Saturday, April 02, 2011

Unmasking Mohammed

In his recent article "Time to unmask Muhammad" Wilders references a variety of scholars and their assessment of Mohammed's personality. Diagnoses go as far back as the 8th century. I have provided some background links for each, along with Wilders's short descriptions.

1. Theophanes the Confesssor: Byzantine theologian (752-817)
"According to the historian Theophanes (752-817) Muhammad was an epileptic. Epileptic crises are sometimes accompanied by hallucinations, perspiration form the forehead and foaming at the mouth, the very symptoms which Muhammad displayed during his visions."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Herman Somers: Contemporary Belgian scholar
"In his book 'The other Muhammad' (1992) the Flemish psychologist dr. Herman Somers concludes that in his forties the 'prophet' began to suffer from acromegaly, a condition caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland, a small organ that is situated just below the brain. When the tumor in the pituitary gland causes too much pressure in the brain, people start to see and hear things that are not there. Somers’s psychopathological diagnosis of Muhammad’s condition is: organic hallucinatory affliction with paranoid characteristics."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Armin Geus: Contemorary German biologist

4. Dede Korkut: Pen name of contemporary Turkish Physician(pdf)
"The German medical historian Armin Geus speaks of a paranoid hallucinatory schizophrenia. A similar analysis can be found in the book 'The Medical Case of Muhammad' by the physician Dede Korkut."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Masud Ansar: Washington D.C. based hypnotherapost of Iranian origin

"Dr. Masud Ansari calls Muhammad 'the perfect personification of a psychopath in power.' Muhammad had a unhinged paranoid personality with an inferiority complex and megalomaniac tendencies. In his forties he starts having visions that lead him to believe he has a cosmic mission, and there is no stopping him."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------