Often a man calls upon his shaykh, living or dead, for help, and the devils come to him in that shaykh’s form. They may deliver him from what he fears, leaving him in no doubt that the shaykh himself came to him, or that an angel assumed his form and came to him. He does not know that the one who appeared in that form was merely a devil. Because he associated partners with Allah, the devils led him astray; angels do not answer someone who associates partners with Allah.

At other times, they come to someone who is alone in the wilderness. He may be a king or a high-ranking emir, an unbeliever who has become separated from his companions, grown thirsty and feared death. A jinn comes to him in human form, gives him water, calls him to Islam and leads him in repentance. The man embraces Islam at his hands, and the jinn leads him in repentance, feeds him and shows him the way. The man asks, “Who are you?” He replies, “I am so-and-so.” He is one of the believing jinn.

Something of this kind happened in connection with me. I was in Egypt, in the citadel, and many Turks from the eastern lands experienced something like this. That figure told one of them, “I am Ibn Taymiyya.” The emir had no doubt that it was indeed me, and informed the king of Mārdīn. The king of Mārdīn then sent a messenger about this to the king of Egypt. I was in prison, so they found this astonishing, although I had never left prison. Rather, this was a jinn who loved us and was doing for the Tatar Turks what I used to do for them when they came to Damascus: I would call them to Islam, and whenever one of them pronounced the two testimonies of faith, I would feed them