Robberies and murders are not acts that may be perpetrated by anyone. It necessitates extensive strategy, preparation, and execution. Gossiping or backbiting, on the other hand, is simple. It is something that everybody can do. It can be done without any thought, weapon, or strategy, anywhere and at any time. Even though the amount of work you put into it is probably negligible, it has the potential to break your friendships or ruin someone’s life. And that is just what Ghibah, a film set in 2021, explores.
Ghibah is the act of speaking ill of someone behind their back, which is frowned upon according to Islamic teachings. The plot of this 2021 Indonesian horror film centers around a group of college students who become possessed by the Ifrit Djinn as a result of their gossipy nature and are afflicted by dreadful hallucinations.
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The Story Of A Djinn Straight Out Of Nightmares
The movie opens with some college students sitting around a table and trying to come up with ideas for their college magazine. Arga is their chief editor while Fairly, Yola, Ulfa, and Reno are the other members. Their sixth member, Okta, had been on sick leave for over ten days. She was working on a story trying to expose a secret relationship between a college student and a professor, which Arga was against because he did not want the other girl’s reputation to get ruined.
Reno orders food for everyone without considering that Fairly is a vegetarian. When she leaves, Arga, who has a thing for her by the way, proposes that she join him in covering a story but she refuses as she has to take her father to the hospital.
Firly goes to Ulfa’s house, where Okta used to live as well. But, the house owners tell them that something is wrong with Okta and that she has been screaming. Firly goes to see her but finds Okta hiding in fear. She tells Firly that a woman has been haunting her everywhere. She asks Firly to take an envelope to Arga. This was the envelope with the story about the girl’s affair with her professor. When Firly asks Okta about it, she tells Firly not to mention that here.
The next day, Firly and Ulfa go to the mosque where people gossip about others during the Imam’s sermon, that too on the day of Eid. Just then, a white smoke enters the body of the gossip mongers through their mouths.
Firly goes back home and talks to her parents when Yola calls her and asks her to cover the story for her as she was sick. Firly denies it because she had to take her dad to the hospital but gives in after a ton of persuasion.
Firly goes to the mosque with Arga and Ulfa to cover a story about the goats being sacrificed but is terribly uncomfortable while doing so since she was a vegetarian. Ulfa shows her a photo Yola had just posted on social media where she was dressed up in a hotel room. Firly gets annoyed at Yola lying to her and begins to gossip about her when the smoke-like thing enters her body as well. She gets a bit dizzy when some of the blood from a goat that was being chopped gets splattered on her.
She goes to the washroom and cleans herself when she gets a terrifying vision where she rips her own skin apart. She realizes it is a vision and begins to hear some noises coming from the bathroom stalls. She goes to check it but finds nothing.
Meanwhile, Okta reads the namaaz in her room when the old lady who she had claimed was haunting her appears in front of her and possesses her. She goes out and causes trouble in the boarding house when Umi, one of the owners, realizes that something is wrong and her eyes turn white. She makes Okta unconscious and takes her to her room, which smelt like carcasses.
Umi is revealed to have powers that she is using for a long time. She interrogates Okta. Meanwhile, her husband Mang tells Dina that Umi is from the Mataram Dynasty, a clan that possesses powers gifted by the djinn. He tells her that though some djinns are good, others can be extremely malicious.
Umi asks Okta who she is when the Ifrriit djinn appears. Umi recites the duas but the djinn claims to be a lot more powerful than Umi. In the end, Umi is able to subdue the djinn after putting in a lot of effort.
At Firly’s place, she sees that her mother had a mild accident that wounded her. Firly gets mad at Yola for not letting her go and begins to talk about her behind her back, even though her parents ask her not to do so. She goes to check on Okta who was being taken away by her father due to her condition. Then, Umi sits her, Ulfa, and Dina down and asks them to pray frequently for their safety. However, she doesn’t tell them exactly what is going on.
The next day, Firly lashes out at Yola in the college corridors and reveals that she had spent the day of Eid in the hotel room with her boyfriend. Yola acts shocked as if she did not know what Firly was talking about but the damage is done and everyone begins to judge Yola for spending the day of Eid in the hotel room.
Yola goes to the meeting room and breaks down and defames Firly in front of Reno, trying to strain their bond. He gives Yola the story of the student and professor by Okta and as she reads it, the smoke enters her body.
During class, Firly begins to hear noises coming from somewhere. Her professor stops teaching and tells the class that gossiping about people, especially to harm them, is one of the biggest sins.
He accuses Firly of doing so and she leaves the class. She comes across Ulfa and Dina, who reveal that they had been calling her but Firly is as confused as she thought she was in class with them. She goes back to the class to get her phone and sees that the place has been abandoned and wrecked. She turns and finds Ulfa and Dina to be missing. When she looks at her phone, she sees the face of the Ifrit djinn and gets mortified.
She goes to the magazine room where Yola insists they publish the story about the professor and the student. As usual, Arga is against it, especially because the student had become pregnant and the publishing of the story would destroy her image. Arga suggests a new story where they go and inspect an illegal meat market in Indonesia, similar to the one in Wuhan that had caused the viral outbreak.
At night, Yola publishes the story of the student and the professor but writes Firly’s name in place of the student’s for revenge. Ulfa calls Firly to tell her about it but Firly pays no attention to it.
She sits down for dinner and finds it to taste exceptionally good when her parents point out that she was eating meat. She looks at her place and gets shocked. She begins to puke but she pukes out maggots and worms. Her mother tries to console her while she breaks down.
The next morning, she goes to the meat market with Arga where Firly gets disturbed by dogs being slaughtered. A man beats a dog to death and Firly begins to cry when she gets a vision of herself enjoying dog meat. She leaves.
The next day, her peers at college sneer at her but Firly is oblivious to the reason. Arga rushes to Yola to accuse her of what she did but to Yola, Arga seems to be offering her sausages. She takes them and eats them with joy but in reality, she was eating her own fingers. Arga wasn’t there at all. Firly sees this and gets even more scared and Yola is taken to the hospital.
Firly meets with Okta whose situation looks even worse than before. She confesses that her story about the professor and the student was true but she had changed a lot of the details to make it juicier. Out of fear, the girl had aborted her child, and ever since that, Okta was being haunted by the old lady. Meanwhile, Arga calls Firly and tells her that Yola has become possessed and escaped from the hospital.
Firly goes to Okta’s housing where Umi reveals that Okta, Firly, and Yola were being tormented by the Ifrit djinn, the world’s oldest djinn, due to their habit of talking about people behind their backs or Ghibah, which is considered to be a sin worse than murder.
Firly reads about the Ifrit djinn at home when the white smoke enters her body once again. She goes to the washroom where she sees black liquid smothering her and she finds herself at the illegal meat market once again. The djinn attacks by making its host hallucinate. Firley sees a woman with a distorted face and her mother locked in a cage. She tries to save her mother and gets her out of the cage but suddenly, her mother turns into the Ifrit djinn. She wakes up and realizes that it was a nightmare.
Her problems were far from over because just then, a possessed Yola appears in front of her and attacks her. Firly calls Arga and Reno but Yola tries to kill her. The others arrive and Yola wounds Reno but he manages to knock her out. The room gets flooded with smoke and Ifrit attacks Firly, taking her to its own world.
Umi asks everyone to pray and goes to Ifrit’s world to help Firly, where she is severely overpowered by the djinn. Ifrit tries to drown Firly in a lake and Umi’s prayers do not work until Firly starts to pray herself, which weakens the djinn. She awakens and is now absolved of the djinn’s curse.
The next day, Firly and Yola apologize to each other and Yola claims that the photo she had posted was an old photo. Firly, Dina, and Ulfa talk but hold their tongues due to being scared of the djinn but Mang tells them that as long as they pray, they have nothing to be afraid of. And the movie ends.
The director of the movie, Monty Tiwa, has a pretty strong portfolio when it comes to the music scores in his films and Ghibah holds the candle to that. This combined with the dimly lit scenes helps create the perfect somber atmosphere. Some minute details such as the world turning reddish during a vision or when Firly was being drowned in the lake does a perfect job at showing us how terrifying the Ifrit djinn’s domain is.
The film’s main focus is to impart its morals. According to Islamic teachings, Ghibah is gravely looked down upon, even more so than murders. In fact, it is compared to eating the carcass of one’s own brother. This is because at least with murder, one would require some weapons or prior planning but Ghibah can happen anywhere, anytime, and talking behind the backs of friends you should care for and causing them harm is a huge betrayal.
Some of its scenes have moments that aren’t right, such as the scene at the mosque during the Eid Al Adha prayer where the preacher would stop to ask questions, which is not something that happens during a lecture on Eid. Other than that, Ghibah does a great job at getting its point across via an interesting story.
The Ancient Djinn: What Is She Like?
The movie has only one antagonist and that is Ifrit Djinn. In the Islamic context, djinns are often believed to be evil spirits who may possess people and cause misfortunes in their lives. According to folklore, djinns come from a world different from the one we live in. There are varying stories about beliefs about why a person would get possessed by a djinn.
There are stories where djinns fall in love with beautiful humans and attach themselves to their spirits. Some djinns are considered to be invisible and tricksters. In this movie, the Ifrit djinn possesses people who backbite and gossip too much, which is considered to be a sin in Islam.
According to Islamic mythology, the Ifrit djinn is associated with the underworld and identified as a powerful demon who inhabits desolate places such as temples or ruins. In the movie, the Ifrit djinn possesses people when they gossip or commit Ghibah. In one of the scenes, it did cause a place to become ruined and desolate, like its preferred habitat in folklore, for example, the time when Umi tried to rid Okta of the jinn or when Firly went back to her class to get her phone but saw that the place had been torn apart and abandoned.
Whenever the smoke-like thing appeared, someone was gossiping. The first time it was seen was during the lecture at the mosque where the people were gossiping during a pious occasion. After that, it happened when Firly spoke ill of Yola with Ulfa. It happened again when Yola was reading the story about the student and the professor.
Another time it happened was when Firly was reading about the djinn, which meant that it did not like it when those who possessed the djinn tried to learn about it. It is unknown whether it would possess people who were not possessed and trying to learn about the jinn.
As the Ifrit djinn is believed to be older than the existence of humans, it appears as a very, very old woman. In the movie, it is shown to be very powerful, even against Umi who had been given her powers by benevolent jinns. However, it was vulnerable to prayers and duas. It was especially vulnerable when one of the bodies it had possessed offered duas, which is what we see towards the end when the prayers of Umi and Firly’s friends are not strong enough against the djinn but once Firly begins to pray, the djinn gets weaker. The host entering Ifrit djinn’s domain and praying might be the only way to get rid of the djinn as Umi’s prayers were only able to subdue it but did nothing to take it away from Okta.
The djinn feeds on the fears of its host and makes them have terrible dreams. It was aware of Firly being a vegetarian and not being able to withstand animals being slaughtered. That’s why it would show her visions of her eating dog meat, scraping her own skin off, puking out worms, and getting stuck in the illegal meat market. Meanwhile, the djinn would spend more time haunting Okta and it had turned Yola extremely aggressive with bloodlust, causing her to eat her own fingers and try to kill Firly.
One interesting thing would be how the djinn is considered to be evil but it also only possesses those committing the sin of Ghibah. Some could perceive it as punishment for a crime but of course, the visions the djinn showed them were far too harsh and almost destroyed their lives over some gossip.
It is also quite usual for people to indulge in some casual gossip but you could say that things get really bad when you talk ill about your friends and those who are close to you or do something that can cause them harm. For example, publishing the story about the girl would have ruined her reputation and Okta only got possessed after the other girl had to abort her child, while abortion is forbidden in Islam. So Okta causing someone to commit a forbidden act, made her a prime target for the djinn to possess because she is the main perpetrator of sin here.
At the end of the day, the djinn here is a malevolent entity that can be kept away with prayers, otherwise, there is no way to avoid misfortune.
Why Should You Watch Ghibah?
Ghibah might not have jump scares or be a scary movie per se but it is hoisted by a good storyline. In fact, several Muslim kids have grown up hearing stories of the djinn from their family members. So, to watch a movie about the Ifrit Djinn can be quite exciting.
For others, it can be great to dive into the lore and belief of another culture and learn more about it in the most exciting ways possible.
What did you think about this movie? Did you enjoy this video? If yes, don’t forget to like and comment on this video. Till then, goodbye. And have a nice one!