The hadith shed a lot of light into Muhammad’s sexual conduct.
Does TLE affect sexuality as well? If it does and if it can explain Muhammad’s sexual habits, then we have one more piece of evidence that he suffered from TLE. Neuroscientist Rhawn Joseph thinks it does. He writes:
A not uncommon characteristic of high levels of limbic system and inferior temporal lobe activity are changes in sexuality as well as a deepening of religious fervor. It is noteworthy that not just modern day evangelists, but many ancient religious leaders, including Abraham, Jacob and Muhammad, tended to be highly sexual and partook of many partners, or had sex with other men’s wives, or killed other men in order to steal their wives (Muhammad, King David)… Many of the prophets and other religious figures also displayed evidence of the Kluver-Bucy syndrome, such as eating dung (Ezekiel),[1] as well as temporal lobe, limbic hyper activation and epilepsy, coupled with hallucinations, catalepsy, insanity, or language disorders.
Whereas Moses suffered from a severe speech impediment, Muhammad, Allâh’s messenger, was apparently dyslexic and agraphic. [A cerebral disorder characterized by total or partial inability to write] Moreover, in order to receive the word of God, Muhammad would typically lose consciousness and enter into trance states (Armstrong 1994; Lings 1983). In fact, he had his first truly spiritual-religious conversion when he was torn from his sleep by the archangel Gabriel who enveloped him in a terrifying embrace so overpowering that Muhammad’s breath was squeezed from his lungs. After squeezing and suffocating him repeatedly Gabriel ordered Muhammad to speak the word of God, i.e. the Qur’an. This was the first of many such episodes with the archangel Gabriel who sometimes appeared to Muhammad in a titanic kaleidoscopic panoramic form.
In accordance with the voice of ‘God’ or his angels, Muhammad not only spoke but he began reciting and chanting various themes of God in a random order over the course of the following 23 years; an experience he found quite painful and wrenching (Armstrong 1994; Lings 1983). In addition to his religious zest, Muhammad was reported to have the sexual prowess of forty men, and to have bedded at least 9 wives and numerous concubines including even one young girl (Lings 1983). On one occasion, after being rebuffed, he went into a trance, and then claimed ‘God’ had commanded that another man’s wife become his wife.
He [Muhammad] was also known to fly into extreme rages and to kill (or at least order killed) infidels and merchants and those who opposed him. These behaviors when coupled with his increased sexuality, heightened religious fervor, trance states, mood swings, and possible auditory and visual hallucinations of a titanic angel, certainly point to the limbic system and inferior temporal lobe as the possible neurological foundation for these experiences. Indeed, Muhammad also suffered from horrible depressions and on one occasion sought to throw himself from a cliff – only to be stopped by the archangel Gabriel.[2]
It is a common belief that Muhammad had the sexual strength of several men. This belief is based on various hadith. One hadith is attributed to Salma, a maid of Muhammad who said: “One night all nine wives of the Prophet (pbuh) who were with him until his death (Muhammad had other wives whom he divorced) were in his presence.) The Prophet slept with all of them. When he finished with each one, he used to ask me to bring water so he could perform ablution. I asked, oh messenger of Allâh, isn’t one ablution enough? He responded this is better and cleaner.”[3]
However, my research has led me to conclude that the claim of Muhammad’s virility is hogwash, and that in fact in the last decade or two of his life he was actually impotent. Muhammad had an insatiable libido, which he tried to satisfy by fondling his wives and concubines, without being able to engage in complete intercourse.
Research in the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands suggests that endogenous opioids, the so-called feel-good chemicals produced by the brain, may increase sexual appetite and diminish sexual performance.[4] In another study, researchers observed higher opioid activity during the mania phase in unmediated bipolar patients.[5]
As a narcissist, Muhammad was subject to huge mood swings. Sometimes he was euphoric and full of energy while at other times he suffered from depression to the point of contemplating suicide. These findings explain why he had such a high libido yet, despite numerous young and fertile sexual partners, remained childless. This suggests he was unable to perform sexually.
However, there was a hole in my theory. If Muhammad was impotent in his later years, as I had come to believe, how could he father Ibrahim when he was already over sixty? Ibrahim was born to Mariyah a beautiful white Coptic slave girl with curly hairs, whom Muhammad’s other wives envied and disliked. I suspected that the child belonged to someone else, but had no evidence to support it. Then I found it.
I came across a story reported by Ibn Sa’d, who when talking about Mariyah says that there was a Coptic man in Medina (the person who accompanied her from Egypt to Medina) who used to visit Mariyah and rumor circulated that he was her lover.
After the brawl with his wives, Muhammad relocated Mariyah to a garden to the North of Medina. There he could visit her without being accosted by his wives. This situation provided ample opportunity for Mariyah’s lover to sneak in her house without being noticed. But someone must have seen him entering Mriyah’s house and the rumor reached Muhammad who sent Ali to kill the Coptic man. The story says that the man, upon seeing Ali coming towards him, immediately lifted up his garment and Ali saw that he had no genital (awrat) and spared his life.[6]
Apparently, this was a convenient alibi to silence the crowd. Also Aisha was accused of having an affair with Safwan a young man living in Medina. Later she claimed that Safwan was eunuch. This affair caused also a huge scandal which vexed Muhammad for over a month until Allah had to intervene and testify on behalf of Aisha. So how no one know that Safwan was a eunuch?
Tabari mentions this Coptic man:
The Messenger of God also had a eunuch called Mabur, who was presented to him by al-Muqawqis with two slave girls, one of them was called Mariyah, whom he took as a concubine, and the other [was called] Sirin, whom he gave to Hassan b. Thabit after Safwan b. al-Mu‘attal had committed an offense against him. Sirin gave birth to a son called ‘Abd al-Rahman b Hassan. Al-Muqawqis had sent this eunuch with the two slave girls in order to escort them and guard them on their way [to Medina]. He presented them to the Messenger of God when they arrived. It is said that he was the one [with whom] Mariyah was accused of [wrongdoing], and that the Messenger of God sent ‘Ali to kill him. When he saw ‘Ali and what he intended to do with him, he uncovered himself until it became evident to ‘Ali that he was completely castrated, not having anything left at all of what men [normally] have, so [Ali] refrained from killing him.[7]
The story is clearly forged. How could this Coptic man know why Ali wanted to kill him for him to show his male organ (or lack of it) as soon as he saw Ali? Ibn Sa’d, the author of Tabaqat says, he saw Ali with his sword in his hand and climbed a date tree with fear and from there he exposed his private parts (awrat). No conversation is exchanged. The man simply knew why Ali is coming towards him and that he wants to kill him. This does not sound a true story. Why would a messenger of God want to kill an innocent man and how did this man know why Ali wants to kill him? Looks like this Coptic man had a better understanding of the unknown than the prophet of Allah.
In another tradition Mabur is said to have been extremely old. This is also an attempt to confound the reader. Why would al-Muqawiqis send an old man as a gift or even to protect two young women during the long journey?
To further cover up this affair and the embarrassment that generally accompanied such stories—particularly in patriarchal male chauvinistic societies where honor-killing is still in vogue—Muhammad reportedly claimed that when Ibrahim was born, Angel Gabriel had given him the confirmation that he was the father by saluting him “Assalamo Alaikum ya aba Ibrahim,” (Peace to you o father of Ibrahim). This hadith may also be of a later-day forgery, fabricated to put an end to the rumors. Why the need for such confirmation? Was Muhammmad suspicious of his fatherhood and invented the story of Gabriel calling him aba Ibrahim to stop the gossip?
Despite the fact that Mariyah was the only woman who bore Muhammad a son when he was past sixty, and was probably more beautiful than his other wives, Muhammad did not marry her.
Ibn Sa’d narrates that when Ibrahim was born, Muhammad took him to Aisha and told her, “look how he looks like me.” Aisha responded, “I see no resemblance in him.” Muhammad said, “Don’t you see his white and chubby cheeks?” Aisha then responded, “All babies have chubby cheeks.”[8]
The claim that Muhammad had the sexual strength of forty men is a lie, said intentionally to cover up the fact that he was actually impotent. Muhammad had seven children by Khadijah, who was already forty when he married her. These children were conceived when he was between 25 to 35 years old. Yet, none of his young wives and concubines, who numbered more than twenty, bore him any child during the last ten years of his life.
“Erectile dysfunction with intact libido in men with epilepsy has been known to researchers since the 1950s,” says Henri Jean Pascal Gastaut, French neurologist (1915-1995).[9] And Pritchard postulates that hyperprolactinemia resulting from CP seizures contributes to male sexual dysfunction in epilepsy.[10] We read earlier that Muhammad imagined having sex when in reality he did not. There is also a hadith that shows he did not have intercourse with his wives but only “fondled” them. He would visit them, sometimes all of them in one night, engaging in foreplay but not in intercourse. Aisha is reported to have said, “None of you have the self-control of the Prophet for he could fondle his wives but not have intercourse”[11] Aisha was only a child. She probably did not know that her illustrious aging husband was not exercising self-control but simply could not do it. In another place she has said, “I never looked or saw the awrat (genitalia) of the Prophet.”[12] I leave this to the imagination of the reader to decide why.
All this talk about Muhammad being impotent is speculation, you could say, but here is one hadith that leaves no doubt about that fact. Ibn Sa’d quotes his teacher Waqidi, who said: “The prophet of Allâh used to say that I was among those who have little strength for intercourse. Then Allâh sent me a pot with cooked meat. After I ate from it, I found strength any time I wanted to do the work.”[13]
This is the confession from the mouth of the horse. It is up to you to decide whether to believe the fairy tale that Allâh was so concerned about his favorite prophet’s sexual vagaries that he sent him a pot of meat to cure his impotence, or to conclude that our megalomaniac male chauvinist prophet—like most Arabs, who consider sexual power the symbol of their manhood and constantly boast about it—was just gasconading and trying to hide his impotence. Can’t God cure people directly, through his own power? Why would he need a pot of meat? Meat of what animal has such a curing effect?
In another hadith Muhammad says, “Gabriel brought me a small pot of food. I ate from that food and gained the sexual strength of forty men.”[14]
This tale, like many other stories in the hadith, is fabricated to conceal the fact that Muhammad was sexually inept. A narcissist with such a monumental ego could not possibly be seen as impotent.
Many secrets of Muhammad’s life can be unveiled if one reads between the lines of his biography. Curiously, on the day that Ibrahim died, Muhammad went to the mosque and after praying delivered a sermon on, of all topics, adultery and the punishment awaiting adulterers. He exclaimed from the pulpit:
“O followers of Muhammad! By Allah! There is none who has more ghaira than Allah [read Muhammad] as He has forbidden that His slaves, male or female commit adultery (illegal sexual intercourse). O followers of Muhammad! By Allah! If you knew that which I know you would laugh little and weep much.”[15]
Ghaira is one’s sense of shame and his honor. One’s ghaira is offended when something or someone that is mahram (sacred) to him is violated. For example, if you touch a Muslim’s wife, sister or daughter, or if she flirts with you, his ghaira becomes injured. Consequently, he must retaliate in order to restore his honor. If he has a lot of ghaira, he may even kill you or kill his own female kin. Only then his honor can be restored. One who does not retaliate, is one who has no ghaira or sense shame.
Note that Muhammad is talking about Allah’s ghaira. If Allah does not have a female relative how can his ghaira become offended? It is not hard to see that Muhammad identified himself with Allah. He was talking about his own ghaira. He was suspicious of Mariyah and it is for her that he is delivering this fiery and completely inappropriate sermon about the chastisement of adulterers during her child’s funeral. Allah was his own alter ego. Then to add more emphasis he said:
“I have been shown the Hellfire (now) and I never saw a worse and horrible sight than the sight I have seen today.”[16]
In this sermon Muhammad talks about Allah having a lot of ghaira and then speaks of prohibition of adultery. He concludes by saying he knows of very sad things that others don’t know. Well, it took 1400 years, but I think we have finally discovered those “sad things.”
In the funeral of his only son, Muhammad does not speak about him. The man who thought it is unfair to say God has only daughters when men can boast with having sons, has lost his only son. But on the day of his death he chooses to speak about adultery and the punishment awaiting women who are ungrateful to their husband. That is quite revealing.
Reference:
[1] Muhammad prescribed camel urine for stomachache. He certainly must have drank it himself. Camel urine is sold in Islamic countries as remedy, even today.
[2] The Limbic System And The Soul From: Zygon, the Journal of Religon and Science (in press, March, 2001) by Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D. http://brainmind.com/BrainReligion.html
[3] Tabaqat Volume 8, Page 201
[4] W. R. Van Furth, I. G. Wolterink-Donselaar and J. M. van Ree. Department of Pharmacology, Rudolf Magnus Institute, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/266/2/R606
[5] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgicmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6271019 &dopt=Abstract
[6] Tabaqat,. Volume 8, Page 224
[7] The History of Al-Tabari: The Last years of the Prophet, translated and annotated by Ismail K. Poonawala [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany 1990], Volume IX, p. 147.
[8] Tabaqat Volume I, page 125
[9] Gastaut H: So-called psychomotor and temporal epilepsy: a critical study. Epilepsia 1953; 2: 59-76.
[10] Pritchard P: Hyposexuality: a complication of complex partial epilepsy. Trans Am Neurol Assoc 1980; 105: 193-5.
[11] Sahih Bukhari Volume 1, Book 6, Number 299.
[12] Tabaqat Volume 1, page 368
[13] Tabaqat Volume 8, Page 200
[14] Ibid
[15] Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 18, Number 154
[16] Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 8, Number 423
RATIONALIST DEBASHIS 