The jinn of Feroz Shah Kotla
- Origin
- A practice kept today by the people who visit the fort at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. The sources here are Wikipedia and two newspaper and magazine features. None is a record from the visitors themselves, and none says when the practice began.
- How we treat it
- The label says living believers practise this. It is not a verdict on whether jinn exist.
- Routes out
- The features that describe what visitors do and say come first. The explanation of the belief in jinn, as it is held at the shrine, follows.
At a ruined fort in Delhi, visitors write letters to the jinn believed to live there, and a crowd gathers every Thursday.
Wikipedia reports a large crowd at the Feroz Shah Kotla fort every Thursday. It says the popular belief is that jinn come down to the fort and accept requests and wishes, and that many written wishes are visible on the walls.
Outlook Traveller describes a long-standing custom of the site. A person writes a problem on paper, addresses it to the djinns thought to live in the innermost parts of the fort, and pastes it to a wall. The person then returns each Thursday for seven weeks to offer milk, sweets and fruit.
Gulf News explains that in Islam jinn are supernatural beings. At the shrine the belief is that they read quickly, so by sunset, when the visitors have left, they have taken in every wish. Each week the groundskeepers collect the letters that have built up and set fire to them.
"Every Thursday there is a huge crowd at the fort. It is popularly believed that Jinn(s) descends at the Fort from the Heavens and accepts requests and wishes from people. A lot of wishes, penned down on paper, can be seen on the walls within the premises."
- Writing to the djinns of Delhi, Outlook Traveller
- Feroz Shah fort: On the wings of a prayer in the castle of djinns, Gulf News