The jin are the invisible spirits of the Muslim Tats, of the Islamic order of beings made from smokeless fire but thoroughly woven into local folk belief. They gather at thresholds, bathhouses, mills, cemeteries, springs, and rubbish heaps, and are most active after nightfall. Treading on a jin, spilling hot water into their haunts, or fouling their places brings sickness, paralysis, or madness, and a person so struck is said to be jin-touched. They may appear as animals — a cat, a dog, a goat — or as a human stranger, and are driven off by the name of God, by iron, and by salt.