Ajina

Ajina is a demonic spirit of Central Asian folk belief, especially among Uzbeks and Turkmens and partly among Tajiks. It appears in many shapes, and its name is used to frighten disobedient children.

Russian Wikipedia describes the ajina as a demon of the Turkic mythology of Central Asia. Frightening disobedient children with it is common in these cultures: they are told it is coming, or that they will be handed over to it if they misbehave or do not eat. The article treats it as a product of animist beliefs about evil spirits, probably formed when society was organised in clans, and notes that some connect it with the jinn. Uzbek Wikipedia glosses the name as Arabic for jinn and calls the ajina a negative demon figure of Turkic oral tradition. In the tales it lives in abandoned places, thickets and empty woods, and appears as a beautiful girl, a baby, an old woman with loose hair, a lamb or a goat.

T. Kh. Mukhiddinova, in a 2021 study of Tajik belief vocabulary, lists the ajina beside the divs, which were male demons, and the shaitans, which were female. Jinn, or ajina, could be male or female, but the ajina was more often a female demon that roamed about in the shape of a person, a cow, a dog, a donkey or a cat. It was also called kasur, and its favourite haunt was the heap of ashes thrown out from the hearth.

L. R. Dodykhudoeva, writing in 2020 on Iranian-language folklore of Central Asia, notes that the word is thought to be a plural of the Arabic jinn. She finds that the small stature, huge head, tangled hair of the females, and the grey beard and magic of the elders recall the dwarf jinn of the Thousand and One Nights. The cheek, ignorance and greed of the ajina when it takes the form of an old woman, she adds, bring it close to a figure in the tale Vodareg.