Recordings › Jinn: Myth and Reality in Islam by Mufti Abu Layth · 15 Apr 2018 › Segment 16 of 17
How does Mufti Abu Layth explain an exorcist who says he is possessed by a jinn?
muftis jin jinnat jinni deen al-din ad-deen ad-dinThe exorcist's jinn who loved him: displacement of guilt and projection
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This segment1:01:35 to 1:05:31 · 3 min 56 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenAs displacement of guilt: the exorcist's 'jinn' professed sexual love for him, which Mufti Abu Layth reads as the man projecting desires he could not reconcile with his religious identity onto a jinn. He says the man may sincerely believe it, but belief does not make it true.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth recounts interviewing a very religious exorcist years ago whose jinn 'came into character' during their conversation, so that he spoke with the jinn for over an hour. The jinn gave a name [?], said he was from Kashmir and five hundred years old, all neat numbers, and when asked what he was doing so far from home said he loved the exorcist, making clear with a gesture that he meant sexual love; the jinn described himself as homosexual, speaking in an ominous voice meant to frighten. Mufti says that here was a man with an extraordinarily long beard, religious attire and a reputation as an exorcist who must have been thinking that he, a man of God, was having homosexual tendencies; psychoanalysts describe the displacement of guilt, projecting one's demons onto something else and chastising them, so that it is the cursed jinn who thinks these thoughts and not he, and when he is in control it is himself. He says this is how the man made sense of his world, that he is not accusing him of lying and he may genuinely believe it, but believing in a monster does not make it true. He concludes that calling everything unexplained the jinn of the gaps is absurd, makes religion a joke, and fails to tackle the greater problem of abuse.
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Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth reads the exorcist's 'jinn', who professed sexual love for him, as a displacement of guilt, the projection of desires the man could not own as a religious figure, sincerely believed but not true.
“so displacement of guilt it's easy look at psychoanalysts explain it all the time you just project your demons onto”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
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relationships it's a human it's human behavior you know there's nothing you can't measure your success by your relationships as an example because we have a vision that relationship ought to be like this we feel people with we failed and we need somebody to blame it on sometimes there was a case study I don't want to go into and I've highlighted it before where there was a very religious person a rocky an exorcist who many years back I had the opportunity to interview and and visit and and whilst we were speaking his is his gene came came into character came into form and we had this whole dialogue and discussion and I spoke to the jinn
and it went on for over an hour and he you know he told me his name and he told me he was from his name was I've highlighted the story in detail before his name was Hawkman he came up with the name my name is Hawkman and he's from India is from Kashmir and he's 500 years old all nice numbers in a scenario but the interesting thing was when I asked him oh well you know your long way from home soldier what are you doing over here and and so well what it was it's that usual scenario well this guy The Exorcist you know I love him and and then I realized oh oh he didn't mean I love him I said I'm sure you do love him he said no no I really love him like
and he stuck his tongue out and like I was like oh okay I misread that one I thought you meant that you just loved it oh that love obviously at that point i extremely feared for my own safety thinking all right this I don't know how I'm gonna relate this story back to people right so I thought but so but what was interesting is he then goes on to explain that oh actually he's homosexual the Djinn this is the jinn talking sorry the Djinn is speaking to me obviously the person is speaking about is and whilst he was speaking you
do all this speak like that obviously once again very ominous very kind of trying to be scary and so and so I was like okay okay well so the thing is you see that look here is a person who is very religious he has very in fact that guy had an extraordinarily long beard very incredibly long he was abnormally long it was like this long world like it was so long it was scary long at that point now I don't know I haven't seen the person in years but anyway but that point had a very very long beard very
scruffy looking person religious you know that kind of attire the thawb and and has a name amongst people is an exorcist now you can imagine he must be thinking to himself look I'm having homosexual tendencies I'm a man of God for God's sake you know I'm one of the good guys how could I be having this how could I be thinking deviously about men so displacement of guilt it's easy look at psychoanalysts explain it all the time you just project your demons onto something else and chastise them so it's
not me it's a gene the gene has got the genies game this gin may Allah curse it has obsessed as possessed me and that's why I'm thinking like my all make sense obviously I could never think like this it's the gin that's thinking like this so it's okay when I think like this because really that's just the gin in me doing that and you know when I'm in control then it's me you see this is how this person made sense of his world I'm not saying the person is lying I'm not saying he's trying to lie to me it's not
like saying hey listen this person's coming I'm gonna trick him now maybe he genuinely believes what the stories come up with but that doesn't make it true like if you genuinely believe there's a sketti monster out there it doesn't make it true so so these are the things that I wanted to highlight that look in the past there were many things that people could not explain we could not sum up but to say it's the Djinn of the gaps is is nonsensical it's absurd and it makes religion into a joke and beyond that it doesn't tackle the greater issues of abuse so this isn't sometimes people say but why can't we just sit on the fence you know okay this
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2018-04-15-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/16/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, April 15). How does Mufti Abu Layth explain an exorcist who says he is possessed by a jinn? [Video, segment 2018-04-15-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/16/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "How does Mufti Abu Layth explain an exorcist who says he is possessed by a jinn?" Video, segment 2018-04-15-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 15, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/16/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-04-15-S16, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{How does Mufti Abu Layth explain an exorcist who says he is possessed by a jinn?}}, year = {2018}, month = {4}, date = {2018-04-15}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/16/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/16/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-04-15-S16, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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