It looks like something out of one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels, but it’s real. The city of Gedi is in ruins today and is being slowly swallowed by the surrounding Kenyan jungle. Gedi was a thriving trade point originally settled in the 11th Century AD and had a population of up to 2500 inhabitants, archaeologists believe. Around a century or so after the first settlers moved in, the citizenry of Gedi converted to Islam. Is this the reason that today its ruins are regarded as being haunted by DJINN?
A Djinn is a demon in the Islamic religion, a being created of fire. They can shapeshift and, while some are neutral and some are even benevolent towards human beings, most are hostile and in league with Shaitan, the Islamic name for the Devil. Local people who live around Gedi today fear to go there at night. Some won’t even go there during the day.
No one knows why Gedi was abandoned in the 1600s. One prominent theory is that the city was beset by the Zimba people, who were notorious for being cannibals. Might Gedi, then, be haunted today not by Djinn but by the ghosts of cannibal invaders? Heck, why not both!