More Than a Name: Why I Turned Off 'Genie, Make a Wish' After 10 Minutes

I can't even begin to describe my excitement when the news broke. Kim Woo Bin and Bae Suzy, two of my absolute favourite actors, were reuniting on screen for a new fantasy romance drama, "Genie, Make a Wish". Their chemistry in "Uncontrollably Fond" was electric, and the thought of seeing them together again in what promised to be a major production had me anticipating their upcoming drama.

Unfortunately, that excitement lasted for exactly four minutes.

At the four-minute mark, the drama introduces the backstory of our male lead, played by the charismatic Kim Woo Bin. We learn his name is "Iblis." For a non-Muslim viewer, this name might sound exotic or mystical. For me, a siren went off in my head. It was a name I knew all too well, and not from a place of fantasy or romance.

To understand my shock, you need to understand who Iblis is in Islam. Iblis is the personal name of the being known as Shaytan, or Satan. He is not a fallen angel, a misunderstood anti-hero, or a tragic figure. In Islamic theology, he is the definitive embodiment of evil, arrogance, and deceit.

The backstory presented in the drama felt shockingly aligned with the Islamic narrative. In Islam, when God (Allah SWT) created the first man, Adam, He commanded all the angels and Iblis (who was a Jinn, a being created from smokeless fire) to bow down to him. The angels obeyed, but Iblis, consumed by pride and arrogance, refused. He argued that he, made of fire, was superior to Adam, who was made of clay.

For this act of supreme disobedience, he was cursed by Allah SWT and cast out of Paradise. Before his eternal damnation, Iblis made a vow: he would dedicate his existence until the Day of Judgement to misleading mankind, whispering temptations, and leading them astray from the path of righteousness. He is, in our faith, the sworn enemy of humanity.

Now, imagine my disbelief watching a drama not only use his name but also mirror his origin story, only to position him as a romantic lead. The narrative seemed poised to ask viewers to sympathise with, root for, and ultimately romanticise a figure who, for over 1.4 billion Muslims, represents the ultimate source of evil and temptation.

Hearing Kim Woo Bin, an actor I like, introduce himself with the line, "My name is Iblis," felt profoundly wrong. It was jarring. Every time his name was spoken, it pulled me out of the story and reminded me of the sacred context that was being, in my view, trivialised for a romantic plotline. The idea is to make the audience fall in love with a character who is, by name and by story, the equivalent of Satan in my religion.

This isn't a matter of creative freedom being applied to a generic myth. This is taking a central figure of evil from a major world religion and reframing him as a love interest. To me, it felt incredibly disrespectful and insulting. It's a fundamental misunderstanding, or worse, a dismissal, of what that name and story signify to Muslims.

I hope this article helps explain to you why many Muslims will find this drama insulting. No matter how the storyline develops afterward, for me, the first four minutes were already a complete turn-off. I couldn't "unknow" the religious significance, and I couldn't bring myself to support a narrative that felt so deeply tone-deaf and offensive to my faith. The line was crossed, and the magic of the K-Drama world was, for this show at least, completely broken.