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A marid ( ) is a type of devil ( shayṭān) in tradition. The Arabic word, meaning "rebellious," is applied to such supernatural beings. As a substantive it refers to a Chthonic deities demon not much dissimilar to the Ifrit.
Hans Wehr's A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic defines marid as a "demon" or "giant." The term is directly mentioned once in the Quran in Surat As-Saaffat (Q37:7). They are also identified with the Persian devan.Corbin, H. (2014). Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. USA: Princeton University Press. p. 355
The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic lists secondary meanings of mārid as "demon" and "giant" (). Edward Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon cites a classical source describing the term as "applied to an evil jinnī of the most powerful class," though this distinction is not universally accepted. For example, the MacNaghten edition of One Thousand and One Nights uses marid and ifrit interchangeably (e.g., in The Story of the Fisherman).
A debated theory by historian Konstantin Jireček believed that mārid refers to the , referring to marauder mercenaries during the Arab–Byzantine wars, who were eponymously linked to the Albanian tribe of Mirdita.
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A narration attributed to Ali, recorded by Ali ibn Ibrahim al-Qummi, states that when God resolved to create Adam, he punished humanity's predecessors by obliterating the nasnas (half-formed beings), erecting a veil between jinn and humans, and confined the "rebellious giants" (Arabic: مَارِدَة, romanized: māridah) to the atmosphere. According to the Maliki school Atharism scholar Ibn 'Abd al-Barr in his work Al-Tamhîd, the mārid is a demonic entity more malevolent than ordinary shayṭān (devils) but less powerful than an ʿifrīt. Al-Jahiz defines a spirit as an angel if it is entirely good, as a shayṭān if it is wicked, and as a mārid
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The mārid appears prominently in the Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan, a pre-Islamic epic. In the narrative, King Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan orders a mārid to lead him to King Solomon's treasure. True to its rebellious nature, the mārid deliberately disobeys. Sayf later learns from the prophet Khidr that he must command the opposite of his true intent to manipulate the mārid.Tobias Nünlist Dämonenglaube im Islam Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2015 p. 100 (German)
A study on Muslim beliefs in Egypt notes that, according to tradition, humanity's survival depends on divine restraint of demons; if unchained, mārid would annihilate humankind.Sengers, Gerda. Women and Demons: Cultic Healing in Islamic Egypt. Vol. 86. Brill, 2003.
Though mārid and ʿifrīt are both classified as powerful devils, they differ in disposition. While the ʿifrīt is characterized as cunning, treacherous, and deceitful, the mārid is portrayed as less intellectually adept and susceptible to manipulation by humans.Fartacek, G. (2010). Unheil durch Dämonen? Geschichten und Diskurse über das Wirken der Ǧinn; eine sozialanthropologische Spurensuche in Syrien. Österreich: Böhlau. p. 68
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