(Islam) an invisible spirit mentioned in the Koran and believed by Muslims to inhabit the earth and influence mankind by appearing in the form of humans or animals
He's a genie offering a bottle with a flying carpet tossed in.
But in 1802 Chateaubriand had published his epoch-making Genie du Christianisme, in which he declared that of all religions Christianity was " the most poetical, the most human, the most favourable to freedom, art and letters."
Sure enough, out pops a genie with an attitude.
He received his training as an engineer at Mezieres, becoming an officer of the Corps de Genie in 1773 and a captain ten years later.
In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature at Lyons, where he began the brilliant course of lectures afterwards embodied in the Two years later he was transferred to the College de France, and the Genie des religions itself appeared (1842) .