I Dread of Jeannie: Saudi Arabians' Fear of "Genies" Leads to a Lawsuit Against a Genie Spirit As Well As a Grown Man Being Chained Up in a Basement.

As best as I can gather from the linked story, "genies" in Saudi Arabian culture and Islamic theology are seen in a way similar to how we view ghosts and other similar spirits (e.g., goblins, hobgoblins, specters, etc.) in the United States. In Saudi Arabia, genies are often blamed for mysterious occurrences and are sometimes thought to come to possess human beings. Just as with American ghosts, genies in Saudi Arabia are thought to come in both good and bad forms (depending on the particular genie). For example, a Saudi family last year purportedly tried to sue a bad genie in a court of law, accusing the spirit of theft and harassment.

The family further accused the (apparently unseen) genie of "terrifying the children by throwing stones, stealing mobile phones [apparently leaving the land-line phones alone] and speaking in male and female voices." No word yet on the outcome of the lawsuit, although I shudder at the thought of trying to collect on a money judgment from an unseen spirit. Or, what if you got an injunction against the genie, only to have the genie violate it by continuing in her bad supernatural behavior? Are you going to ask the cops to come out and slap the ol' cuffs on the spirit?

Which brings us to the curious case of a 29-year-old Saudi man named Turki, who lives in Mecca. Turki's old man has had Turki chained up in a basement (see first picture above) for six years now, claiming that his son Turki is possessed by an evil female genie. But don't worry -- Turki's not down in that basement all alone, as he reportedly has a young wife who stays with him even despite his "near coma" condition 24-7.

"The voice of a woman can be heard coming from him," says the old man of his son Turki. For good measure, the old man himself claims to have previously been "afflicted" by a genie for many decades until the vile spirit was "exorcised by a cleric." The old man says that the genie who bothered him all those years was a female whose appearance would turn from beauty to beast at the drop of a hat. He also says the female spirit would sometimes sprout animal limbs, and at other times would appear surrounded by fire.

My first question to the old man (and not answered in the linked article) would be whether Turki's evil female genie might be the same one who terrorized the old man all those years? You know: Exorcise the father but afflict the son? Like when the priest on The Exorcist ran the spirit out the little girl, but drove the demonic seed straight into himself, causing him to take a header out the window and down that long flight of steps. There could be something to that.

But I digress. Back to Turki: It seems that very recently a Saudi human rights activist and professor named Suhali went down in the basement to call on Turki. Suhali apparently doesn't have much of a problem with Turki's shackled condition, although he would like to see Turki improve his digs and financial condition just a bit. Suhali is asking the Saudi Social Affairs Ministry to help Turki's impoverished family provide Turki with "better accommodations," and to get Turki enrolled in the Saudi social security program.

BTW, I think Suhali should get the award for human rights activist of the year for recognizing that there just might exist the possibility of "better accommodations" than being chained up in a crummy basement for years on end. Now we know what Suhali's getting paid for down there.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1296856/Saudi-man-chains-son-basement-years-possessed-evil-female-genie.html