{{Short description|Arabic folklore}} '''Hatif''' ({{Langx|ar|هَاتِف|lit=calling, shouting|}}) is a voice that can be heard without one discovering the body that made it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kilito |first=Abdelfattah |author-link=Abdelfattah Kilito |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Arabs_and_the_Art_of_Storytelling/zujqBQAAQBAJ?hl=en |title=Arabs and the Art of Storytelling: A Strange Familiarity |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-8156-5286-1 |page=92 |language=en |author-mask=Abdelfattah Kilito}}</ref>
Al-Jahiz wrote that the Bedouin believed that important messages could be transmitted without a visible medium. The receiver would hear the message in realtime without seeing the speaker. Al-Masudi focused on the psychological backgrounds of this phenomenon, and explained the ''hatif'' as a hallucination caused by loneliness.<ref>Tobias Nünlist ''Dämonenglaube im Islam'' Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2015 {{ISBN|978-3-110-33168-4}} p. 327 (German)</ref> However, according to al-Jahiz, belief in ''hatif'' was so widespread among the Bedouin, they were perplexed if people doubted their existence.<ref>Tobias Nünlist ''Dämonenglaube im Islam'' Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2015 {{ISBN|978-3-110-33168-4}} p. 327(German)</ref>
Such ''hatif'' was also attributed to jinn by pre-Islamic Arabs. This way, they talk to humans or avenge murder on a fellow jinn by driving the murderer insane.<ref>Amira El Zein: ''The Evolution of the Concept of Jinn from Pre-Islam to Islam''. p. 113</ref>
''Hatif'' doesn't necessarily come from humans or jinn, but also from ghosts, dwelling near graves to remind humans of their mortality or announce their death.<ref>Werner Diem, Marco Schöller ''The Living and the Dead in Islam: Epitaphs as texts'' Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004 {{ISBN|9783447050838}} p. 158</ref>
In modern Arabic, the term ''hatif'' is also used for a telephone, due to invisible communication.
== See also ==
* List of ghosts in Middle East folklore
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Arabian legendary creatures Category:Jinn Category:Ghosts
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