Temporal lobe epilepsy?
Daily contact with sheep might explain a lot about "mystical encounters".
I am advised by a practicing physician that the trances experienced by Muhammad and described in the a'hadith (narrations about the life of the Prophet) correspond to a classic case of "tonic-clonic epilepsy with a temporal start."
Ovine tuberculosis is a problem even today and raged unchecked in earlier times. This type of tuberculosis can be transmitted to humans and when a human is infected the disease travels directly to the brain where it forms a calcified cavity. This calcified mass causes a great deal of irritation and brings on epilepsy.
Now the Prophet, we are told, heard ringing in his ears, his heart beat rapidly, his face turned red and his breathing laboured. Falling to the ground, he would shake with his eyes wide open and his lips trembling. He would drool or sweat profusely and would sometimes make a sound like a snoring camel. And, of course, he saw and heard things no one else saw or heard.
As a victim of such convulsions there is little doubt that Muhammad himself was convinced God (or Gabriel) was speaking to him.
Centuries later the same "mystical experience" was shared by that pastoral maid of Orleans Joan of Arc – who also was raised in close contact with sheep.
