21. The king of the Jinns

The workers want to abandon the well. They are afraid. During the night, they hear strange noises and the king of the Tuareg told them that some envious people made a curse on the well and that someone will certainly die. It is probably for the same reasons that the first team abandoned the work.

I decided to go and spend a few nights by the well in order to cast the jinns away from our place and restore the workers’ trust.

Ibrahim put up a small tent for me with a mosquito net. Before going to sleep I recited loudly 2 chapters of the Quran which I know fights the wicked jinns; Surat al Jinn and Surat Nuh. These are two short, powerful Surats that the Jinns fear.

They have no right to make trouble here; the well is property of men and it is for quenching their thirst and for their animals.

They attacked me in my sleep.

It was a whole community of malevolent Jinns, not just a few isolated evil mongers.

Probably because he knew that I was French, the king of the jinns sent me his beautiful daughter first. She tried to seduce me into strange things but was unable to succeed. That is when they attacked me all together. I fought them with the words of the Quran and with my stick as a sword, beating them hard.

They could not overcome me, so the king of the Jinns blinded me. All of a sudden, it was all black. I could not see anything. I was in a house unable to get out of it, prisoner, not by closed doors but not being able to see the door. And I had to get out in order to go back to the material world.

I started to recite a prayer that the prophet taught, fully trusting myself to God, and without fear of attacks or of bumping into things I just started walking.

“Oh my God guide me among those you have guided, and forgive me among those you forgave and befriend me among those whom you befriended and bless me in what you have given to me and turn the evil that you have decreed away from me, indeed you make the decree and are not subjected to decree”.

I kept on reciting the prayer, walking blind, until I was out of that house in a garden outside. All the jinns had disappeared.

In the morning Ali told me, you had an agitated sleep. Yes, I said, I fought with an army of Jinns.

It is not the first time that jinns tried to persuade me or attack me. I have had big fights with them in the past, during my youth travelling in Africa and in Asia. God made me fearless towards them and gave me the words of the Quran that are swords to cut their hands and legs.

After this night, the workers had no more fears.