Demons

In Gibreel Farishta’s angelic vision of London, Demons take the forms of bat-winged imps and wormlike goblins embedded in the city’s architecture. Their appearances make the city’s concealed corruption tangible and signal the adversarial presence he believes surrounds him.

Forms and Setting

The imps sit on the corners of buildings made of deceit. Goblins ooze through broken tilework in public urinals for men, emerging from damaged, neglected surfaces rather than from a separate supernatural realm. The scene gives these creatures distinct forms and locations: winged figures perched above the street, and smaller beings moving through its fissures.

Seen Through an Angel’s Eyes

The creatures appear as Gibreel roams a London whose streets and buildings have taken on unstable, emotionally charged qualities. His angelic sight reveals essences beneath surfaces, including spiritual decay and generosity; the imps and goblins belong to this newly visible supernatural landscape. The passage compares his open-eyed detection of demons to the thirteenth-century German monk Richalmus, who was said to see tiny demons surrounding every person when he closed his eyes. For Gibreel, however, the adversarial presence is visible in daylight and moonlight alike, and he identifies it with the old word shaitan.