The remnant of medieval Christian perspectives on Prophet Muhammad
A critical evaluation of William Muir’s epileptic theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33102/uij.vol37no01.605Keywords:
Remnant, Medieval Christian, Prophet Muhammad, William MuirAbstract
The rise and growth of Islam have been perceived as a major threat to Christianity. Because of its great growth, Christians became very discouraged. This prompted them to look for any and all means to eradicate it. During the medieval period, Islam faced many intellectual and military attacks. One of the methods used is to create false theories that portray the Prophethood of Muhammad (saw) negatively. The most preposterous theory was the “epileptic theory” that sought to accuse him of epilepsy. Despite numerous attempts by Muslim scholars and some less biased Christian scholars to remove this idea from the scene, it still has relevance even in the writings of some of the most learned contemporary Christian scholars. In light of the fact that William Muir is one of the most knowledgeable and Contemporary Christian scholars, this study makes an effort to analyze and evaluate his views on this theory. In order to accomplish this, analytical, comparative and evaluative approaches were used in this process. According to the findings of the investigation, Muir’s claim that the Prophet (saw) suffered from epilepsy was not grounded in reality. If it is claimed that the experiences of the Prophet (saw) were attributed to epilepsy, it follows that the prophets of the Bible would be subject to the same accusation as well, as they shared similar physical experiences with the Prophet (saw).
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