, we can of course compare this to Christianity and their views on the whole angel vs demon setup within the Christian faith. I actually think these are almost the closest to the Nephilim, a race of hybrid angels and demons that have a good and bad side - I covered these last year too if you’re more interested.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, and there really aren’t many this week I’m afraid. So I’ve mostly covered the media with Islamic inspired demons including Jinns too.

For art, they’re an ancient monster and as well as this - they’re not in many carvings or ancient portraits either! The only one is the one I used in my advertising this week, which is called depiction of Shayatin by Siyah Qalam from the 16th century. There’s not even much in the independent art scene this week either I’m afraid - I really struggled to find something.

In movies, we have Aladdin, Aladdin and the Return of Jafar, Clash of the Titans, When Evil Calls, Kazaam, Wishmaster, Ducktales the Movie & The Outing. 

For TV, we have Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures, One Piece, Dragon Ball to American Gods, Charmed, I Dream of Jeannie, Once Upon a Time, The Witcher, Supernatural, Power Rangers, Twilight Zone, Ultraman 80, Wizards of Waverly Place, Dukes of Hazzard, X-Files, Angel, Fraggle Rock, Fairly Odd Parents, Lazytown & Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

For video games, we’ve got a few such as Golden Sun, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Age of Wonders, Cuphead, Destiny, The Sims, Runescape, Final Fantasy, Wario Land, Pokemon, Baldur’s Gate, Mario Party, Wylde Flowers, Skylanders, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Uncharted 3, Miitopia, Terraria, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Battleborn, The Witcher 3 & The Secret World.

My book recommendations this week are either The Encyclopedia of Eastern Mythology: Legends of the East by Rachel Storm for a great summary of these Arabic folklore stories or The World of Angels & Demons: What Does Islam Say? by Zaid Shah for some more specific demonology studies within Islam.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

I’m not sure about this one, as they are a mix of angels and demons. Whilst I struggle with the idea of angels myself, the idea of demons in contrast, I find it very easy to believe, which I think is pretty strange myself. I do like that they still have to take orders from God, and then the lines between God being a full good being definitely get a bit blurry - but it’s said that God will always bring you back onto the right path too, although it kind of contradicts itself.

I love the idea that monsters have some kind of impact within modern times, even though from a religious perspective I imagine they’re a bit annoying and it’s a weird thing to say. However, I think the battle between good and evil is not black and white, and interpretation, religion, culture, society and personal morals all come into it - making it a really difficult thing to put on paper. There are very few rules that come into all religions, even murder is sometimes one that is acceptable in some situations - but it’s all morally subjective at the end of the day. Saying this, I am not encouraging this - just to completely insure myself there, it’s an observation rather than advice.

But what do you think? Did the Shayatin cause havoc in the heavens? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

What an interesting monster, I really enjoy covering demons from different religions - they all have such individual takes on everything separately. 

Next week, we’re heading over to Ancient Egypt for the first time in ages and looking at the weird hybrid, the Serpopard! Come slithering in and ready to pounce next Thursday!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.