Stewart Culin states the name, meaning "game of the Jinn", is derived in part from the prophet Enoch, identified by Muslim scholars as Idris.[1]
The game is played on a cloth board with "a parti-colored diagram with four arms each having four rows of eight squares, each connected at the ends by a diagonal row of eight squares, the whole forming an octagonal figure." The central area of 16 squares is designated the serai.[1] Each player has three cowrie shells as pieces, one of which is designated the "chief" and the remaining two the "soldiers"; four more cowries are thrown to determine movement, but Culin did not describe how that was determined.[1]
