[Assam] “WE WILL REMOVE THIS SITE IF PROVEN WRONG”: Series of logical articles from THE site posted here to prepare for the challenge, as some people in Assam even using loud speakers to spread their message without a challenge. Article 15: Jinns Haunting

[Bartta Bistar]

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/Jinns_that_haunted_mo.htm Jinns
that Haunted the Prophet's mind


 ------------------------------

Like children who can easily believe in monsters, elves and fairies,
primitive men believed in shadowy creatures. Muhammad's belief in Jinns is
an indication of the influence that his society had on his impressionable
mind. He saw Jinns and angels everywhere.

When I was 10 years old I too saw a Jinn. One summer day I accompanied my
family for a picnic to a shore of a river that ran through a beautiful and
almost enchanted forest, not so far from our home.  I swam in the river,
played carelessly and ran around like any active 10-year-old boy would do.
Then suddenly I saw the profile of a boy hiding behind a bush. He was about
10 meters away from where I was standing. I wondered what this boy is doing
there and why is he hiding! So I quietly sat down behind a bush watching
him.  After a minute or two, without him turning his head, his profile
slowly changed and now he was staring right into my eyes. This was quite
strange but I did not allow fear to overcome me as I saw he was a boy just
about my age. Without making any move I kept looking at him. Our eyes where
locked. We gazed at each other without either one of us blinking. Then
gradually I noticed that the boy's face changed again, this time into a big
cat's face grinning; a huge grin just like the cat that Alice saw in the
Wonderland. At that time I was terrorized, I felt a chill going up my spine,
my hair stood still and cold sweat oozed out of my forehead. I ran towards
my mother shouting: "Mama there is a Jinn there. I saw it. I saw the Jinn"…
My mother calmed me down and assured me that there is no such thing as Jinn.
Then she walked with me to the place where I had seen the Jinn, for a close
inspection. Nothing was changed. I saw some branches and some leaves. That
is all there was. From a distance, they seemed something else. It was all
the product of my childish imagination. My impressionable naïve mind had
fabricated a whole show of fantasies and played it so masterfully in vivid
colors that to me seemed real.

As I grow and my mind developed my left-brain became more dominant. I
started to think, rationalize, reason, and gave up imaginings and
daydreaming.

The humanity as a whole can be likened to a single individual that composes
it. It has passed and evolved from the stages of infancy, childhood,
puberty, and adolescence to adulthood and maturity. During the stage of our
childhood, we were prone to imaginations. In our collective sub-conscience,
we experienced the fantastic and the surreal.  We saw fairies, we believed
in magic, we invented mythical beings and we became fascinated with tales of
miracles. Every culture developed its own version of myths and legends. This
kept our imagination alive and allowed us to dream. This process was
important and perhaps necessary for our mental development as are fairy
tales, for the mental development of children! It is very much possible,
that many adult individuals, of primitive and naïve societies, actually
experienced encounters with fairies, jinns and demons. Some thought that
they saw God or his angel Gabriel coming down on them with a mission to save
the world from disbelief and God's wrath, while others were petrified by the
sight of the angel of death, jinns and demons.

Muhammad saw those Jinns and demons quiet often as is clear from the
following hadithes

 Sahih Muslim Book 004, Number
1106<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/004.smt.html#004.1106>

*Abu Darda' reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) stood up (to
pray) and we heard him say:" I seek refuge in Allah from thee." Then said:"
curse thee with Allah's curse" three times, then he stretched out his hand
as though he was taking hold of something. When he finished the prayer, we
said: Messenger of Allah, we heard you say something during the prayer which
we have not heard you say before, and we saw you stretch out your hand. He
replied: Allah's enemy Iblis came with a flame of fire to put it in my face,
so I said three times:" I Seek refuge in Allah from thee." Then I said three
times:" I curse thee with Allah's full curse." But he did not retreat (on
any one of these) three occasions. Thereafter I meant to seize him. I swear
by Allah that had it not been for the supplication of my brother Sulaiman he
would have been bound, and made an object of sport for the children of
Medina.*

By "my brother Sulaiman" Muhammad is alluding to King Solomon, who
apparently was also there without being seen by anyone else except him.
However, it is not clear why "his brother" Sulaiman is taking the side of
the Satan and does not allow Muhammad to catch him and make him the "object
of sport" of the children of Medina!

The Arabs of the seventh century were a superstitious folk but even to them
Muhammad was an extreme case and they thought that he was crazy or
possessed, which the Prophet, on behalf of his imaginary Allah makes sure to
deny.

*81: 22-25 <http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/081.qmt.html#081.022>*, "No,
your compatriot [Muhammad] is not mad. He saw him [Gabriel] on the clear
horizon. He does not grudge the secrets of the unseen, nor is this the
utterance of an accursed devil."

 *69: 41-42 <http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/069.qmt.html#069.041>*, "It
[the Quran] is no poet's speech: scant is your faith! It is no soothsayer's
divination: how little you reflect! It is revelation from the Lord of the
Universe.

The reason the Prophet denies being a soothsayer and that the Quran is
revealed to him by the jinns, is because he was of the opinion that the *"The
angels descend, the clouds and mention this or that matter decreed in the
Heaven. The devils listen stealthily to such a matter, come down to inspire
the soothsayers with it, and the latter would add to it one-hundred lies of
their own." Volume 4, Book 54, Number
432:<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/054.sbt.html#004.054.432>
*

In the above verses Muhammad is reassuring that it was not the devil but the
Gabriel that brought to him the message. Of course if Muhammad was insane,
he could not possibly have known it and his testimony is of little value.
But whether it was Devil or the angel Gabriel that Muhammad saw, does it
really make any difference? Do really jinns, devil and angels exist?

W.M. Watt in his translation of Ibn Ishaq' biography of Muhammad (p. 36)
quotes the following strange story told by Muhammad which makes one wonder
of his state of mind.

"...two men in white clothes came to me with a golden basin full of snow.
They took me and split open my body, then they took my heart and split it
open and took out from it a black clot which they flung away. Then they
washed my heart and my body with that snow until they made them pure."

The Prophet's mental condition was a matter of concern since his childhood,
which  deeply disturbed his wet nurse who returned Muhammad to his mother.
Here is the story told by her, related in Guillaume's translation of Ibn
Ishaq, page 72:

"His [Muhammad's friend's] father said to me, "I am afraid that this child
has had a stroke, so take him back to his family before the result appears.
..... She [Muhammad's mother] asked me what happened and gave me no peace
until I told her. When she asked if I feared a demon had possessed him, I
replied that I did."

It is normal for children to see monsters under their beds, and have secret
imaginary friends. but Muhammad's case must have been exceptionally
worrisome and extremely weird to alarm  his own mother and to bring up the
possibility of her son being possessed by demon. The fact that his wet nurse
also believed so is proof that he was mentally unstable from the childhood.


For the primitive people all those who were mentally sick were "demon
possessed". Today most of the cases of "demon possessions" are treated and
contained by medications. It is not illogical to think that if Prozac was
invented 1400 years ago, the world would have been spared of Islam and
millions of lives would have not been sacrificed at that Altar of
Allah.

A few years ago I traveled in the heart of the Amazon Jungle and came to
know few indigenous tribes who practically, lived in the Stone Age. One of
these tribes is the Shuars, who populate the Amazon Jungles of the Southern
Ecuador and Northern Peru. Until not long ago they were head-shirkers. I
expended some time with them and learned about their rituals and their
beliefs. Although the missionaries have converted many of them to
Christianity, still deep inside the Jungle, they believe in and practice
their old animistic religions. These people see spirits and demons in every
corner of the Jungle. Much like the primitive Arabs who saw jinns populating
the landscape. Unlike the religious man who in order to avoid the "mistake"
of Saint Thomas, take pride in believing without seeing, these people
actually see the spirits and have first hand experience with the object of
their belief.  In an intoxicating ritual they claim to cross the realm of
the living and enter into the domain of the dead, where they can interrogate
their ancestors, intercede the powerful spirits that dominate their lives,
peep into the mysteries of the occult, acquire supernatural strength and
defy death.

In our path to maturity, we the humanity, go through the same stages of
evolution that every man and woman goes through, in his or her process of
growth. Those who see jinns and demons, are not necessarily lying, they are
simply in the primitive stages of their mental evolution. But when they grow
up intellectually, they give up the belief in personal deities, demons and
other shadowy figures just as a child would stop believing in Santa Clause
when he matures.

However, even in civilized nations there is no shortage of grown up people
who are mentally in the stage of childhood. Some believe being abducted by
the extraterrestrials. Some believe to BE extraterrestrials! Some believe
that a God has created this universe in 6 days; some say it is 6 "stages" of
evolution. Some believe in a tyrannical god who is so desperately in need of
being worshiped that would burn eternally those who fail to prostrate in
front of him in a cosmic rotisserie. And yet others believe that the creator
of this universe is actually incapable to communicate with his creation
except through illiterate lunatics. In other words it is not enough to be an
adult to think like an adult. We will have a mature society when the
majority of its individuals think maturely. That can only happen when people
stop believing in irrational and fairy tales.

There is no shame for Muhammad and his contemporaries to believe in Allah,
jinns and other mysterious and fantasy beings. All societies have gone
through that stage in the infantile phases of their intellectual evolution.
But it is quite embarrassing for grown up men and women who live at the
threshold of the third millennium, when the light of science has illumined
the minds of most of the people and yet believe in the fantasies of a
primitive man of 1400 years ago.

There are many verses of Quran and stories in the Hadith that speak of
Jinns.

* *Sahih Bukhari Volume 1, Book 12, Number
740<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/012.sbt.html#001.012.740>

*Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: *

*The Prophet set out with the intention of going to Suq 'Ukaz (market of
'Ukaz) along with some of his companions. At the same time, a barrier was
put between the devils and the news of heaven. Fire commenced to be thrown
at them. The Devils went to their people, who asked them, "What is wrong
with you?" They said, "A barrier has been placed between us and the news of
heaven. And fire has been thrown at us." They said, "The thing which has put
a barrier between you and the news of heaven must be something which has
happened recently. Go eastward and westward and see what has put a barrier
between you and the news of heaven." Those who went towards Tuhama came
across the Prophet at a place called Nakhla and it was on the way to Suq
'Ukaz and the Prophet was offering the Fajr prayer with his companions. When
they heard the Qur'an they listened to it and said, "By Allah, this is the
thing which has put a barrier between us and the news of heaven." They went
to their people and said, "O our people; verily we have heard a wonderful
recital (Qur'an) which shows the true path; we believed in it and would not
ascribe partners to our Lord." Allah revealed the following verses to his
Prophet (Sura 'Jinn') (72): "Say: It has been revealed to me." And what was
revealed to him was the conversation of the Jinns. *

Jinns to the Prophet were real beings. They were not allegorical or symbolic
as it is clear from the above Hadith. He even dedicated a Surah to them.
This is what the Surah Jinns reads.  I

*72:1-15 <http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/072.qmt.html#072.001>
 Say: It has been revealed to me that a company of Jinns listened (to the
Qur'an). They said, 'We have really heard a wonderful Recital!
 2) 'It gives guidance to the Right, and we have believed therein: we shall
not join (in worship) any (gods) with our Lord.
 3)  'And Exalted is the Majesty of our Lord: He has taken neither a wife
nor a son.
4) 'There were some foolish ones among us, who used to utter extravagant
lies against Allah;
5) 'But we do think that no man or spirit should say aught that untrue
against Allah. *

These Jinns were not imaginary fairs. To the Prophet they were very real
entities. Some even could go a live with them.* *

*6) 'True, there were persons among mankind who took shelter with persons
among the Jinns, but they increased them in folly.
7) 'And they (came to) think as ye thought, that Allah would not raise up
any one (to Judgment). *

The most amusing part of is when Jinns try to listen to the secret of the
heaven and they are chased away by "shooting stars" that are fired at them
as missiles of fire.

*8) 'And we pried into the secrets of heaven; but we found it filled with
stern guards and flaming fires.
9) 'We used, indeed, to sit there in (hidden) stations, to (steal) a
hearing; but any who listen now will find a flaming fire watching him in
ambush.
10) 'And we understand not whether ill is intended to those on earth, or
whether their Lord (really) intends to guide them to right conduct.
11) 'There are among us some that are righteous, and some the contrary: we
follow divergent paths.
12) 'But we think that we can by no means frustrate Allah throughout the
earth, nor can we frustrate Him by flight.*

Notice that some of the Jinns even became Muslims!

*13) 'And as for us, since we have listened to the Guidance, we have
accepted it: and any who believes in his Lord has no fear, either of a short
(account) or of any injustice.
14) 'Amongst us are some that submit their wills (to Allah), and some that
swerve from justice. Now those who submit their wills - they have sought out
(the path) of right conduct:
15) 'But those who swerve,- they are (but) fuel for Hell-fire'- *

As it is clear from the above, the Prophet used to think that some Jinns
believe in Allah and some don't and those who don't become fuel for
Hell-fire. Of course, it is not clear how they can become fuel since as he
explained; the Jinns are made of "fire". So probably they enjoy their
sojourn in the Hell. To become "fuel" they have to be made of carbonic
substance.

Some of the stories that the Prophet used to count for his followers are
extremely funny. Not that he had much sense of humor. In fact he hardly
laughed and covered his mouth whenever he could not help it. He told these
stories very seriously and precisely because of that, we find it so
laughable; like the following.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number
533<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/054.sbt.html#004.054.533>

*Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: *

*The Prophet said, "Cover your utensils and tie your water skins, and close
your doors and keep your children close to you at night, as the Jinns spread
out at such time and snatch things away. When you go to bed, put out your
lights, for the mischief-doer (i.e. the rat) may drag away the wick of the
candle and burn the dwellers of the house." Ata said, "The devils." (instead
of the Jinns).*

However the following takes the cake.

* *Sahih Bukhari Volume 5, Book 58, Number
200<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/058.sbt.html#005.058.200>

*Narrated Abu Huraira: *

*That once he was in the, company of the Prophet carrying a water pot for
his ablution and for cleaning his private parts. While he was following him
carrying it(i.e. the pot), the Prophet said, "Who is this?" He said, "I am
Abu Huraira." The Prophet said, "Bring me stones in order to clean my
private parts, and do not bring any bones or animal dung." Abu Huraira went
on narrating: So I brought some stones, carrying them in the corner of my
robe till I put them by his side and went away. When he finished, I walked
with him and asked, "What about the bone and the animal dung?" He said,
"They are of the food of Jinns. The delegate of Jinns of (the city of)
Nasibin came to me--and how nice those Jinns were--and asked me for the
remains of the human food. I invoked Allah for them that they would never
pass by a bone or animal dung but find food on them." *

During his last days at Mecca, the Prophet happened to be in Nakhla, a
valley between Taeif and Mecca. There, he went lost for a night and the next
day when he was found claimed to have passed the night in the company of a
crowd of Jinns pressing forward to hear his exhortations, and ardent to
embrace Islam. The story in described in Quran as follow:

*46:29-31 <http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/046.qmt.html#046.029>
 Behold, We turned towards thee a company of Jinns (quietly) listening to
the Qur'an: when they stood in the presence thereof, they said, "Listen in
silence!" 30-When the (reading) was finished, they returned to their people,
to warn (them of their sins).
 31-They said, "O our people! We have heard a Book revealed after Moses,
confirming what came before it: it guides (men) to the Truth and to a
Straight Path.
 "O our people, hearken to the one who invites (you) to Allah, and believe
in him: He will forgive you your faults, and deliver you from a Penalty
Grievous.*

There is also a Hadith that ratify that romantic encounter of the Apostle of
Allah with the Jinns

Sahih Muslim Book 004, Number
0903<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/008.smt.html#008.3327>

*Dawud reported from 'Amir who said: I asked 'Alqama if Ibn Mas'ud was
present with the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) on the night of
the Jinn (the night when the Holy Prophet met them). He (Ibn Mas'uad) said:
No, but we were in the company of the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon
him) one night and we missed him. We searched for him in the valleys and the
hills and said. He has either been taken away (by jinn) or has been secretly
killed. He (the narrator) said. We spent the worst night which people could
ever spend. When it was dawn we saw him coming from the side of Hiri'. He
(the narrator) reported. We said: Messenger of Allah, we missed you and
searched for you, but we could not find you and we spent the worst night
which people could ever spend. He (the Holy Prophet) said: There came to me
an inviter on behalf of the Jinn and I went along with him and recited to
them the Qur'an. He (the narrator) said: He then went along with us and
showed us their traces and traces of their embers. They (the Jinn) asked him
(the Holy Prophet) about their provision and he said: Every bone on which
the name of Allah is recited is your provision. The time it will fall in
your hand it would be covered with flesh, and the dung of (the camels) is
fodder for your animals. The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him)
said: Don't perform istinja with these (things) for these are the food of
your brothers (Jinn). *

One wonders how a sane person could see mythological creatures like Jinns?
But there are hadithes that cast the shadow of doubt on the mental sanity of
the Prophet. The Apostle of Allah was indeed delirious. This was admitted by
him and is reported in a hadithes that are considered by the majority of the
Muslims to by Sahih.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 53, Number
400<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/053.sbt.html#004.053.400>
*
Narrated Aisha:
Once the Prophet was bewitched so that he began to imagine that he had done
a thing which in fact he had not done.*

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number
490<http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/054.sbt.html#004.054.490>
*Narrated 'Aisha:
"Magic was worked on the Prophet so that he began to fancy that he was doing
a thing which he was not actually doing. One day he invoked (Allah) for a
long period and then said, "I feel that Allah has inspired me as how to cure
myself. Two persons came to me (in my dream) and sat, one by my head and the
other by my feet. One of them asked the other, "What is the ailment of this
man?" The other replied, 'He has been bewitched" The first asked, 'Who has
bewitched him?' The other replied, 'Lubaid bin Al-A'sam.' The first one
asked, 'What material has he used?' The other replied, 'A comb, the hair
gathered on it, and the outer skin of the pollen of the male date-palm.' The
first asked, 'Where is that?' The other replied, 'It is in the well of
Dharwan.' " So, the Prophet went out towards the well and then returned and
said to me on his return, "Its date-palms (the date-palms near the well) are
like the heads of the devils." I asked, "Did you take out those things with
which the magic was worked?" He said, "No, for I have been cured by Allah
and I am afraid that this action may spread evil amongst the people." Later
on the well was filled up with earth."*

Of course we know that no one can work a magic to make someone fancy that he
is doing things that he is not doing. No one has the power to bewitch
another person. These were the tales of primitive people who used to call
the mentally infirm and the sick possessed by demons. Having visions of
Jinns is hallucination and is a symptom of schizophrenia. It is no more a
secret that those who hear voices and feel that someone is directing their
lives are schizophrenic. Perhaps Muhammad did not lie when he rushed to
Khadija filled with terror claiming to have seen the Angel Gabriel. The
above Hadith sheds light on the state of the mind of the prophet. Could it
be that a billion people are following a mentally disturbed man? Could it be
that if the prophet appeared today we could have solved his problem with a
little bit of Prozac?

Well, Muhammad is dead and it is not easy to diagnose his mental health only
through his writings and teh tales of his life. Prescribing medications for
his is of no use either. But perhaps it's we who should take a dose of
rational thinking, end this madness and come to our own senses. All
indications make us suspet that the Prophet was a mentally disturbed, but
what can be said about us who in our sanity still follow a disturbed man?

By Ali Sina
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://assamnet.org/pipermail/assam_assamnet.org/attachments/20071026/9f23f349/attachment.html