Div or dev (Classical Persian: ; ; with the broader meaning of demons or fiends) are monstrous creatures of West Asian lore and probably of Persian origin. They are a monotheistic reinterpretation of the Vedic deities (devas) who were later demonized in the Persian religion (see daeva). In the Shahnameh they are the main-antagonists of the hero Rostam.
Most of their images, when disseminated into the Islamic world, including Armenia, Turkic countries, and Albania, assimilated with the demons and ogres of ancestral beliefs. As such they have been adapted according to the beliefs of Islamic concepts of otherworldly entities. Muslim authors often identified them with the ʿifrīt (demons) and shayāṭīn (devils) of their own belief-system. According to Islamic hagiographic legends, Satan once defeated the div and jinn but joined their ranks after he fell from God's grace. Like other creatures, Islam considers divs to be subject to God's rule and final judgement. In Sufism they are symbols of human vices and evil urges.
In folklore and legends, they are often described as having a body like that of a human, only of gigantic size, with two horns upon their heads and teeth like the tusks of a boar. Powerful, cruel and cold-hearted, they have a particular relish for the taste of human flesh. Some use only primitive weapons, such as stones: others, more sophisticated, are equipped like warriors, wearing armour and using weapons of metal. Despite their uncouth appearance — and in addition to their great physical strength — many are also masters of sorcery, capable of overcoming their enemies by magic and afflicting them with nightmares.
History
The divs derive from a class of celestial Indian spirits (Deva) who abide in the devaloka. Not yet worthy of supreme paradise in the realm of Vishnu or Shiva, they live under the governance of the divine leader Indra in the lower heavens (Svarga) and succeeded against the titans (Asura) in primordial times.
The pre-Zoroastrian Persians subsequently considered these divine or semi-divine beings demonic and heroized the titans as Ahura Mazda, the supreme God of Zorastrianism. In the Gathas, the oldest Zorastrian text, they are not yet evil, although the texts indicate that the devas should not be worshipped as gods.. In the Avesta, devas also appear as evil feminine spirits known as parī. The parī abide in the lower regions of the heavens beneath the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars, and may enchant men by their beauty and cause demonic possession.
By the time of the Islamic conquest, the divs were considered to be fully demonic beings, where the parī however, became associated with beauty and were considered as a class separate from the divs. In early Persian translations of the Quran, jinn were translated as parī, while evil spirits, such as shayāṭīn, Iblīs, ʿifrīt, and ṭāġūt were translated as div. Print edition: . The story of the demon-king Sakhr, alluded to in the Qur'an in Surah Ṣād 38:34 also appears in the Babylonian Talmud, where a dew called Asmodeus is the main antagonist of the prophet Solomon.A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts. (2019). Österreich: De Gruyter.Hamburger, Jacob. Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums: Talmud und Midrash. 1896. N.p., J. Hamburger, 1896. The association of div with evil spirits is also evident from their mentioning in Aramaic incantation bowls, such as shedim (demi-gods), ruḥot (spirits), mazzikin ("harmers"), and "satans" (accuser angels).Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period. (2017). Niederlande: Brill.p. 115Ronis, S. (2022). Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia. USA: University of California Press. p. 26
While in the pre-Islamic Turkish world, divs — primordial giants — were associated with Erlik Khan (Lord of the underworld), in modern stories they also appear as benign creatures and guardians of natural assets.SHADKAM, Zubaida, and Selenay KOŞUMCU. "KİTÂB-I RÜSTEMNÂME-İ TÜRKÎ'DE DEV MOTİFLERİ ÜZERİNE BİR DEĞERLENDİRME." Milli Folklor 35.137 (2023). Galimyan Gilmanov (2000) drawing from Tatar folklore, reinvents the story of a girl encountering a div in the forest. The div is the owner and guardian of a sacred grove in the forest and grants the girl a wish in exchange for her comb.Nureeva, G. I. ., Mingazova, L. I. ., Khabutdinova, M. ?ukhametsyanovna ., & Sayfulina, F. S. . (2022). The Personality of Children's Dramaturgy by Galimjan Gyilmanov. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 9, 2353–2359. https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2020.09.284
Islamic world
Qiṣaṣ
Since the divs are of Indo-Persian origin, they are not mentioned in the Qur'an nor the hadith directly. Still, Muslims adopted the concept of an evil spirit and integrated it into their Qur'anic worldview. According to modern Shias, divs will be judged by God and receive either reward or punishment, as do jinn and humans. Abu Ali Bal'ami's redition of Tarikh al-Tabari states that the divs were created before humans and jinn. They were physical giants or titans of primordial times, but vanished after the great flood. The notion that the world has been inhabited by various beings prior to the creation of mankind is not unique to Bal'ami, but already attested in the Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī and attributed to the companions of the prophet (Sahaba).
The notion that divs have been created by God before humans, jinn, and angels is also attested during the Ottoman period. According to the Süleymanname, God created the divs from the fires of the stars, wind, and smoke; some of them have wings and can fly while others have the ability to move very fast.ÇAKIN, Mehmet Burak. "SÜLEYMÂN-NÂME’DE MİTOLOJİK BİR UNSUR OLARAK DÎVLER." Turkish Studies-Language and Literature 14.3 (2019): 1137-1158. They copulated and once the world was overpopulated with demons, they began to kill another, whereupon angels descent from heaven and kill a large portion of divs.
In another story of yet unknown origin, after the attack of the angels, the divs dwelled in Mount Qaf under the governance of Ahriman, a devil adopted from the Manichaens. Satan and his angels, who previously attacked the divs, reside in hell after they fell from God's grace. Due to their evil nature, the divs are a constant source of suffering for both themselves and others. Rumi relates the very existence of the divs to the problem of evil and explains that the presence of divs proves God's omnipotence, for a powerful artist is able to not only create goodness but also the ugly and reprehensible.
Thus, the divs occupy a place associated with the demonic in Islamic hagiography. As such, the divs were reimagined as various evil spirits already mentioned in Islamic scripture, such as shayṭān,ʿifrīt, and ṭāġūt. In Islamic Persian literature demons are not referred to by their Arabic names only but frequently explicitly called div.
Philosophy and Mysticism
Despite the foreign origin, the Persian authors closely follow established Islamic cosmological, ethical, and spiritual frameworks. As in the case of the Persian poet Sanai, he describes the same spiritual path from the world of matter to the realm of the divine as found in Islamic philosophy (falsafa) and mystical literature.Johnson, Kathryn V. "A Mystic's Response to the Claims of Philosophy: Abū'l Majd Majdūd Sanā'ī's Sayr Al-'Ibād Ilā'l-Ma'ād." Islamic studies 34.3 (1995): 253-295. While for the famous Muslim philosopher Avicenna, the material world is simply matter, Sanai poetically describes the material world as a valley inhabited by divs, who symbolize envy, greed, and malice prevailing on Earth.
Due to their association with the material world and the demonic, the divs frequently appear throughout Persian adab literature for personifications of vices, which represent the al-nafs al-ammarah in orthodox Sufism. These teachings are then combined with Qur'anic teachings about the self and the escape from the dominion of the material world. Usually the Qur'anic story of the Prophet Solomon enslaving demons is viewed as the macrocosmic event of the microcosmis struggle of the spiritual self against the lower carnal desires of the div.
Attar of Nishapur writes: "If you bind the div, you will set out for the royal pavilion with Solomon" and "You have no command over your self's kingdom [body and mind], for in your case the div is in the place of Solomon".
In the Haft Peykar by Nizami Ganjavi (c. 1141 – 1209), the fictional wayfarer Māhān (the "moonlike one") travels through a demon-infested desert and meets a beautiful parī (fairy) at an oasis. Overcome by lust and passion, he unlawfully engages with the girl, whereupon she turns into a dēw, formed from God's wrath. Māhān is saved by the crowing of the rooster at dawn, before the demon could end his life.Nünlist, Tobias (2015). Dämonenglaube im Islam [Daemonic Belief in Islam] (in German). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-110-33168-4. pp. 235-239Brend, Barbara. "Figurative Art in Medieval Islam and the Riddle of Bihzād of Herāt (1465–1535). By Michael Barry. pp. 408. Paris, Flammarion, 2004." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 17.1 (2007): 64-68. pp. 361-363 The div is formed through the consequences of Māhān's moral transgression and thus, represents a moral guardian and device of temptation.
The Kulliyati Chahar Kitab reads as follows to explain the effect of divs (demons) on the human soul: "The desire to give up nafs is weak, the worship of God will weaken nafs.... Anyone who gives up hedonism, he will overcome the oppressive nafs.... If one behaved according to his carnal desire, how could one make jihad [struggle] with nafs. ... The killing of nafs may not be possible except by means of the use of the dagger of silence, the sword of hunger, or the spear of solitude and humility.... If you want to kill the div [demon] of nafs, you must stay away from the haram [forbidden].... If you are a slave of your sexual desire, even if you think you are free, you are a prisoner.
Shahnameh In the epic poem Shahnameh, written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE, the div had become associated with the lands of Mazandaran of legend (which is not to be identified with the Iranian province of Mazandaran). It has thus been speculated that the term div referred to generally evil characters, including both demonic beings as well as evil humans.Vol. VII, Fasc. 4, pp. 428-431
While some div appear as supernatural sorcerers, many div appear to be clearly demonized humans, including black people, attributed with supernatural strength, but no supernatural bodily features. Some people continued to worship div in their rituals during the early Islamic period, known as "Daevayasna", although probably out of fear. People of Mazdaran might have been associated with such worship and therefore equated with these entities. Despite many div that appear human in nature, there are also clearly supernatural div, like the white div, who is said to be as huge as a mountain.
The poem begins with the kings of the Pishdadian dynasty. They defeat and subjugate the demonic divs. Tahmuras commanded the divs and became known as dīvband (binder of demons). Jamshid, the fourth king of the world, ruled over both angels and divs, and served as a high priest of Ahura Mazda