The remnant of medieval Christian attitudes towards prophet Muhammad: a critical evaluation of Margoliouth’s pathological theory
The emergence and expansion of Islam have been considered a severe challenge to Christianity. With its significant expansion, the Christians became so much exasperated. Thus, they started searching for every possible avenue to do away with it. In medieval period, many intelle...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English English English |
| Published: |
University of Malaya
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/78478/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/78478/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/78478/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/78478/1/ARTICLE%20IN%20AFKAR%20JOURNAL.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/78478/7/78478_The%20remnant%20of%20medieval%20Christian%20attitudes%20towards%20prophet%20Muhammad_scopus.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/78478/13/78478_THE%20REMNANT%20OF%20MEDIEVAL%20CHRISTIAN%20_wos.pdf |
| Summary: | The emergence and expansion of Islam have been
considered a severe challenge to Christianity. With its
significant expansion, the Christians became so much
exasperated. Thus, they started searching for every
possible avenue to do away with it. In medieval period,
many intellectual and military attacks were launched
against Islam. One of the strategies was to create false
theories which portrayed Prophet Muhammad
(p.b.u.h) negatively. The most absurd theory was
‘pathological theory’ which attempted to charge him
of being epileptic. Although many attempts have been
made by both Muslim and some less biased Christian
scholars to fish this theory out from the scene, it
continues to have relevance even in some of the
well-learned contemporary Christian scholar’s writings.
This study attempts to analyse and evaluate David
Samuel Margoliouth’s views on this theory since he is
one of the well-versed and contemporary Christian
scholars. In doing so, analytical, comparative and
evaluative approaches have been adopted. The study
found that Margoliouth’s argument that the Prophet
(p.b.u.h) suffered from epilepsy was false and
baseless. If the experience of the Prophet (p.b.u.h) was
said to be the sign of epilepsy, then the biblical
Prophets must also face the same charge since they
shared the same physical experiences with the Prophet
(p.b.u.h). |
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