This is the third installment of our series “The Epileptic Prophet’, Abdullah Gondal and I continued where we left off last time. In this series, we tackle the question of Prophet Muhammad’s neurological problems and possible epilepsy.

For this episode, we started off by giving a quick recap of the previous two episodes of this series. We went through Dr. Abbas’s explanation of Muhammad’s convulsions, some videos of contemporary epilepsy patients having convulsions and then we compared their symptoms to what is reported in the hadith corpus as Muhammad’s condition while receiving revelation. 

We also responded to Farid and his cousin’s ill-informed assertion that Muhammad did not experience secondary generalization. We presented various accounts(both from Islamic Scholars and secular scholars) that reported Muhammad as having secondary generalizations.

The conversation then moved on to more symptoms experienced by Muhammad while receiving revelation. These include severe trembling, teeth clattering/ grinding teeth, convulsions and fainting, snotting like a camel, headaches, and head twitching. We also discussed how Muhammad’s friends wrongly attributed these symptoms to the heaviness of the revelation. We also presented more footage of modern-day epilepsy patients having seizures and drew parallels between them and Muhammad.

This was such a heavily researched and detailed presentation, I hope you enjoy it. 

YouTube version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/fD4FyXSN96k

Part 1: https://youtu.be/WlO4nZUGVf4

Part 2: https://youtu.be/ZI16w6Sl3DE

Support the Two Abdullahs here: https://abdullahsameer.com/two-abdullahs

Timestamps:

0:00 Introductions and a quick recap of parts 1 & 2 of the series

1:34 Convulsions of Muhammad - Dr. Abbas explains seizures

4:40 ‘Burahaa’ of revelation / paroxysm

6:24 Generalized seizures - Epilepsy patients having seizures

11:15 Where are the secondary generalization? - Refuting Farid and cousin

16:56 Khasais -Al Kubra - Arabic V Urdu : heavy thigh?, severe convulsions.

21:20 Burhan Quran - fits of revelation

25:50 Comments from the chat 

28:46 How do we determine the authenticity of the hadith corpus?

31:40 Muhammad’s seizure symptoms/ convulsions and trembling during revelation (continued)

46:30 Abdullah Gondal’s thoughts on the evidence from the hadith and Islamic literature on Muhammad’s epilepsy.

48:55 Muhammad trembling while receiving revelation

58:00 Comments from the chat

1:06:50 Did Muhammad clatter his teeth? - responding to Farid and his cousin

1:15:08 Muhammad’s fainting problem - Music caused Muhammad to faint? Muhammad fainting during the revelation

1:23:27 Michael, an epilepsy patient, slept with his son’s wife.

1:27:03 Muhammad fainting and swooning while receiving revelation(continued)

1:33:05 Dr. Ali Sina explains camel incident

1:34:30 Muhammad’s fainting spells (continued).  Is it possible that Muhammad died from a stroke? - Dr. Abbas explains

1:41:18 Did Muhammad suffer from lethargy and fatigue after receiving revelations? - Response to Farid et al.

1:49:55 Revelation was a draining experience - explained by Dr. Yasir Qadhi.

1:51:22 Muhammad foaming and salivating during seizures.

1:56:36 headaches, head twitches, and head-turning

2:11:51 Patients experiencing seizures

2:19:30 What to expect in the upcoming episodes

2:20:52 Comments from the chat and final remarks.

List of Resources Used:

Muhammad’s beard trembling - Sahih Muslim 2104 a., The perfect guide to the science of the Quran p64, Tafsir Al Qurtubi, 

2. Muhammad clattering his teeth - Itqan Fil Quran, Itqan Fil Uloom Ul Quran - Suyuti, 

3. Clattering teeth + lethargy - Musnadi Aisha  (Ibn Saad), Asbab Ul Nuzul Wahidi

4. Was budding sound rhythm - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1528-1157.2002.48501.x

5. Was Muhammad grinding his teeth? - https://moh-it.pure.elsevier.