The Prophet ordered his followers to kill serpents and scorpions if they intruded at prayers; but on other occasions he seems to have required first to admonish them to depart, and then, if they remained, to kill them. The Doctors, however, differ in opinion whether _all_ kinds of snakes or serpents should be admonished first, or whether _any_ should; for the Prophet, say they, took a covenant of the Jinn [probably after the above-mentioned command], that they should not enter the houses of the faithful: therefore, it is argued, if they enter, they break their covenant, and it becomes lawful to kill them without previous warning. Yet it is related that ´Aïsheh, the Prophet's wife, having killed a serpent in her chamber, was alarmed by a dream, and fearing that it might have been a Muslim Jinnee, as it did not enter her chamber when she was undressed, gave in alms, as an expiation, twelve thousand dirhems (about £300), the price of the blood of a Muslim.[40]
The Jinn were said to appear to mankind most commonly in the shapes of serpents, dogs, cats, or human beings. In the last case, they are sometimes of the stature of men, and sometimes of a size enormously gigantic. If good, they are generally resplendently handsome: if evil, horribly hideous. They become invisible at pleasure, by a rapid extension or rarefaction of the particles which compose them, or suddenly disappear in the earth or air or through a solid wall. Many Muslims in the present day profess to have seen and held intercourse with them:--witness the following anecdote, which was related to me by a Persian with whom I was acquainted in Cairo, named Abu-l-Ḳásim, a native of Jeelán, then superintendent of Moḥammad ´Alee's Printing-office at Booláḳ.
One of this person's countrymen, whom he asserted to be a man of indubitable veracity, was sitting on the roof of a house which he had hired, overlooking the Ganges, and was passing the closing hour of the day, according to his usual custom, in smoking his Persian pipe and feasting his eyes by gazing at the beautiful forms of Indian maidens bathing in the river, when he beheld among them one so lovely that his heart was overpowered with desire to have her for his wife. At nightfall she came to him, and told him that she had observed his emotion and would consent to become his wife; but on the condition that he should never admit another female to take or share her place, and that she should only be with him in the night time. They took the marriage-vow to each other, with none for their witness but God; and great was his happiness, till, one evening, he saw again, among a group of girls in the river, another who excited in him still more powerful emotions. To his surprise, this very form stood before him at the approach of night. He withstood the temptation, mindful of his marriage-vow; she used every allurement, but he was resolute. His fair visitor then told him that she was his wife; that she was a jinneeyeh; and that she would always thenceforward visit him in the form of any females whom he might chance to desire.