Written in 2024
Ifrit is an interesting character / being. I first came into contact with him (it?) during my playthrough of Final Fantasy VII, where this fiery chap was one of the first summons I got. He was presented with huge horns and dealt quite significant damage to enemies.
Final Fantasy VII was the first main series game I played (as it was the first one to be natively released in Europe), but I eventually wanted to replay the other Final Fantasies. And as time progressed, I played more and more Final Fantasy games, and almost all of the contained this fiery summon, who always was able to deal fire damage to groups of enemies.
How surprised I was, when I finally played my first "Tales of" game (Symphonia) in 2005, and Ifrit appeared here too - and again, as a fiery spirit that could be summoned and deal fire damage.
And indeed - both games use the same islamic mythology as their basis. Ifrit (عفريت) is but one of the Afarit (عفاريت), who are fire demons said to reside in the underworld, usually with horns, claws of hooves. They are also said to affect humans' lifes both in good and bad ways.
Ifrit is named as a djinn in the Quran as well as in lots of stories. An Ifrit was said to intercept a prayer by Muhammad, and another one was said to block the Ascension of said prophet. In the stories of 1001 night, it was said that those Afarit, who wouldn't believe in god were put into a sealed jar that had the name of god written on it.
In Islamic folklore, Afarit were said to represent demons for every day of the week and are responsible for maintaining the Earth - not unlike arch angels in Christian stories. In Egypt, Ifrit is known to be a spirit of death, who wanders around cemeteries or places where they lived. Although not every person was said to produce an Ifrit after death - only those with a violent or untimely demise.
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1999 - 2024 Florian Auer. Contents written by me CC-BY-SA 4.0. Details: Copyright / Impressum. Version 13.3
