Chapter Five (Spiritual Ailments )

Evidence of Jinn Affliction of Man from the Quran and Sunnah

Allah says” Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the Evil One by his touch hath driven to madness”.
Ibn-Kathir interprets this verse saying” they get out of their graves on Judgment Day like the epileptic during his fit and the devil’s affliction of him i.e. he is raised in a disgraceful manner”.
The prophetic sayings, however, on jinn’s affliction and the harm he can cause to man are numerous. They include the following ones:

1) Ataa ibn Rabah relates that ibn Abbas said to him: Shall I show you a woman from among the dwellers of Paradise? He said: Certainly. Ibn Abbas then pointed to an ebony colored woman and said: ”This woman came to the Holy Prophet and said: Messenger of Allah, I suffer from epilepsy and when I have a fit my body is exposed. Please pray for me. He said: ‘If you choose to be steadfast under this affliction, you will

gain Paradise, but if you so wish I shall pray that Allah may heal you. She said: I shall be steadfast, but please pray that my body may not be exposed. He prayed accordingly.”
Al –Hafez ibn Hajar said that there is another relation of this story where the woman said ” I am afraid that the evil one may expose me – meaning the devil – so he prayed for her. When she was afraid that he may come, she would go to the Kaaba and hang to it … thus this woman –Om Zafr- was suffering from devil affliction (Fath Al-Bari – 10/115.
2) In another relation ” A woman came to the Prophet (PGBUH) suffering from a devil affliction and she said: ” O Allah’s Messenger, pray to Allah to heal me”. He said” If you like I will pray Allah to cure you; and if you wish, be patient and you will not be accounted for it”. She said:” I will be patient and I shall not be accounted for it” (Narrated by Imam and Al-Hakem in Al- Mustadraq)
3) Yaali bin Morah (May Allah be Pleased with Him) said ” I three things which the prophet (PGBUH) did which no one saw or will see them before. I was traveling and in one of the roads we passed by a woman sitting with her child. She said” O Messenger of Allah, misfortune befell this boy and we are afflicted with his misfortune”. The prophet said ” Hand him over to me”, so she raised him where the prophet opened his mouth and blew away three times and said ” In the Name of Allah, I am Allah’s servant, damn you Allah’s enemy” then he handed back the child to her. Then the prophet said” Meet us in this place when we return and tell us what he did”. We left and when we returned she was in this place with three sheep. The prophet said” What did your child do?”. The woman said” By God, we felt nothing of him until this hour, so take this sheep”. He said” Take on and leave the rest”.
Dr. Abdel Hamid Hendawi, lecturer in the Faculty of Dar Ulum, Cairo University, said that the prophet’s spitting in the mouth of the afflicted person and directing his speech to the jinni is a strong proof that the jinn entered and settled inside the body. For if the jinn was outside the body, the prophet would have spitted at the place where he was (Proof and Evidence that the Jinn Enters the Human Body- p.8)
Dr. Abdulkarim Nofan Obeidat said” Epilepsy is a malfunction that afflicts man’s mind so that he becomes unaware of his words and can not relate between what he said or going to say. It is accompanied by loss of memory as a result of the imbalance of the brain’s nerves. This is also accompanied with motional imbalance where he can not control his movements as well as his actions. He becomes unable to calculate distance or his next steps. These are all signs of affliction ( Aalam Al-Jinn fi Daw’ Al-Kitab wa Al-Sunnah, p.252)
This has always been a controversial issue where the early predecessors as well as others proved that the jinn can afflict man. However, others like Al-Mutazalah and some philosophers deny that. They argue that epilepsy is caused by the rise of bad vapors to the brain which makes one suffer from a nervous condition which makes him lose his mind resulting in imbalanced movements and actions.